In the 1950s and 1960s, some in developed countries began responding openly to the environmental problems they saw around them, including those caused by the Green Revolution. Scientists like Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, gave legitimacy to these concerns, and many people became environmental activists working to promote change. They and the environmental groups they created spoke of the need to address global warming and climate change, the dangers of nuclear energy, deforestation, the ozone hole, and many other problems. These efforts were occasionally met with resistance, not just from those who survived by exploiting natural resources in their own developing countries, but also from workers, like loggers and others, in developed countries. By the 1980s, international groups like the United Nations were also calling for action. Specific measures like the Montreal Protocol were followed by the UN’s ambitious 2015 Paris Agreement to limit warming. But achieving international agreement about how best to handle the problem of climate change remains a struggle.            

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/15-2-debates-about-the-environment            

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