SPECIAL SECTION Lynton K. Caldwell’s Legacy is NEPA and More John H. Perkins Debora R. Holmes We have to understand more and work together better, or a few decades from now we may all be extremely sorry we refused to be enlightened. All those involved in environmental science and technological research are extremely important, but I also continue to believe in the need to teach environmental history and policy so that the upcoming generations can un- derstand where environmentalists (al- though I am not really happy with that name) come from, what mistakes were made in the past, what it took—and who it took—to rectify them, and what they should be guarding against in their own future.—From “An Interview with Lyn- ton Caldwell on the National Environ- mental Policy Act,” 2003, Environmental Practice 5 ~4!:281–286. Lynton Keith Caldwell was, to our knowl- edge, never a member of the National As- sociation of Environmental Professionals ~NAEP!, although he collaborated with a few NAEP members and Environmental Practice editorial board members at times and also appeared in Environmental Prac- tice. His work as an academic and as a consultant to Congress has had profound impacts on the NAEP, however. Indeed, Caldwell’s immense input into and co- writing of the National Environmental Pol- icy Act ~NEPA! in the late 1960s created the conditions that made it necessary to organize the NAEP. When agencies first started to prepare Environmental Impact Statements ~EISs!, there were no profes- sional associations dedicated to the prob- lem solving that NEPA demanded. The NAEP brought together people struggling to prepare EISs in a scientifically sound and ethical manner. Subsequently, many states passed their own versions of NEPA ~see, for example, article by Diane Mas in Environmental Practice’s NEPA Special Issue, where she compares NEPA and the state environmental policy acts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington State 1 !. Federal, state, and local governments used Cald- well’s key concept, that actions have envi- ronmental impacts and should be evalu- ated before implementation, thus creating an enormous number of laws requiring permits and assessments. In addition, NEPA has been emulated around the world, in over 100 other jurisdictions. 2 Caldwell was thus a key person in shaping the wide range of activities that environmental profession- als currently perform. Caldwell passed away on August 15, 2006, at the age of 92. Perhaps many of the youn- ger people in the environmental profes- sions have never even heard of him. This is not surprising, because 1969—the year of NEPA’s passage in Congress—is a long time ago and environmental work is now so thoroughly established that one can be for- given for thinking that things have always been this way. In this issue, we have as- sembled a special section that acknowl- edges his enormous contributions and celebrates the good work that he did. By doing so, we hope to further, in some small way, the environmental educating and “in- terchange of information and ideas” 3 Cald- well deemed so important to the future of our nation and our planet. Notes 1. D. M. L. Mas, 2003, “A Comparison of Three Key Elements of National and Select State Environmental Policy Acts,” Environmental Practice 5 ~4!:349–362. 2. D. A. Bronstein, D. Bear, H. Bryan, J. F. Di- Mento, and S. Narayan, 2005, “The National Environmental Policy Act at 35,” Environmen- tal Practice 7 ~1!:3–5. 3. L. K. Caldwell, 2000, “Can American Society Make Sound Environmental Decisions?” En- vironmental Practice 2 ~2!:130–134. Address correspondence to Debora R. Holmes, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA 98505; (fax) 360-867-5430; (e-mail) holmesd@evergreen.edu. A recent photograph of Lynton Keith Caldwell at an outing, courtesy of Elaine Caldwell Emmi. DOI: 10.10170S1466046606060376 Special Section 205 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1466046606060376 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 34.201.112.154, on 10 Oct 2021 at 03:56:56, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.