Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

Explaining Regime Formation 127
At Stockholm, prominent international scientists and ecologists invited
by the Stockholm secretariat again attacked the view of the oceans as pristine
and indestructible. Heyerdahl, who had earlier appeared at congressional
hearings and at meetings of the IWGMP, spoke in the distinguished
lecture series held concurrent with the Stockholm conference. Using more
dramatic statements than he had on previous occasions, he said: “Quiet
recently it has become more and more apparent that some of the changes
man is imposing on his original environment could be harmful to himself;
in fact they could even lead to global disaster. . . . Since life on land is so
utterly dependent on life in the sea, we can safely deduce that a dead sea
means a dead planet.” (Heyerdahl 1973, pp. 46, 49)
Visible scientists were not just suppliers of scientific data; they also identified
particular needs for and legitimized international environmental regulation.
Maurice Strong had asked René Dubos and Barbara Ward to
prepare the “conceptual framework” for the Stockholm conference. The
study, published under the title Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance
of a Small Planet (Ward and Dubos 1972), was on sale at the time
of the conference. 30 Strong had suggested that the study identify areas in
which there “exists a sufficient degree of consensus in the scientific community
to permit us to act” (“Statement,” in U.S. Senate, International
Environmental Science, p. 47). The timing could hardly have been better.
This book was telling evidence of the environmental concern of the late
1960s and the early 1970s.
Strong and his secretariat acted as a forceful policy entrepreneur on
behalf of the global environment. Mostly Strong, but also other members
of the secretariat, met with representatives of the international scientific
community, governments, the business community, and environmentalists
in various combinations and forums around the world. 31 These meetings
created opportunities to mobilize support by spreading environmental
ideas, distributing promotion material, and meeting with “friends.”
Moreover, at these meetings the secretariat learned about the concerns
and interests of governments and various stakeholders. This knowledge
about the interests of governments and other stakeholders was important
and most likely necessary in order to be able to provide influential policy
entrepreneurship. In the early 1970s governments were not familiar with
environmental issues, had little knowledge of the views, priorities, and