Politics, Economics and Environment

Only a few years ago popular concern with the quality of the environment could be dismissed more or less out of hand by public officials charged with setting social priorities and charting the course of nations. Apart from a few fringe groups, pollution and ecology simply were not particularly important as political issues — certainly not as issues demanding an immediate public policy response and perhaps a fundamental reordering of national goals and priorities. But things have a way of changing — of creeping up on the man in the street and the government official alike — until the realisation suddenly strikes that a real crisis of rather substantial proportions is looming on the immediate horizon, demanding quick and decisive action.