ABSTRACT
In social history, individuals may matter because of their critical ideas, but they need movements and organizations to become influential. Modern technology has often raised expectations, but it took people longer to notice and think through the negative consequences, such as the formation of smog in cities and the effects of the pesticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane on wildlife in water. In 1972 Donella and Dennis Meadows and their colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology modeled for the Club of Rome the use of natural resources and announced that the “limits to growth” would be reached within a century. The increasing environmental consciousness affected the UN too, with a conference on the human environment in Stockholm and the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme in 1972. The conference became a stepping stone for private environmental organizations and encouraged multilateral diplomacy in various international organizations.
