Bill Peet vs. Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon?

[coyasicanbe]

So I’m reading “The Wump World” by Bill Peet to my son, and even though I’ve read this thing 57 times in my life, I notice something new. The Pollutians space ships are a spitting image of Richard Nixon’s head! Now I’ve shown this to a few people and some say “you’re absolutely right,” while others say “put down the pipe,” but I’m telling you, that’s Nixon’s mug!

Peet wrote the book in 1970, when Nixon was firmly in office, so the timing is right. What I don’t know, as I was three years old in 1970, is what Nixon’s legacy was as far as the environment goes. Anybody out there remember if Pres. Nixon was viewed as pro- or anti-environment?

I’ve always loved Peet’s work, and if this was a “silent” protest, he’d go up even a few more steps in my eyes.

Take a look at those damn Pollutians smoking up the atmosphere and let me know what you think.

[brianmelendez]

According to one description of the book Nixon and the Environment by J. Brooks Flippen,

No one remembers Richard M. Nixon as an environmental president, but a year into his presidency, he committed his administration to regulate and protect the environment. The public outrage over the Santa Barbara oil spill in early 1969, culminating in the first Earth Day in 1970, convinced Nixon that American environmentalism now enjoyed extraordinary political currency.

No nature lover at heart, Nixon opportunistically tapped the burgeoning Environmental Movement and signed the Endangered Species Act in 1969 and the National Environmental Protection Act in 1970 to challenge political rivals such as Senators Edmund Muskie and Henry Jackson. As Nixon jockeyed for advantage on regulatory legislation, he signed laws designed to curb air, water, and pesticide pollution, regulate ocean dumping, protect coastal zones and marine mammals, and combat other problems. His administration compiled an unprecedented environmental record, but anti–Vietnam War protests, outraged industrialists, a sluggish economy, the growing energy crisis, and the Watergate upheaval drove Nixon to turn his back on the very programs he signed into law. Only late in life did he re-embrace the substantial environmental legacy of his tumultuous presidency.