The Rise of Environmentalism in the United States
Eden; it is a word that, for most, inspires thoughts of lush green trees, untarnished fruit, soft green grass, perfect blue skies, and harmony within nature. According to Judeo-Christian teachings, this is similar to the state in which the world began. It was an environment unspoiled by humans, unblemished by their pollution. Such a pristine utopia is often hard for a person to imagine today amongst the industrial smokestacks and their billowing gray clouds, between the rancid landfill mounds, and surrounded by stagnant pools of oil-slicked water.
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.
Although environmentalism was not present in the years before World War II, an appreciation for nature was. As early as 1850, tra...
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In Mark Fiege’s book “The Republic of Nature,” the author embarks on an elaborate, yet eloquent quest to chronicle pivotal points in American history from an environmental perspective. This scholarly work composed by Fiege details the environmental perspective of American history by focusing on nine key moments showing how nature is very much entrenched in the fibers that manifested this great nation. The author sheds light on the forces that shape the lands of America and humanities desire to master and manipulate nature, while the human individual experience is dictated by the cycles that govern nature. The story of the human experience unfolds in Mark Fiege’s book through history’s actors and their challenges amongst an array of environmental possibilities, which led to nature being the deciding factor on how
In the journal of Environmentalism as Religion, Paul H. Rubin discuss about how environmental is similar to religion. Rubin want everyone to know that the environment and religion are somehow similar in a way, which they both have belief system, creation stories and original sin.
Magoc, Chris J. Environmental Issues in American History: A Reference Guide with Primary Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006. Print.
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.
Theodore Roosevelt: The Great Environmentalist This Paper will outline President Theodore Roosevelt’s role in helping to conserve our environment during his administration (1901-1909). It will also examine his theory of a stronger American democracy through environmental conservationism. “The movement for the conservation of wildlife, and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources, are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.” (Roosevelt 274)
In the mid-19th century, public parks in England began to emerge in response to a rise in pollution and lack of open space within newly industrialized urban centers in places such as London, Derby, Birmingham, and Manchester.(2) The first public parks were funded by private benefactors who were often times the owners of the factories that created these tainted environments. Influencing this environment-friendly attitude was the increased Victorian interest in the sciences (especially botany) due to nineteenth century contributions of both biologists and writers including the empirical work of Darwin's Origin of Species (1858) and Tennyson's literary work, InMemoriam (1867).(3) Many of these benefactors put money into the development of public walks and parks to give birth to not only a healthier urban setting, though, but also to create a façade that made them appear as altruistic philanthropists who were genuinely concerned with the social welfare of the urban-based factory workers who had little or no open space of their own.(4) However, while these upper-middle Victorian philanthropists appeared to provide the working class with the social and health ideals of the upper crust, the public environments that they created did not reflect this universal ideal of integrating the disparate classes together, but rather they were attempts to maintain the isolation and segregation the Victorian upper class desired.
In Emerson’s “Nature” nature is referred to as “plantations of god” meaning that nature is sacred. Also mentioned, is that “In the woods is perpetual youth”(#) conveying that nature keeps people young. Therefore, these excerpts show that nature is greatly valued by these transcendentalists. Transcendentalists would likely care significantly about the environment. In contrast, nowadays nature is often and afterthought. Natures’ resources are being depleted for human use, and the beauty of nature is also not as appreciated by modern people as it was by transcendentalists. The threat to nature in modern times contrasts to the great appreciation of nature held by authors like Emerson and
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
In the article The Clash of Cultures, William Cronon and Richard White delve into “the interrelations between people and their environment,” (11) specifically, between the American Indians and the Europeans and the Americas. The reason Cronon and White wrote this article was, “In part, a result of our current concern with pollution and the exhaustion of valuable natural resources, but it has also proved to be a valuable way of learning more about how people of past generations and different cultures dealt with nature and with one another.” (11)
Since the rise of the American environmental romanticism the idea of preservation and conservation have been seen as competing ideologies. Literary scholars such as Thoreau and Muir have all spoke to the defense of our natural lands in a pristine, untouched form. These pro-preservation thinkers believed in the protecting of American lands to not only ensure that future generations will get to experiences these lands, but to protect the heavily rooted early American nationalism in our natural expanses. Muir was one of the most outspoken supports of the preservation ideology, yet his stylistic writing style and rhetoric resulted in conservation being an adopted practice in the early 20th century
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.
John Muir helped the development of the American conservation movement during the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The creation of the National Park Service, the creation of several major national parks, including Yosemite National Park and the creation of the Sierra Club were all because of John Muir. In the late nineteenth century America was in a stage of expansion and economic development that used as well as threatened much of the natural world. Much of the economic development was in the form of industrialization that took its toll of the environment with both its consumption of natural resources as well pollution. This expansion and economic development had adverse consequences on the environment of the United States. During this time of development many became aware of the damage being done to the natural world and attempted to prevent or limit this damage being done. It is during this time of both industrialization and spiritual awakening that the conservation movement arose with one of its most famous activists, John Muir.
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
Recently those defined as Generation Y have become known as the most environmentally friendly and influential individuals of this millennium. Generation Y, also known as the millennial generation, has become the most influential generation since the beginning of the 1900s. Millennials have started impelling the older and newer generations to become healthier and to take more care of the environment. According to The Six Living Generations article, millennials are defined as humans born between the years 1981 through 2000. Millennials are caring individuals that work in teams to achieve difficult tasks. When Generation Y began so did the rise of mass communication took off, and through
An intricate balance has existed between man and the environment since the evolution of the Homo-sapiens’ species. At times throughout history, human ingenuity and will-power seemed to best nature, such as the transportation of water for miles across land in Roman aqueducts, the circumscribing of the globe by Amerigo Vespucci, or the first flight by the Wright brothers in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; but although these feats were great, until the last few hundred years, the beast that is nature remained unconquered and undisturbed. With the dawn of the industrial revolution in the 1700’s the scale began to tip in favor of man (Industrial). Mass production and industrialization led to environmental destruction via pollution and urbanization. Luckily, for both the planet and mankind, this destruction was recognized and began to be counteracted. President Theodore Roosevelt was one such individual; he stated that, “there can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country,” and set aside 230 million acres of protected nature in the form of national parks, forests, game preserves and bird reservations (Almanac). Since his pioneering preservation acts, states, counties and even nongovernment-affiliated organizations have set aside and preserved land. One such organization is the Little River Wetlands Project whose mission “is to restore and protect wetlands in the watershed of the Little River, a major tributary of the Wabash River, and to provide educational opportunities that encourage good stewardship of wetlands and other natural ecosystems” (Little).