ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes trends that are documented on a daily basis in newspapers with headlines that announce environmental problems around the world, from "Italy Copes with Summer Slime" and "East Germany's Ghost Towns" to "LA Making Last-Gasp Effort to Clear the Air". Television coverage of environmental "disasters" and "catastrophes" are becoming so frequent that these words are losing their power to hold the public's attention; ozone holes, oil spills, burning and cutting the rain forest, and nuclear contamination seem like an unending succession of media events that for a brief period occupy the public's attention before being displaced by new announcements and revelations. The report of The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, and the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World are typical of the way in which the environmental crisis is being presented.
