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Essays about environmental movement
Environmental and Sustainability movements
Rise Of Environmentalism
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The modern day environmental movement in the United States has been a significant social movement for decades. It is quite possibly one of the longest running and more complex social movements the US has seen. The fight for a clean and safe environment has been an ongoing struggle. It encompasses multiple layers including the sustainability movement, environmental justice, and conservation movement. It is not just only a social movement but also a scientific and political movement as well. While my focus is on the United States this is a movement on an international scale with support on all levels from large organizations to private citizens. I chose to research the modern day environmental movement in the United States for several reasons. I was interested in learning more about the history of the modern day environmental movement here in the US. I feel as though in recent years the outcry for the environment has been growing on scale and I wanted to see what has been done throughout our history, and what the movement has accomplished so far. The significance and scale of this movement also is very interesting to me. There are over 6,500 national and 20,000 local environmental organizations within this movement as well as an estimated 20-30 million members. Additionally the beginning of this movement goes back to the 1960’s, I was interested to learn what it meant for a movement to be operating at such a large scale for so many decades. Its significance is not just limited to its longevity and grand proportions but also its motives. The argument that due to human action our planet is suffering and without action there will be only further decline is a strong one. The significance of our environment is unarguable. A... ... middle of paper ... ...ia. It is used as a symbol to help connect people with the life threatening issues we are causing our wildlife. Seeing a commercial with a polar bear stranded on a melting ice cap pulls on your heart strings and helps you see the urgency of an issue sometimes better than a fact sheet. The visual symbolism of the dire situation is relayed in a much more meaningful way when you see what all of this science actually means, in some ways this can be more useful that any activism or gathering, it stirs up concern in the common population’s conscience. “Save the polar bears” is now a common term used to help relate back to environment issues, specifically regarding global warming. Given that the modern day environmental movement her un the US has spanned decades and grown to such a large scope it has undoubtedly had its wins and losses in strategy and effectiveness.
He delves into the history of the word “environmental” as well as the history of environmental activism. He pinpoints the beginning of the movement to Rachel Carson. According to Quammen, she began the revolution by publishing her book Silent Spring. He says the negative connotations of the word began with her book, pairing “environment” and “the survival of humankind” as if they go hand in hand. This played a major role in the distortion of the word and the intentions of environmentalists.
The first two acts of this film are truly inspiring because they capture the "fire" of the environmental movement. It chronologically begins by discussing the origins of conservative environmentalists, to documenting the details of successful environmental movements, and concluding by explaining the merging of civil rights with environmentalists. Ultimately, “A Fierce Green Fire “serves as a dynamic call for the continuing action of protecting and conserving our biosphere.
The Conservation movement was a driving force at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a time during which Americans were coming to terms with their wasteful ways, and learning to conserve what they quickly realized to be limited resources. In the article from the Ladies’ Home Journal, the author points out that in times past, Americans took advantage of what they thought of as inexhaustible resources. For example, "if they wanted lumber for their houses, rails for their fences, fuel for their stoves, they would cut down half a forest at a time; and whatever they could not use or sell they would leave to rot on the ground. They never bothered their heads to inquire where more wood was coming from when this was gone" (33). The twentieth century opened with a vision towards the future, towards preserving the land that had previously been taken for granted. The Conservation movement came along around the same time as one of the first major waves of the feminist movement. With the two struggles going on: one for the freedom of nature and the other for the freedom of women, it stands to follow that they coincided. As homemakers, activists, and citizens of the United States of America, women have had an important role in Conservation.
Who is being organized is also an important factor. Regarding the Sierra Club, a range of people were organized. Whether rich, educated, businessmen, farmers, or women, environmental protection is important to...
Throughout the nineteenth century, Americans advanced westward at an unparalleled pace. Motivated by greed, these pioneers plundered through the previously plush territory, believing the nation’s resources to be inexhaustible and failing to contemplate possible consequences. In particular, anxious lumbermen and ranchers rapaciously ravaged the land in pursuit of instant profits. Fortunately, a few prudent people recognized the need for protective legislation. This nascent environmentalist movement was officially recognized when the federal government claimed responsibility over the preservation of the nation’s natural resources in 1877, with the passage of the Desert Land Act. Though this legislation was insignificant in itself, its creation
The political climate of environmental injustice movement does not seem promising. With a very polarized, divided Congress, and powerful monopoly run corporations, advocates have to battle—harder than ever to better their communities. Vig and Kraft point out the difficulties of getting environmental legislation passed through Congress when gridlock is occurring. They dissected the issue of policy gridlock into these main indicators: the diverging policy views due to partisan differences, separated powers and bicameralism which occurs when there are major disagreements between the House, Congress, and the President, the complexity of environmental problems where the injustice is so complex that
The environment in America today is far from Eden, but there is a valiant battle being fought by many to return the earth to a more "natural" state. Green and clean is the preferred vision of the future1. This trend towards environmental awareness, or environmentalism, is a prominent theme in today’s American society. Politics, industry, marketing, and media all use the environment as a means to sell themselves. With such a high profile, it seems almost unbelievable that there was a time when the word environment was little known or not used. However, the period was not so long ago. Even before World War II nature was referred to as wilderness and wilderness existed to serve humans2. The shift from nature existing to serve humans to humans protecting the environment was not a very complex project, but rather one of many small influences and their resulting effects. Hence, the rise of environmentalism in American society is the result of gradual social changes, which created a shift in social values.
In 1989, seventy five percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, and the number has continued to grow since then (Walls 1). Environmentalism is now the most popular social movement in the United States, with over five million American families donating regularly to environmental organizations (Walls 1). Environmentalists today focus on what kind of world they hope to see in the future, and largely deal with limiting pollution and changing consumption rates (Kent 1 and 9). Modern environmentalists also have much different issues than those Carson’s America faced. With climate change becoming more threatening each year, protection of the natural world is needed more than ever. Pollution has caused the warmest decade in history, the deterioration of the ozone layer, and species extinction in extreme numbers (Hunter 2). It not only threatens nature, but also human populations, who already suffer from lack of clean water and poisoning from toxic chemicals (Hunter 16). Unlike environmental actions in the 1960’s, which were mostly focused on protection, a massive increase in pollution has caused efforts to be focused on environmental restoration (Hunter 16). Like in the time of Silent Spring, environmentalists are not only concerned with one country. Protecting the environment remains a global issue, and every nation is threatened by the
"Ecoterrorism: The Dangerous Fringe of the Environmental Movement." The Heritage Foundation. N.p., 12 Apr. 1990. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Most Americans conjure imagery of a planet replete with pristine wilderness, crystal blue oceans, fresh air, and verdant forests when they think about the natural environment. In recent decades, this description is becoming increasingly applicable only to certain areas of the United States because poor and minority communities are overwhelmingly subjected to dangerous environmental hazards. As such, the concept of environmental racism has become a major issue affecting every aspect of their lives because of their placement and proximity to environmentally dangerous areas such as landfills, toxic waste sites, and other forms of pollution. The environmental justice movement seeks to remedy this problem by recognizing the direct link between economic, environmental, race, and health issues. The biggest aim of environmental justice is for all people to live, work, and play in clean, and environmentally safe communities. However, in mainstream American environmentalism, poor and minority communities are typically ignored in environmental communication because their white counterparts dominate the discourse. Recent scholarship suggests that people of color play a crucial role in fighting environmental discrimination because their cultural traditions, experiences, and histories allow them to uniquely communicate environmental risk and health concerns within their communities.
Hawken writes that the movement, a collective gathering of nonconformists, is focused on three basic ambitions: environmental activism, social justice initiatives, and indigenous culture’s resistance to globalization. The principles of environmental activism being closely intertwined with social justice rallies. Hawken states how the fate of each individual on this planet depends on how we understand and treat what is left of the planet’s lands, oceans, species diversity, and people; and that the reason that there is a split between people and nature is because the social justice and environmental arms of the movement hav...
Gender and the environment don’t sound like two things that would be well together. Surprisingly they do very well, starting with the article, “Gender and Place: Women and Environmentalism” written by Gottlieb we find out that it took women years for them to be recognized as main workers in the work place as well as major forces who fought for the environment. An example would be Cora Tucker, a huge activist who unfortunately found out, “…that environmental issues were white issues.” (Gottlieb 276). This is extremely wrong because every race has a voice about the environment. She goes on to saying that those in power who try to change small communities have no business doing it themselves because they have no idea what the people are going
In recent decades, concern about environmentalism has risen on a worldwide scale. Environmentalism is defined by Merriam Webster as the “advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment; especially: the movement to control pollution” (Merriam Webster). In the United States, we have the Environmental Protection Agency, but the positions and policies that come from that department are highly politicized. Within the Christian community specifically, the controversy is not necessarily because of environmentalism itself as there is a mainstream consensus that Christians are to be good stewards of Creation. Rather, the debates are really centered on what “good stewards” should do. Some of the biggest controversy
Boggs, Grace Lee, and Scott Kurashige. The next American revolution: Sustainable activism for the twenty-first century. University of California Pr, 2012. Print.
As an environmentalist (or a "radical" environmentalist, as I am often labeled by members of the mainstream environmental movement), I feel it is my duty as a protector of the Earth's well-being to write this editorial as a means of bringing into the American consciousness a variety of frightening environmental issues. Though some of you may be aware of these problems, I know many are not, and thus may be shocked to learn about the degradation of our Earth and the people living in it. Indeed, I truly believe that "since the dawn of the industrial age, America has behaved like an alcoholic with a good job—prospering despite a lifestyle that jeopardizes the future and ruins much of what is good with irresponsible behavior.