Awaiting the Pendulum Swing

Awaiting the Pendulum Swing

It’s no secret that interest in the environment is at a low ebb these days. Our new leaders in Congress are fanning the flames of an anti-regulatory movement that could bring environmental regulation to a virtual standstill. Earth Day 95—the 25th anniversary of the first Earth Day— seems to be attracting scarcely a whisper of interest in the media. And Rush Limbaugh has convinced a sizeable percentage of the public that ozone depletion is just a figment of a few mad scientists’ imaginations.

Yes, the American public seems to have capacity for only a few major issues at a time, and issues like health care, crime, and O.J. Simpson have eclipsed the health of our planet on our collective list of concerns. For those of us trying to market environmental design and construction services, this can be frustrating.

There are signs on the horizon, however, that this disinterest in the environment may be shortlived. First, the onslaught against environmental regulations is beginning to galvanize public concern about the environment—as occurred with James Watt’s tenure as Secretary of the Interior. Second and more important, if 1994 temperatures continue as much above normal as they have for the first two months, summer heat waves and brown-outs could propel “global warming” back onto the front pages of the newspapers (see Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming).

For designers and builders of environmentally friendly buildings, the bottom line is that you should be ready to respond to rapidly increasing public interest in the environment. While you may not have heard much in the past year or two, that could well change over the coming months, and your green marketing efforts could really begin to pay off.

We wish this was good news….

– Alex Wilson