Evolution of Environmentalism

On August 6, 1945, the United States used a massive, atomic weapon against Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Within the first two months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000-166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000-80,000 people in Nagasaki. During the following months and years, very painful effects of these days in history still lingered. Any humans that survived the blast were suffering radiation exposure. Roughly forty-five percent of 280,000 people who survived the exposure were still alive sixty years later. This brought to light the significant damage that radiation exposure could emit on people. Once it was known that a type of radiation exposure this colossal could under-develop children, increase the long-term risks of cancer, and exponentially deteriorate cities and forests, environmentalism evolved from a simple concept to an active movement. With Japan surrendering and closure at arms-reach, Americans welcomed peace while Robert Oppenheimer and others worried about the consequences of unleashing atomic power. Shortly after the war, Oppenheimer warned: “We have made a thing, a most terrible weapon that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world…a thing that by all the standards of the world we grew up in is an evil thin.” Almost every American, including him, believed that the “evil thing” had brought peace in 1945, but nobody knew what it would bring in the future, although everybody knew it would inevitably shape the world to come, as in fact it did. This catastrophic event during WWII undoubtedly marked the point at which environmentalism truly started to emerge, and thereafter, several political, economic, and ecological factors molde...

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...minant factor in human affairs, and the nation as a whole has done a superb job at keeping the green movement alive. The fact that we are now far more likely to call upon scientific data and experimental research to support arguments in favor of protecting the wilderness or against polluting industries, provides us with more power to properly brainstorm and implement ecologically assisting systems. Politicians record the work of several researchers and use automated climate models to battle global warming, and medical researchers rely on public health statistics to argue against mercury pollution as well as other harmful elements. Whether these arguments succeed or fail, however, the vast accomplishments of the green movement still depend on the vision, the passion and the commitment of not only environmentalists, but the majority of people living on planet Earth.