The Green Movement

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The Green Movement

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Medical attention was sought for a 23-month-old toddler because of anorexia, weight loss, irritability, profuse sweating, peeling and redness of his fingers and toes, and a miliarial rash. The diagnosis was mercury poisoning, and an investigation of his environment disclosed that he had been exposed to mercury from broken fluorescent light bulbs. (Tunnessen 786)

Fluorescent light bulbs pose a serious danger to our health as well as significant risk of contaminating our environment.

Mercury and other heavy metal poisoning, as well as habitat contamination and destruction, could become commonplace if we don’t proceed cautiously in implementing Green solutions. To understand the problems with many of the Green solutions, how we got to this point, and what we can do it fix it we need to understand what the “Green Movement” is.

Today’s Green Movement has its beginnings in the Transcendentalists writings of the 1830’s, 1840’s and later. In 1835 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the essay Nature, beginning the American Transcendentalism writing period. Several transcendentalist writings of this era contributed greatly to the formation and foundations of what became the modern Green Movement, such as Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, published in 1854, and Maine Woods, published in 1864. In Maine Woods, Thoreau called for the conservation of nature and the federal preservation of forests.

The most influential writing of this period was former congressman George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature, published in 1864. Clark University claims, “He is considered to be America's first environmentalist. Over a hundred years ago he warned of our destructive ways” (n.p.).

This book was a major influence leading to laws tha...

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...d and Heinz Sell. Revolution in lamps: a chronicle of 50 years of progress (2nd Ed.). Lilburn, GA: The Fairmont Press, Inc., 2001. Print.

Lamptech. www.lamptech.co.uk. 26 Nov. 2011. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. .

Tunnessen, Walter W., Keven J. McMahon and Michael Baser. "Acrodynia: Exposure to Mercury From Fluorescent Light Bulbs." Pediatrics 79.5 (1987): 786. Print.

UNFCCC, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Status of Ratification. 26 Nov. 2011. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. .

University, Clark. Clark University | Marsh Institute. 22 Nov. 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. .

Wikipedia. Silent Spring - Wikipedia. 03 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. .

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