Title Slate Card & Countdown Air Date 3/20/75. Title: Earthwatch

Program Sponsors: The German Marshall Fund of the United States, Corporation for Public Brodcasting, Ford Foundation, IBM, Rockefeller Foundation)

Slow pan of the dry grasslands in Africa

Bill Moyers leans, one knee up, against a rock in Eastern Africa. He's wearing casual khaki safari style clothing. Wind blows his hair

POV from a helicopter flying over the Rift Valley in Africa. The thriving young city of Nairobi is scene below

Large multi-story buildings line the busy street. Red VW bug drives by. Palm trees

Bill Moyers sits down with Maurice Strong, head of Earth Watchers. Strong is an environmental activist and business man. Strong sits on a chair outside on the beach - his gray hair blows in the breeze

Dirt road in the grasslands of central Kenya. A jeep drives down road towards the camera

Aerial shot of a rural area in the Rift Valley. Dry dirt roads speckled with bunches of green trees. Three hut like structures are in the middle

INTERVIEW

Maurice Strong 4:46
This is really where technology all began. were primitive man. First, you learn to use his intelligence to fashion tools. The fashion in this case axes and spearheads and little Hammer type instruments from out of stone.

Bill Moyers 5:03
But he began to give him also control over the environment

Maurice Strong 5:05
absolutely technology began to give him that leverage that he is used to improve his lot and to improve what in those days was, of course, the struggle against nature. Today, I mean, technology has reached the point where modern man has got all the power which science and technology has accumulated in him over the years, given him on him, and potential for impact on nature, which is beyond the wildest dreams of primitive man, technology is neutral technology is beneficial. It's what man does with this technology, the same technology that can can bring us benefits that can build roads, beautiful homes, and beautiful cities, and can take man to the moon, that same technology can be used to destroy forests to destroy the quality of waters and air. destroy the very stuff of life. If we take our own continent of North America, for example, and we look at the the original inhabitants of North America, they cared for North America as we've never done, I recall very much what an Indian chief said to the representative of the white man's authority who had just beaten him in battle. And the Indian chief was surrendering and handing over the land, the land of his ancestors. And he said to the white man, I would only ask you one thing, please take care of the land, throughout all of the his our history, we have cared for the land and the land is cared for us. Well, that's simple wisdom is the kind of thing that modern man with his powerful technology has got to learn.

Bill Moyers 6:41
What do you think about in terms of the world's environment today, when you stand in a place like this?

Maurice Strong 6:46
Well, two things one, the great resilience and the adaptability of man, because here to have lived for something like 2,800,000 years in this valley, man has clearly had to be adaptable, he's also learned to live in harmony with his natural surroundings. Modern Man also has to adapt. And of course, the rate at which we have to adapt today and the rate at which nature has to adapt to our increasing activities is accelerating vastly.

Bill Moyers 7:17
Do you think man is likely to be here? 3 million years from now?

Maurice Strong 7:21
Well that's the crunch question. That's the reason we're here. We're trying to help this generation of man to find the answer to that question, and I believe the answer to that question, will reside in what we do or fail to do in this generation.

Bill Moyers 7:34
What do we have to learn from our ancestors who lived here?

Maurice Strong 7:38
Well, you've got to learn, I think, that nature and man are part of the same complex. Man and Nature coexist. Man is part of nature. And yet today, man with the power that science and technology has placed in his hand, is the most active and influential element in the processes of nature, man has the power to impact on those processes that, you know, he's never had before. And this makes him both the central actor. And also in the final analysis of repository of most of the consequences of his actions. Some of the descendants of early man live in this area today, not much different from the way in which their ancestors are live. They're highly intelligent people. But what they don't understand so much is how is this technology and this massive intensive activity of yours? How is it really improving your life? What do we really need is a blending of the wisdom that has come to man through the ages and which now we've almost forgotten where we, we have to go to primitive man, to traditional people who are still following traditional ways. We have to go to him because he's the only man today who is the repository of this wisdom. We've shed it along with our, you know, civilized sophistication. We've shared the wisdom of the ages, and we need to rediscover it and we can discover it in real dialogue from them. Yes, they've got lots to learn from us, but we've got a lot more than we think to learn from them.

INTERVIEW CONTINUES

Bill Moyers 6:41
What do you think about in terms of the world's environment today, when you stand in a place like this?

Maurice Strong 6:46
Well, two things one, the great resilience and the adaptability of man, because here to have lived for something like 2,800,000 years in this valley, man has clearly had to be adaptable, he's also learned to live in harmony with his natural surroundings. Modern Man also has to adapt. And of course, the rate at which we have to adapt today and the rate at which nature has to adapt to our increasing activities is accelerating vastly.

Bill Moyers 7:17
Do you think man is likely to be here? 3 million years from now?

Maurice Strong 7:21
Well that's the crunch question. That's the reason we're here. We're trying to help this generation of man to find the answer to that question, and I believe the answer to that question, will reside in what we do or fail to do in this generation.

Bill Moyers 7:34
What do we have to learn from our ancestors who lived here?

Maurice Strong 7:38
Well, you've got to learn, I think, that nature and man are part of the same complex. Man and Nature coexist. Man is part of nature. And yet today, man with the power that science and technology has placed in his hand, is the most active and influential element in the processes of nature, man has the power to impact on those processes that, you know, he's never had before. And this makes him both the central actor. And also in the final analysis of repository of most of the consequences of his actions. Some of the descendants of early man live in this area today, not much different from the way in which their ancestors are live. They're highly intelligent people. But what they don't understand so much is how is this technology and this massive intensive activity of yours? How is it really improving your life? What do we really need is a blending of the wisdom that has come to man through the ages and which now we've almost forgotten where we, we have to go to primitive man, to traditional people who are still following traditional ways. We have to go to him because he's the only man today who is the repository of this wisdom. We've shed it along with our, you know, civilized sophistication. We've shared the wisdom of the ages, and we need to rediscover it and we can discover it in real dialogue from them. Yes, they've got lots to learn from us, but we've got a lot more than we think to learn from them.

Beautiful blue sky and Lake Nakuru in the distance, formed a million years ago by volcanic eruption

INTERVIEW

Maurice Strong 9:22
There are over 400 individual species of birds in and around in the bushes you see here. In fact, there I am told that there is no place on earth where you can come to one place. It's as compact as this isn't see as many individual species of birds some of the birds that come here come from the Arctic Circle, North America. If the deterioration of the lake continues at the rate it has the last few years it hasn't got much of a chance. But because man has done more to it in the last 50 years than had occurred to destroy its prospects in the last in the previous million years. it clearly won't stand even another 50 years of this kind of activity on the part of man. he threats to the conditions that

Bill Moyers 10:05
What are the threats to the conditions that exist here?

Maurice Strong 10:08
Well, several and all in one way or another related to man's activities. Of course, the town of the Katuru is growing, it's a thriving Kenya town. It's has a population of something like 50,000. Now, they say it'll have a population of something like a quarter of a million in 20 years. And a lot a fair amount of small industry, in, in around the town, all of this dis discharging its storage and waste into a lake which has no outlet. And experts tell me that there is a very real risk that the lake will not very much longer support the unique bird life that it now supports.

Bill Moyers 10:46
Well, the question arises, people say, Well, it's nice to have some flamingo is good if we can keep them but human life and human needs are more imperative. So if the flamingo has to go to make way for man, it's a regrettable but not necessarily catastrophic loss.

Maurice Strong 11:02
Well, of course, the loss of the flamingo alone would be a loss, but as you say, not a loss that would necessarily mean that man himself was impaired particularly, but whatever temporary advantage he may have gained by the activities that have destroyed Flamingo and make Kuru is obviously going to be balanced by the threat that he increasingly is going to be feeling himself because every species has a habitat like the flamingo a habitat on which he depends for his life, and his well being and man himself has this man has to look at the whole cycle of cause and effect that he is triggering by his activities is the consequences for the flamingo maybe extinction today, but the continuation of that cycle is going to threaten man's very life and well being tomorrow. If you just look around Lake Nakuru, you see a lot of the other evidences of man's activities that are reflected in the future prospects for the lake they have burning in on the hillsides. This is the good example or a bad example of a slash and burn tactics that are helping to destroy the agricultural potential. Well, simply by exposing the earth to rain fall erosion, wind erosion right here the other side of the lake, you see that great big dust cloud? Well, this is when you know, this is Winds shifting sand shifting soil. See that carcass over there. And then all the carcasses laying along the edge of the lake, they remind us that of death to is a part of this cycle. And of course, it's part of the natural cycle. But today, what's happening, of course, is that the number of deaths of many of these species are vastly increasing over the number of births. And you know, this is what causes a species to go extinct. Now, with man, it's the other way. Today, death rates are much below birth rates. So it is this contradiction between the growing populations of man and the growing needs of men and the growing intensity of his activities, as they impact on the natural habitats of many species around the world that is causing this increased death rate amongst the animal life.

Bill Moyers 13:12
Do we have anything to learn from the cycle? And from this place,

Maurice Strong 13:17
Yes, one of the big things we've got to learn is that we are not only on the cause, and we're on the effects and as well

Bill Moyers 13:23
what do you mean?

Maurice Strong 13:23
Well, what I simply mean is that we man may be the cause of many of the processes by which the flamingo and other species are extinguished. But at the other end of the cycle, those same causes are going to reverberate on man himself. Every single species that dies, brings man himself a little closer to ultimate extinction.

Dust cloud over Lake Nakuru as a result of slash and burn

Montage of various shots around Lake Nakuru and wildlife

Slow pan of Lake Naivasha, Africa

Giraffe run free in an open African field. Classical music plays in the background.

Bill Moyers and Maurice Strong stand up in a movie jeep, their heads pop through the top of the open jeep. They ride through a game park where wild African animals are not fenced in.

Wild Gazelle's roam freely in Africa

Moyers continues his interview with Strong from a balcony of a Nairobi high rise city building.

INTERVIEW

Bill Moyers 20:50
You get a good view of the Nairobi as a microcosm.

Maurice Strong 20:55
Yes, and that's a good word for it. It is a microcosm, Nairobi really exemplifies so many of the issues that man faces all around the world. Here, of course, you have some of the best conditions of life I live here I enjoyed. It's one of the finest cities in the world to live in some of the best residential areas, some of the most beautiful and well planned and well cared for streets you can see anywhere in the world. Some of the buildings have tastes of character, the modern building, at the same time, Nairobi is experiencing all the pressures of growing urban life, all the pressures of population coming in, drawn in by this great magnet here. And it's difficult for any government to cope with these pressures.

Bill Moyers 21:34
So you have some of the worst here too.

Maurice Strong 21:35
Indeed, we have, you could see over here, some of the parts of Nairobi, where newcomers congregate from the rural areas you see all around the world, what's happening people, is it they're gathering and cities, we've got an urban revolution on in many of our countries, that urban revolution has already reached the stage where most people live in urban areas. In the developing world, most people continue to live in, in rural areas, but they're migrating at increasing rates to the cities. Actually, the city just to give you some idea, the cities of the world are growing at double the rate of world population growth and cities of over 500,000 are growing at double that rate again,

Bill Moyers 22:13
What are the consequences if that kind of growth continues unchecked?

Maurice Strong 22:17
Well, of course, the consequences will be catastrophic. If we if we are talking in terms of possible eco catastrophes, I am absolutely convinced that they're more likely to occur in the cities of the developing world than anywhere else.

Bill Moyers 22:31
What do you mean?

Maurice Strong 22:32
Well, these the city, the cities of the developing world are growing beyond anything we have ever had to cope with and in the industrialized world, and we know what trouble we're having, coping with our urban problems, but in the developing world, countries at a very low with a very low economic base, with very few resources are trying to cope with, with pressures that are just threatening to overwhelm many of them that the pressures of trying to provide decent water supply and health services etc, to populations that are expanding beyond anything any city has ever had to cope with. The meaning is clear. I think that with the right use of his resources that his talents and his creativity, man can cope with the problems of building better environments and human settlements, better urban environments, better rural environments, he can do this, but it takes the kind of commitment, the kind of priority that we give to warfare and other major societal priorities. We can do it, but the right now, we're being overcome by the problems and some of the cities of the world are literally threatened with being overwhelmed in the next decade or so with the kind of problems that we witnessed in microcosm here in Nairobi.

Headquarters of the United Nations Environmental Program - the ultra-modern Kenyatta Conference Center. 300 employees.

INTERVIEW

Robert Frosch 24:43
Were in a condition of worry, I suppose with professional warriors for the for the human race on this subject. Some of these problems are extremely difficult to even to define. We're worried about whether the combination of carbon dioxide oxide and particulate matter and heat that we put into the atmosphere might sometime result in major climate change. Or recently, the climatologists are talking about the possibility of sudden changes of abrupt changes in the climate, there is some possible geological historical evidence that this has happened, that makes the problem very much more complicated.

Isai Evtiev 25:27
We don't know exactly for the moment how ecosystem function. And we have to rely heavily now on the scientific community to provide us with an answer, how much man can interfere. Without breaking systems, this particular ecosystem,

Latitia Obeng 25:45
As far as interfering with the environment goes. If you take our manmade lakes, for instance, I can't get away from that. But that's my work. We must have them, especially in countries where they there's no oil, there's no coal, people need energy. And this is the easiest. So quite often the easiest way of getting energy. Exactly, we build dams. But once you build a dam, and you stop the the river flow, and you slow down, you have ecological change, you can bet anything that as long as you have human contact, you will get endemic diseases. Malaria is a typical example, if it's in a tropical country, you see, and this is what deliberate will have in the hearing. But we must have the development of the water for irrigation, we must have it for domestic use, it must be for a whole lot of things.

Mostofa Tolba 26:37
People are conscious of the problems that they have caused to the environment, and they are moving into technologies and scientific knowledge, to combat or to correct the mistakes they have inflicted on the environment, and then start to think, really, and worry about what they are doing.

Latitia Obeng 26:57
I think this is fairly common throughout the developing world. Now, we still got a long way to go. But I think, generally, the ordinary person. By that, I mean, the ordinary person is gradually becoming aware that there's a need to do something.

Bill Moyers 27:14
Do Do any of you dealing with these problems, even though you're scientists? Do any of you're dealing with these outer possibilities, ever wake up hearing the sound of doomsday in your ear.

Mostofa Tolba 27:29
We do hear the doomsday cry, but we are not pessimistic. What we are really worried about is that all the economic difficulties that different countries are facing may cover up the environmental issues. And then we would be in a condition where we are going to face different definitely with Dynamics.

Robert Frosch 27:51
I think we certainly worry a lot. And as I said before, it's a it's a professional lead for us. It's part of our professional job to invent worries, and then to develop interest and action in doing something to make the worries go away to prevent the worry, the worry some events from happening. And in a way, I think that's one reason for optimism, the fact that before we have seen very widespread destruction on a global scale, we have a large community, a technical community and a political community that is beginning to worry about these problems and hence putting itself in a position to take action when they can see things beginning to get bad. But before we believe they have gotten terribly serious and irreversible.

INTERVIEW

Maurice Strong 28:55
Indeed, I've I think there's been a great deal of progress on the world front, then we've just completed what I believe is a major breakthrough in respect of the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Sea is the has known of course, the man's activities, both the creative side of man's activities and also is now experiencing the destructive set aside of man's activity for longer than perhaps any other regional sea in in, in history. Now, of course, the Mediterranean today is very severely threatened by what by pollution of the waters by a desecration of the land areas deforestation, destruction of the soil.

Bill Moyers 29:38
And the breakthrough has been what?

Maurice Strong 29:39
well, the breakthrough is that, you know, the Mediterranean area is characterized by a high degree of political tension That's putting it mildly and the the Middle East situation, the Cyprus Cyprus situation, these make it extremely difficult to get the countries of the region together around the same table to agree on action. We did that and We've got from to agree on a significant commitment to a program of action designed to not only protect the Mediterranean Ocean, but to improve the environment of the whole Mediterranean regions. So this is a concerted and coordinated attack on one of the largest environmental issues that the world faces today.

Bill Moyers 30:18
And it's also one of the most specifics. What are some of the other immediate threats to the world environment?

Maurice Strong 30:24
Well, the atmosphere for example, the common aerosol can is scientists now say is creating a possible risk isn't fully evaluated yet a possible risk to the to the ozone, and the ozone layer around the Earth is the thing that really makes life possible on this earth. Extensive damage to the ozone could be very vital to the continuance of life on Earth. One of the practical problems is, of course, that while global environmental problems of the kind we've been talking about climate, oceans, etc, can provide a means of getting global consensus or a high degree of consensus amongst amongst the nations of the world. There are other problems of a more regional or local nature in which it is much more difficult to get consensus such as well, for example, Brazil and Argentina two great neighbors in Latin America share a common river system, the Rio de la Plata, and all its various tributaries, and Brazil has recently been going to install some very major dams upstream on the river, Argentina has argued, and I do think indeed, Brazil concedes that these are going to have a significant effect on Argentina and interest downstream. Now, the issue here is to what degree should a country be obliged to consult with its neighbor, when it is going to do something in a common waterway, which will affect the interests of the other? Does the country downstream have the right to demand information in advance and consultation in advance beforehand? So some arrangement can be made? Or is it simply a matter of waiting for the event to take place, being damaged and then seeking recourse for the damage? Now, the number of such disputes is multiplying throughout the world Canada in the United States have a number of such disputes so on their common boundary

Bill Moyers 32:27
but if the government upstream decides to go ahead and build the dams, regardless of the consequence to the country, downstream? There's nothing that the the United Nations there's nothing that a world body can do it there?

Maurice Strong 32:39
Well, of course, right? We have, as a world body, we have been responsible for getting the agreement of governments to the acceptance of responsibility, this principle of responsibility for the consequences of your actions on others has been accepted. Now, of course, this is simply at the beginning of the whole process of developing a new environmental law on a global basis. And the enforceability of that is, of course, a matter of still a very significant question. I repeat, we have no armies to march in, but we do have a very considerable influence to evolve because just as a country may be hurt on in one instance, a, it may be the cause of the problem and another instance, so there is a generally common interest on the part of countries to observe these principles.

Bill Moyers 33:29
All of this sounds so global, so cosmic, so, so beyond the citizen in my hometown, or your hometown in northern Canada, is there any particular applicability to that citizens life?

Maurice Strong 38:21
I think his reaction shouldn't be a surprise to us. If we were that man, we may feel the same way. Why should a worker a person working in an automobile plant bear the brunt solely himself of the environmental changes that are necessary? Why should the workers in the developing countries be deprived of the benefits of industrialization and the opportunities that come with it? What we really need is this new international economic order that the developing countries have been calling for, we need very major shifts in our whole economic process. And we can't do this on a piecemeal, haphazard sort of basis.

Bill Moyers 39:12
Well, that's fine in Theory. But what does that mean to that worker in Detroit, he doesn't have a job. What do you mean, new industrial order or New World Order?

Maurice Strong 39:21
Well, what I mean in it, in essence is this, that in the more industrialized countries, we have got to reduce our emphasis on pure physical growth. And we've got to pursue patterns of growth, which emphasize the less physical or more sophisticated kinds of growth, the kinds of certain service oriented industries, those that make much less of a demand on the physical environment on the natural resource base. Now, this requires a very significant retooling of our economy or re gearing of the system of incentives and penalties by which our economic life is motivated.

Bill Moyers 40:01
Are you saying that environment and the protection of environment can create jobs?

Maurice Strong 40:05
Absolutely. I believe environmentalists have been far too defensive about environment. We environmentalists and others have been accepting the quietly the assumption that when you do something to protect or improve the environment, it's a cost. Well, this is not a cost. It's the environment is our natural capital. And when we do something to preserve it, to protect it from deterioration, or or to improve it, we're adding to our capital, either to its preservation or to its improvement.

Bill Moyers 40:35
take that a step further, in what way could a retooling of the economy, help those people who are fearful rightly so in the industrialized world that if the economy shifts, and we stop or limit our growth, their livelihood is jeopardized?

Maurice Strong 40:52
Well, for example, if we decide as an act, any country, United States, Canada decides as an act of national policy, that improvement of the quality of life of the people of our societies, improvement of the natural and physical environment, the manmade environment is a matter of great national importance. We then can through the instruments of public policy construct a system of incentives that will lead make it profitable for people, for companies, for private entrepreneurs, as well as for public bodies to direct their resources into these areas into building more beautiful, more habitable cities, improving recreational areas improving public transportation systems. Yeah, after all, because a job for the automobile worker in in, in Detroit is just as good for him. If he's producing public vehicles matter vehicles for mass transport systems, automobile companies, I've got to realize that they're in the transport business. They're not just in the automobile, business, even automobiles may become public service vehicles, eventually, in other words, a retooling of the industrial system.

Bill Moyers 42:11
Is there any concrete evidence that some of this retooling you're talking about is beginning to happen? Or is this still just theory?

Maurice Strong 42:21
Oh, some of it's happening through market forces. Look at the energy crisis, for example. Now, the energy crisis has set back the environmental movement. In some respects, it's given rise to pressures for reducing or at least deferring some of the mission control regulations, etc. On the other hand, by increasing the cost of energy it is it is increased immensely. The incentives for conservation. Conservation is now a serious economic issue and not only an environmental issue in the traditional sense, particularly in the developing countries where the impact of high energy costs is falling very sharply. Indeed

Maurice Strong 47:38
No question about it. But on the issue of population, for example, it is true that population growth must be curtailed. It is not true, however, that this must be done on a universal global basis. There are societies which need and deserve more opportunities for growth, for growth in their population. There are other societies, like the the highly industrialized societies, which have got to really concentrate more on curtailing the growing appetites of their population. See, the world is threatened by growing populations. But it's also even perhaps to a greater extent threatened by the exploding appetites of the already rich. You know, it's well known that a any infant born in our industrialized world imposes something like 40 to 50 times the demand on the Earth's resources and on the earth environment than a baby born in the developing world. Now, however, I I think what the main point is to see the interacting nature of the population issue with the resource issue with the environment issue with the whole growth issue. These can't be seen as issues separate and divorced from each other. They've got to be seen as elements in the total system of problems that we've got to deal with.

Bill Moyers 49:00
All right. My cynicism comes out again. And I'm back to the Rift Valley now. For as long as we have walked on this planet, we've competed for territory. We've competed for resources. And since the rise of the nation state, our basic loyalties have been to our local countries and not to this earth. As you call upon us to Indonesians, Americans, Costa Rican, Kenyans, Russians, Swiss and others, to see ourselves as well as God sees us. Aren't you flying in the face of human nature?

Maurice Strong 49:44
Well, I have to be an optimist on this. I have to look at the positive evidences in our history that we can cooperate though of course we compete. Let's just look at the way man himself has developed we've seen and talked about the Rift Valley. But as man has evolved over this, approximately 3 million years that we know he's inhabited the earth, his loyalties have been gradually enlarged his ability, his willingness to cooperate within larger and larger frameworks has been demonstrated by the fact that he has moved and his loyalties have moved from the family, to the tribe, to the village, to the town, to the city, to the city, state and now to the nation state. And each time this hasn't been because he's suddenly been struck with a wave of idealism. It's because his growing self interest has required it to grow. As man has advanced technologically and industrially, the interdependencies of man on man have grown. And if he's going to take advantage of the technological civilization, he's got to enlarge the circle within which he cooperates with other people. Now, the interesting point here that as man's loyalties have grown up to the point of the nation state, for example, he hasn't had to completely shed his loyalty to his family, your loyalty, your hometown, your loyal to your state, your loyalty to the United States of America. There's no real conflict between this hierarchy of loyalties. But now we've got to take the ultimate leave all of us, we've now got to give our loyalty as well to planet earth. And this doesn't mean that we give up our loyalty to all the other groupings to which we owe our loyalty, it simply means that we have to modify them, we have to make room for that new dimension of loyalty to planet Earth,

Bill Moyers 51:32
Maurice there's blood being shared in, in Northern Ireland right now, in the Middle East right now. There are conflict, creating tension and animosities all over the earth that fly in the face of that leap. Because we don't see ourselves as citizens of the planet earth. what gives you any hope, that this fine statement of goal that you set forth has any practical possibilities of real intelligence,

Maurice Strong 52:02
it has the practical possibility, simply because it's the only guarantee of survival, we simply must make that leap, there is no alternative to making it and man, all through history has shown that when there is no alternative, he can rise above these petty jealousies. And, you know, this, the the the, the, the, the changes in man's loyalties that I've described haven't come about easily. They haven't changed the basic nature of man, man is still aggressive, he's competitive, but when his self interest does force that he is prepared to be cooperative. Now, we may not make it. Perhaps our petty grieves our petty loyalties are narrowness of vision, they may possibly consume us. we may not make it. But we certainly won't make it unless we act on the basis that in when the chips are down, we will have the guts we will have the enlightenment, we will have the wisdom to do what is best and what is necessary for us.

Ending Credits roll over a montage of shots of Nairobi undeveloped land

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