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

Power-Based Regime Analysis 77
Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects on Marine Pollution) and in
background documents for the Intergovernmental Working Group on
Marine Pollution (the negotiating and drafting group on the global ocean
dumping convention). 16
Senator Ernest (“Fritz”) Hollings, chairing the International Conference
on Ocean Pollution, explained the goal of focusing public and political
attention on ocean pollution in his opening remarks: “This Second International
Conference on Ocean Pollution is dedicated to putting people on
the alert. Everyone talks a lot about ecology. . . . But we lack a sense of environment
priorities. . . . We need much more a full-scale assault on the heart
of the problem.” 17 Barry Commoner’s left-wing political views later almost
overshadowed his scientific statement, and were met with strong objections
by one senator. 18 At that point, Senator Hollings defined the crucial role of
vocal ecologists and environmentalists in giving the ocean pollution issue
the needed national and international visibility. “Specifically we all know,”
he said, “that the oceans program is dragging its feet. It dragged its feet
under President Kennedy. It dragged its feet under President Johnson. It was
due to this Congress that we got the Stratton Commission and President
Nixon instituted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
We had a conference last week on how we could get the Administration
going again in giving attention to the oceans, giving attention to the pollution
problem, as the president gave in his Reorganization Plan No. 4 setting
up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So we are trying
to move it along, and you have helped us in a magnificent way.” 19 In his
closing remarks to the international conference on ocean dumping, Hollings
further emphasized the importance of the participation of Commoner,
Heyerdahl, and the television personality Hugh Downs: “So the only way I
know—I could say these things over and over again—but the only way we
are ever going to get this message through is with people with the brilliance
and dynamism of you three here this morning getting the attention of the
American public and in turn of our colleagues here in the Congress to move
in the right direction.” 20
Evidently the international conference’s goal of focusing public and
media attention on ocean pollution was achieved. Heyerdahl’s statement
was reprinted in the Congressional Record. 21 Cousteau’s statement reached
a much broader audience. On November 14, 1971, it was reprinted in an
even more apocalyptic version in the New York Times, 22 under the headline