Climate Change

The issue: Green labels that promise consumers their purchases are eco-friendly appear on all sorts of goods these days, from yogurts to urinals. The label can mean many things: The item has sustainable packaging. It’s organically grown. It’s locally made. Or it is just a little less damaging to the planet. With growing concern from government officials and others about pollution and climate change, going green is a hot marketing strategy.

“Sustainability” is a term that is frequently thrown around rather loosely, but its use tends to be restricted to specific practices or areas — sustainable urbanism, agriculture or energy, for example. While there has long been concern over rising human population levels and resource consumption, the larger question of where the ultimate limits might be — the Earth is a fixed size, after all — has been subject to as much rhetoric-charged debate as considered research.

As Anglo-American settlers moved across North America, they had a significant impact on the land, clearing trees, expanding agriculture and building towns. As settlement expanded, forest fires — once an integral part of the natural world — were systematically suppressed. This practice had consequences when fires did break out, as they seemed to be increasingly large and severe.

The uses of science and its policy implications have always been filtered through American politics, but survey research has noted what some call an increasing “crisis of trust” in the core findings of science itself.