Environmental movement in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

today, the organized environmental movement

Environmental movement

The environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....

is represented by a wide range of organizations sometimes called non-governmental organization

Non-governmental organization

A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

s or NGOs. These organizations exist on local, national, and international scales. Environmental NGOs vary widely in political views and in the amount they seek to influence the environmental policy of the United States

Environmental policy of the United States

The environmental policy of the United States is federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the United States...

and other governments. The environmental movement today consists of both large national groups and also many smaller local groups with local concerns. Some resemble the old U.S. conservation movement - whose modern expression is the Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society and National Geographic Society - American organizations with a worldwide influence.

Scope of the movement

The largest and most influential environmental organizations in the United States, according to Andrew Rowell are the so called Group of Ten: Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife is a United States-based, 501 non-profit organization founded in 1947, "dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities." The organization is active in political interventions and lobbying aimed at protection of wildlife, and...

, Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society

National Audubon Society

The National Audubon Society is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation. Incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world and uses science, education and grassroots advocacy to advance its conservation mission...

, National Wildlife Federation

National Wildlife Federation

The National Wildlife Federation is the United States' largest private, nonprofit conservation education and advocacy organization, with over four million members and supporters, and 48 state and territorial affiliated organizations...

, Natural Resources Defense Council

Natural Resources Defense Council

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a New York City-based, non-profit, non-partisan international environmental advocacy group, with offices in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Beijing...

, Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...

, Izaak Walton League

Izaak Walton League

The Izaak Walton League is an American environmental organization founded in 1922 that promotes natural resource protection and outdoor recreation. The organization was founded in Chicago, Illinois by a group of sportsmen who wished to protect fishing opportunities for future generations...

, Sierra Club

Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...

, The Wilderness Society

The Wilderness Society (United States)

The Wilderness Society is an American organization that is dedicated to protecting America's wilderness. It was formed in 1935 and currently has over 300,000 members and supporters.-Founding:The society was incorporated on January 21, 1935...

and the World Wide Fund for Nature

World Wide Fund for Nature

The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...

The early Conservation movement
Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....

, which began in the late 19th century, included fisheries and wildlife management
Wildlife management
Wildlife management attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. Wildlife management can include game keeping, wildlife conservation and pest control...

, water, soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

conservation and sustainable forestry. Today it includes sustainable yield of natural resources, preservation of wilderness
Wilderness
Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...

areas and biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

The modern Environmental movement, which began in the 1960s with concern about air and water pollution, became broader in scope to including all landscapes and human activities. See List of environmental issues.
Environmental health movement dating at least to Progressive Era
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...

(1890s - 1920s) urban reforms including clean water supply, more efficient removal of raw sewage and reduction in crowded and unsanitary living conditions. Today Environmental health is more related to nutrition, preventive medicine, aging well and other concerns specific to the human body's well-being.
Sustainability movement
Sustainable living
Sustainable living is a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual's or society's use of the Earth's natural resources and his/her own resources. Practitioners of sustainable living often attempt to reduce their carbon footprint by altering methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet...

which started in the 1980s focused on Gaia theory, value of Earth and other interrelations between human sciences and human responsibilities. Its spinoff Deep Ecology was more spiritual but often claimed to be science.
Environmental justice
Environmental justice
Environmental justice is "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies." In the words of Bunyan Bryant,...

is a movement that began in the U.S. in the 1980s and seeks an end to environmental racism
Environmental racism
Environmental racism is a sociological term referring to policies and regulations that disproportionately burden minority communities with negative environmental impacts....

. Often, low-income and minority communities are located close to highways, garbage dumps, and factories, where they are exposed to greater pollution and environmental health risk than the rest of the population. The Environmental Justice movement seeks to link "social" and "ecological" environmental concerns, while at the same time keeping environmentalists conscious of the dynamics in their own movement, i.e. racism, sexism, homophobia, classicism, and other malaises of dominant culture.

As public awareness and the environmental sciences have improved in recent years, environmental issues have broadened to include key concepts such as "sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

" and also new emerging concerns such as ozone depletion

Ozone depletion

Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...

, global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

, acid rain

Acid rain

Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions . It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen...

, and biogenetic pollution.

Environmental movements often interact or are linked with other social movements, e.g. for peace

Peace

Peace is a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict. Commonly understood as the absence of hostility, peace also suggests the existence of healthy or newly healed interpersonal or international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the...

, human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

, and animal rights

Animal rights

Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...

; and against nuclear weapons and/or nuclear power

Anti-nuclear movement in the United States

The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups which have acted to oppose nuclear power or nuclear weapons, or both, in the United States. These groups include the Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research,...

, endemic diseases, poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

, hunger

Hunger

Hunger is the most commonly used term to describe the social condition of people who frequently experience the physical sensation of desiring food.-Malnutrition, famine, starvation:...

, etc.

Some US colleges are now going green by signing the "President's Climate Commitment," a document that a college President can sign to enable said colleges to practice environmentalism by switching to solar power, etc.

History

Early European settlers to the United States brought from Europe the concept of the commons. In the colonial era, access to natural resources was allocated by individual towns, disputes over fisheries or land use were resolved at the local level. Changing technologies however, strained traditional ways of resolving disputes of resource use and local governments had limited control over powerful special interests. For example the damming of rivers for mills cut off upriver towns from fisheries. Logging and clearing of forest in watersheds harmed local fisheries downstream. In New England many farmers became uneasy as they noticed clearing of forest changed stream flows and a decrease in bird population which helped control insects pests. These concerns become widely known with the publication of Man and Nature

Man and Nature

Man and nature; or, Physical geography as modified by human action is a book written by George Perkins Marsh in 1864.It is one of the first works to document the effects of human action on the environment and it helped to launch the modern conservation movement. Marsh argued that ancient...

(1864) by George Perkins Marsh

George Perkins Marsh

George Perkins Marsh , an American diplomat and philologist, is considered by some to be America's first environmentalist, although "conservationist" would be more accurate...

. The environmental impact method of analysis is generally the main mode for determining what issues the environmental movement is involved in. Contrary to critics beliefs this model is used to determine how to proceed in situations that are detrimental to the environment in the way that is least damaging and has the fewest lasting implications.

Conservation movement

Conservation first became a national issue during the progressive era

Progressive Era

The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...

's conservation movement

Conservation movement

The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....

(1890s - 1920s). The early national conservation movement shifted emphasis to scientific management which favored larger enterprises and control began to shift from local governments to the states and the federal government.(Judd) Some writers credit sportsman, hunters and fisherman with the increasing influence of the conservation movement. In the 1870s sportsman magazines such as American Sportsmen, Forest and Stream, and Field and Stream are seen as leading to the growth of the conservation movement.(Reiger) This conservation movement also urged the establishment of state and national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, and national monuments intended to preserve noteworthy natural features.
Conservation groups focus primarily on an issue that’s origins are routed in general expansion. As Industrialization became more prominent as well as the increasing trend towards Urbanization

Urbanization

Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....

the conservative environmental movement began. Contrary to popular belief conservation groups are not against expansion in general, instead they are concerned with efficiency with resources and land development.

Progressive era

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

was a prominent conservationist

Conservationist

Conservationists are proponents or advocates of conservation. They advocate for the protection of all the species in an ecosystem with a strong focus on the natural environment...

, putting the issue high on the national agenda. He worked with all the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter, Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...

. Roosevelt was deeply committed to conserving natural resources, and is considered to be the nation's first conservation

Conservation biology

Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...

President. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act

Newlands Reclamation Act

The Reclamation Act of 1902 is a United States federal law that funded irrigation projects for the arid lands of 20 states in the American West....

of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres (360,000 mi² or 930,000 km²) under federal protection. Roosevelt set aside more Federal land for national park

National park

A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...

s and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.
Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service

United States Forest Service

The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...

, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act

Antiquities Act

The Antiquities Act of 1906, officially An Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities , is an act passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906, giving the President of the United States authority to, by executive order, restrict the use of...

, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monument

U.S. National Monument

A National Monument in the United States is a protected area that is similar to a National Park except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a National Monument without the approval of Congress. National monuments receive less funding and...

s. He also established the first 51 Bird Reserve

Bird Reserve

A bird reserve is a wildlife refuge designed to protect bird species. Like other wildlife refuges, the main goal of a reserve is to prevent species from becoming endangered or extinct. Typically, bird species in a reserve are protected from hunting and habitat destruction...

s, four Game Preserves, and 150 National Forests

United States National Forest

National Forest is a classification of federal lands in the United States.National Forests are largely forest and woodland areas owned by the federal government and managed by the United States Forest Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture. Land management of these areas...

, including Shoshone National Forest

Shoshone National Forest

Shoshone National Forest is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly 2.5 million acres in the state of Wyoming. Originally a part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, the forest was created by an act of Congress and signed into law by U.S....

, the nation's first. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230000000 acres (930,777.8 km²).

Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...

had been appointed by McKinley as chief of Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. In 1905, his department gained control of the national forest reserves. Pinchot promoted private use (for a fee) under federal supervision. In 1907, Roosevelt designated 16 million acres (65,000 km²) of new national forests just minutes before a deadline.

In May 1908, Roosevelt sponsored the Conference of Governors

Conference of Governors

The Conference of Governors was held in the White House May 13-15, 1908 under the sponsorship of President Theodore Roosevelt. Gifford Pinchot, at that time Chief Forester of the U.S., was the primary mover of the conference....

held in the White House, with a focus on natural resources and their most efficient use. Roosevelt delivered the opening address: "Conservation as a National Duty."

In 1903 Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir

John Muir

John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...

, who had a very different view of conservation, and tried to minimize commercial use of water resources and forests. Working through the Sierra Club

Sierra Club

he founded, Muir succeeded in 1905 in having Congress transfer the Mariposa Grove

Mariposa Grove

Mariposa Grove is a sequoia grove located near Wawona, California, United States, in the southernmost part of Yosemite National Park. It is the largest grove of Giant Sequoias in the park, with several hundred mature examples of the tree...

and Yosemite Valley to the National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

. While Muir wanted nature preserved for the sake of pure beauty, Roosevelt subscribed to Pinchot's formulation, "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees." Muir and the Sierra Club vehemently opposed the damning of the Hetch Hetchy Valley

Hetch Hetchy Valley

Hetch Hetchy Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in California. It is currently completely flooded by O'Shaughnessy Dam, forming the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The Tuolumne River fills the reservoir. Upstream from the valley lies the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. The reservoir...

in Yosemite in order to provide water to the city of San Francisco. Roosevelt and Pinchot supported the dam, as did President Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

. The Hetch Hetchy dam

O'Shaughnessy Dam

The O'Shaughnessy Dam is a curved gravity dam on the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of California's Sierra Nevada. The dam is located in Yosemite National Park, and creates the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. It is named for former San Francisco chief engineer and the original chief engineer of...

was finished in 1923 and is still in operation, but the Sierra Club still wants to tear it down.

Other influential conservationists of the Progressive Era

Progressive Era

included George Bird Grinnell

George Bird Grinnell

George Bird Grinnell was an American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer. Grinnell was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1870 and a Ph.D. in 1880. Originally specializing in zoology, he became a prominent early conservationist and student...

(a prominent sportsmen who founded the Boone and Crockett Club

Boone and Crockett Club

The Boone and Crockett Club conservationist organization, founded in the United States in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt. The club was named in honor of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, whom the club's founders viewed as ethical hunters and honest men who loved the outdoors and earthly pursuits...

), the Izaak Walton League

Izaak Walton League

and John Muir

John Muir

, the founder of the Sierra Club

Sierra Club

in 1892. Conservationists organized the National Parks Conservation Association

National Parks Conservation Association

The National Parks Conservation Association is the only independent, membership organization devoted exclusively to advocacy on behalf of the National Parks System...

, the Audubon Society, and other groups that still remain active.

New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–45), like his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, was an ardent conservationist. He used numerous programs of the departments of Agriculture and Interior to end wasteful land-use, mitigate the effects of the Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...

, and efficiently develop natural resources in the West. One of the most popular of all New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps

The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D...

(1933–1943), which sent two million poor young men to work in rural and wilderness areas, primarily on conservation projects.

Post 1945

After World War II increasing encroachment on wilderness land evoked the continued resistance of conservationists, who succeeded in blocking a number of projects in the 1950s and 1960s, including the proposed Bridge Canyon Dam

Bridge Canyon Dam

Bridge Canyon Dam is a proposed dam in the lower Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, in northern Arizona in the United States. It would be located near Bridge Canyon Rapids in an extremely rugged and isolated portion of the canyon, roughly downstream of Lee's Ferry and upstream of the current...

that would have backed up the waters of the Colorado River into the Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon National Park is the United States' 15th oldest national park and is located in Arizona. Within the park lies the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, considered to be one of the Wonders of the World. The park covers of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties.Most...

.

The Inter-American Conference on the Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources met in 1948 as a collection of nearly 200 scientists from all over the Americans forming the trusteeship principle that:

"No generation can exclusively own the renewable resources by which it lives. We hold the commonwealth in trust for prosperity, and to lessen or destroy it is to commit treason against the future" (Sound familiar? Look at the definition from the Brundtland Commission

Brundtland Commission

The Brundtland Commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development , known by the name of its Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland, was convened by the United Nations in 1983...

of sustainable development

Sustainable development

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

in 1987).

Beginning of the modern movement

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, several events occurred which raised the public awareness of harm to the environment caused by man. In 1954, the 23 man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon was exposed to radioactive fallout from a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll

Bikini Atoll

Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....

, in 1969, an ecologically catastrophic oil spill

1969 Santa Barbara oil spill

The Santa Barbara oil spill occurred in January and February 1969 in the Santa Barbara Channel, near the city of Santa Barbara in Southern California. It was the largest oil spill in United States waters at the time, and now ranks third after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 1989 Exxon Valdez spills...

from an offshore well in California's Santa Barbara Channel, Barry Commoner's protest against nuclear testing, Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....

's book Silent Spring

Silent Spring

Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement....

, Paul R. Ehrlich

Paul R. Ehrlich

Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera , but...

's The Population Bomb

The Population Bomb

The Population Bomb was a best-selling book written by Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich , in 1968. It warned of the mass starvation of humans in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth...

all added anxiety about the environment. Pictures of Earth from space emphasized that the earth was small and fragile.

As the public became more aware of environmental issues, concern about air pollution, water pollution, solid waste disposal, dwindling energy resources, radiation, pesticide poisoning (particularly as described in Rachel Carson's influential Silent Spring, 1962), noise pollution, and other environmental problems engaged a broadening number of sympathizers. That public support for environmental concerns was widespread became clear in the Earth Day

Earth Day

Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. The first Proclamation of Earth Day was by San Francisco, the...

demonstrations of 1970.

Unlike the Progressive Era

Progressive Era

's conservation movement (1890s - 1920s), which was largely elitist consisting of largely of wealthy, political powerful men the modern environmental movement was a social movement with more popular support. The environmental movement borrowed tactics from both the successful civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

movement and the protests against the Vietnam war

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

Wilderness preservation

In the modern wilderness preservation movement, important philosophical roles are played by the writings of John Muir

John Muir

who had been activist in the late 19th and early 20th century. Along with Muir perhaps most influential in the modern movement is Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...

who published Walden

Walden

Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...

in 1854. Also important was forester

Forester

250px|thumb|right|Foresters of [[Southern University of Chile|UACh]] in the [[Valdivian forest]]s of San Pablo de Tregua, ChileA forester is a person who practices forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including timber...

and ecologist Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold was an American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac , which has sold over two million copies...

, one of the founders of the Wilderness Society in 1935, who wrote a classic of nature observation and ethical philosophy, A Sand County Almanac

A Sand County Almanac

A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There is a 1949 non-fiction book by American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold. Describing the land around the author's home in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a "land ethic", or a...

, published in 1949

1949 in literature

The year 1949 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Arthur C. Clarke becomes Assistant Editor of Science Abstracts.*Bertrand Russell receives the Order of Merit....

. Other philosophical foundations were established by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

and Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

Anti-nuclear movement

The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear

Anti-nuclear

The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes the use of nuclear technologies. Many direct action groups, environmental groups, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, and international level...

groups which have acted to oppose nuclear power

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

or nuclear weapons, or both, in the United States. These groups include the Abalone Alliance

Abalone alliance

The Abalone Alliance was a nonviolent civil disobedience group formed to shut down the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Diablo Canyon Power Plant near San Luis Obispo on the central California coast in the United States...

, Clamshell Alliance

Clamshell Alliance

The Clamshell Alliance is an anti-nuclear organization co-founded by Paul Gunter, Howie Hawkins, Harvey Wasserman, Guy Chichester and other activists in 1976. The alliance's coalescence began in 1975 as New England activists and organizations began to respond to U.S...

, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research focuses on the environmental safety of nuclear weapons production, ozone layer depletion, and other issues relating to energy. IEER publishes a variety of books on energy-related issues, conducts workshops for activists on nuclear issues, and...

, Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

The Nuclear Information and Resource Service is an anti-nuclear group founded in 1978 to be the information and networking center for citizens and organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation and sustainable energy issues...

, and Physicians for Social Responsibility

Physicians for Social Responsibility

Physicians for Social Responsibility is the largest physician-led organization in the USA working to protect the public from the what they consider threats of nuclear proliferation, climate change, and environmental toxins...

. The anti-nuclear movement has delayed construction or halted commitments to build some new nuclear plants, and has pressured the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and was first opened January 19, 1975...

to enforce and strengthen the safety regulations for nuclear power plants.

Anti-nuclear

Anti-nuclear

protests reached a peak in the 1970s and 1980s and grew out of the environmental movement

Environmental movement

The environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....

. Campaigns which captured national public attention involved the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant

Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant

The Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay near Lusby, Calvert County, Maryland.-Overview:...

, Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant

Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant

The Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, more commonly known as Seabrook Station, is a nuclear power plant located in Seabrook, New Hampshire, approximately north of Boston and south of Portsmouth. Two units were planned, but the second unit was never completed due to construction delays, cost overruns...

, Diablo Canyon Power Plant

Diablo Canyon Power Plant

Diablo Canyon Power Plant is an electricity-generating nuclear power plant at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. The plant has two Westinghouse-designed 4-loop pressurized-water nuclear reactors operated by Pacific Gas & Electric. The facility is located on about in Avila Beach,...

, Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant

Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant

The Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant was a completed General Electric nuclear boiling water reactor located adjacent to the Wading River in East Shoreham, New York...

, and Three Mile Island. On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

arms race

Arms race

The term arms race, in its original usage, describes a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation...

. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest

Demonstration (people)

A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...

and the largest political demonstration in American history. International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on June 20, 1983 at 50 sites across the United States.
There were many Nevada Desert Experience

Nevada Desert Experience

The Nevada Desert Experience is a name for the movement to stop U.S. nuclear weapons testing that came into use in the middle 1980s. It is also the name of a particular anti-nuclear organization which continues to create public events to question the morality and intelligence of the U.S. nuclear...

protests and peace camps at the Nevada Test Site

Nevada Test Site

The Nevada National Security Site , previously the Nevada Test Site , is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in southeastern Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of the city of Las Vegas...

during the 1980s and 1990s.

More recent campaigning by anti-nuclear groups has related to several nuclear power plants including the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Power Plant, Indian Point Energy Center

Indian Point Energy Center

Indian Point Energy Center is a three-unit nuclear power plant station located in Buchanan, New York just south of Peekskill. It sits on the east bank of the Hudson River, 38 miles north of New York City...

, Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station

Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station

Oyster Creek nuclear power station is a single unit 636 MWe boiling water reactor power plant located on an 800 acre site adjacent to the Oyster Creek in the Forked River section of Lacey Township in Ocean County, New Jersey. The facility is currently owned and operated by Exelon Corporation and...

, Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station

Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station

Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station is currently the only nuclear power plant operating in the United States Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is located in the Manomet section of Plymouth on Cape Cod Bay, south of the tip of Rocky Point and north of Priscilla Beach...

, Salem Nuclear Power Plant

Salem Nuclear Power Plant

The Salem Nuclear Power Plant is a two unit pressurized water reactor nuclear power station located in Lower Alloways Creek Township, New Jersey, in the United States. It is owned by PSEG Nuclear LLC and Exelon Generation LLC....

, and Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant

Vermont Yankee is a General Electric boiling water reactor type nuclear power plant currently owned by Entergy. It is located in the town of Vernon, Vermont, and generates 620 megawatts of electricity at full power. The plant began commercial operations in 1972...

. There have also been campaigns relating to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant, the Idaho National Laboratory

Idaho National Laboratory

Idaho National Laboratory is an complex located in the high desert of eastern Idaho, between the town of Arco to the west and the cities of Idaho Falls and Blackfoot to the east. It lies within Butte, Bingham, Bonneville and Jefferson counties...

, proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the Hanford Site

Hanford Site

The Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, operated by the United States federal government. The site has been known by many names, including Hanford Works, Hanford Engineer Works or HEW, Hanford Nuclear Reservation...

, the Nevada Test Site

Nevada Test Site

, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , just outside Livermore, California, is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center founded by the University of California in 1952...

, and transportation of nuclear waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...

.

Some scientists and engineers have expressed reservations about nuclear power, including: Barry Commoner

Barry Commoner

Barry Commoner is an American biologist, college professor, and eco-socialist. He ran for president of the United States in the 1980 US presidential election on the Citizens Party ticket. He was also editor of Science Illustrated magazine.-Biography:Commoner was born in Brooklyn...

, S. David Freeman

S. David Freeman

S. David Freeman is an American engineer, attorney, and author, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who has had many key roles in energy policy...

, John Gofman

John Gofman

John William Gofman was an American scientist and advocate. He was Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California at Berkeley. Some of his early work was on the Manhattan Project, and he shares patents on the fissionability of uranium-233 as well as on early processes...

, Arnold Gundersen

Arnold Gundersen

Arnold "Arnie" Gundersen is chief engineer of energy consulting company Fairewinds Associates and a former nuclear power industry executive, and who has questioned the safety of the Westinghouse AP1000, a proposed third-generation nuclear reactor. Gundersen has also expressed concerns about the...

, Mark Z. Jacobson

Mark Z. Jacobson

Mark Z. Jacobson is professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and director of the Atmosphere and Energy Program there...

, Amory Lovins

Amory Lovins

Amory Bloch Lovins is an American environmental scientist and writer, Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has worked in the field of energy policy and related areas for four decades...

, Arjun Makhijani

Arjun Makhijani

Arjun Makhijani is an electrical and nuclear engineer who is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Makhijani has written many books and reports analyzing the safety, economics, and efficiency of various energy sources...

, Gregory Minor

Gregory Minor

Gregory Charles Minor was one of three middle-management engineers who resigned from the General Electric nuclear reactor division in 1976 to protest against the use of nuclear power in the United States. A native of Fresno, California, Minor received an electrical engineering degree from the...

, Joseph Romm and Benjamin K. Sovacool

Benjamin K. Sovacool

Benjamin K. Sovacool is a Visiting Associate Professor at Vermont Law School and founding Director of the Energy Justice Program at their Institute for Energy and Environment. He was formerly an Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore.Sovacool's research...

. Scientists who have opposed nuclear weapons include Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling

Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century...

and Eugene Rabinowitch

Eugene Rabinowitch

Eugene Rabinowitch was a Russian-born American biophysicist who is best known for his work in relation to nuclear weapons, especially as a co-author of the Franck Report and a co-founder in 1945 of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a global security and public policy magazine, which he edited...

Antitoxin groups

Antitoxin groups are a subgroup that is affiliated with the Environmental Movement in the United States, that is primarily concerned with the effects that cities and their by products have on humans. This aspect of the movement is a self proclaimed “movement of housewives”. Concern around the issues of ground water contamination and air pollution rose in the early 1980s and individuals involved in antitoxic groups claim that they are concerned for the health of their families.
A prominent case can be seen in the Love Canal Homeowner’s association (LCHA); in this case a housing development was built on a site that had been used for toxic dumping by the Hooker Chemical Company. As a result of this dumping the residents had symptoms of skin irritation, Lois Gibbs

Lois Gibbs

Lois Marie Gibbs is an American environmental activist.Gibbs's involvement in environmental causes began in 1978 when she discovered that her 7-year-old son's elementary school in Niagara Falls, New York was built on a toxic waste dump. Subsequent investigation revealed that her entire...

, a resident of the development, started a grass routes campaign for reparations. Eventual success led to the government having to buy back homes that were sold in the development.

Federal legislation in the 1970s

Prior to the 1970s the protection of basic air and water supplies was a matter mainly left to each state. During the '70s, responsibility for clean air and water to shifted to the federal government. Growing concerns, both environmental and economic, from cites and towns as well as sportsman and other local groups senators such as Maine's Edmund S. Muskie generated extensive legislation, notably the Clean Air Act

Clean Air Act

A Clean Air Act is one of a number of pieces of legislation relating to the reduction of airborne contaminants, smog and air pollution in general. The use by governments to enforce clean air standards has contributed to an improvement in human health and longer life spans...

of 1970. Other legislation included National Environmental Policy Act

National Environmental Policy Act

The National Environmental Policy Act is a United States environmental law that established a U.S. national policy promoting the enhancement of the environment and also established the President's Council on Environmental Quality ....

(NEPA), signed into law in 1970, which established a United States Environmental Protection Agency

United States Environmental Protection Agency

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...

and a Council on Environmental Quality

Council on Environmental Quality

The Council on Environmental Quality is a division of the Executive Office of the President that coordinates federal environmental efforts in the United States and works closely with agencies and other White House offices in the development of environmental and energy policies and initiatives...

; ; the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972; the Endangered Species Act

Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...

of 1973, the Safe Drinking Water Act

Safe Drinking Water Act

The Safe Drinking Water Act is the principle federal law in the United States intended to ensure safe drinking water for the public. Pursuant to the act, the Environmental Protection Agency is required to set standards for drinking water quality and oversee all states, localities, and water...

(1974), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act , enacted in 1976, is the principal Federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.-History and Goals:...

(1976), the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1977, which became known as the Clean Water Act

Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...

, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly known as the Superfund Act

Superfund

Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 , a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances...

(1980). These laws regulated toxic substances, pesticides, and ocean dumping; and protected wildlife, wilderness, and wild and scenic rivers. Moreover, the new laws provide for pollution research, standard setting, monitoring, and enforcement.

The creation of these laws led to a major shift in the environmental movement. Groups such as the Sierra Club shifted focus from local issues to becoming a lobby in Washington and new groups, for example, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense, arose to influence politics as well. (Larson)

Renewed focus on local action

In the 1980s President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

sought to curtail scope of environmental protection taking steps such as appointing James G. Watt

James G. Watt

James Gaius Watt served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior for President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1983.-Early life and career:...

who was called one of the most "blatantly anti-environmental political appointees". The major environmental groups responded with mass mailings which led to increased membership and donations. The large environmental organization increasingly relied on ties within Washington DC to advance their environmental agenda. At the same time membership in environmental groups became more suburban and urban. Groups such as animal rights, and the gun control lobby became linked with environmentalism while sportsman, farmers and ranchers were no longer influential in the movement.
When industry groups lobbied to weaken regulation and a backlash against environmental regulations, the so called wise use

Wise use

The wise use movement in the United States is a loose-knit coalition of groups promoting the expansion of private property rights and reduction of government regulation of publicly held property. This includes advocacy of expanded use by commercial and public interests, seeking increased access to...

movement gained importance and influence. The wise use movement and anti-environmental groups were able to portray environmentalist as out of touch with main-stream values. (Larson)

“Post-environmentalism"

In 2004, with the environmental movement seemingly stalled, some environmentalists started questioning whether "environmentalism" was even a useful political framework. According to a controversial essay titled "The Death of Environmentalism " (Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger

-Break Through:In October 2004, Shellenberger and his colleague Ted Nordhaus, both long-time environmental strategists, authored a controversial essay, "The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World." The essay argues that environmentalism is conceptually and...

and Ted Nordhaus, 2004) American environmentalism has been remarkably successful in protecting the air, water, and large stretches of wilderness in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

and Europe, but these environmentalists have stagnated as a vital force for cultural and political change.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus wrote, "Today environmentalism is just another special interest. Evidence for this can be found in its concepts, its proposals, and its reasoning. What stands out is how arbitrary environmental leaders are about what gets counted and what doesn't as 'environmental.' Most of the movement's leading thinkers, funders, and advocates do not question their most basic assumptions about who we are, what we stand for, and what it is that we should be doing." Their essay was followed by a speech in San Francisco called "Is Environmentalism Dead?" by former Sierra Club President, Adam Werbach

Adam Werbach

Adam Werbach is an environmental activist who was elected as the youngest-ever national president of the Sierra Club in 1996 when he was 23 years old. He is the author of Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto, published by Harvard Business Press, and named one of the top business books...

, who argued for the evolution of environmentalism into a more expansive, relevant and powerful progressive politics. Werbach endorsed building an environmental movement that is more relevant to average Americans, and controversially chose to lead Wal-Mart's effort to take sustainability mainstream.

These "post-environmental movement" thinkers argue that the ecological crises the human species faces in the 21st century are qualitatively different from the problems the environmental movement was created to address in the 1960s and 1970s. Climate change and habitat destruction

Habitat destruction

Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Habitat destruction by human activity mainly for the purpose of...

, they argue, are global, more complex, and demand far deeper transformations of the economy, the culture and political life. The consequence of environmentalism's outdated and arbitrary definition, they argue, is political irrelevancy.

These "politically neutral" groups tend to avoid global conflicts and view the settlement of inter-human conflict as separate from regard for nature - in direct contradiction to the ecology movement and peace movement which have increasingly close links: While Green Parties and Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

, and groups like the ACTivist Magazine for example, regard ecology, biodiversity and an end to non-human extinction as absolutely basic to peace, the local groups may not, and may see a high degree of global competition and conflict as justifiable if it lets them preserve their own local uniqueness. This seems selfish to some. However, such groups tend not to "burn out" and to sustain for long periods, even generations, protecting the same local treasures. The Water Keepers Alliance is a good example of such a group that sticks to local questions.

Local groups increasingly find that they benefit from collaboration, e.g. on consensus decision making methods, or making simultaneous policy, or relying on common legal resources, or even sometimes a common glossary. However, the differences between the various groups that make up the modern environmental movement tend to outweigh such similarities, and they rarely co-operate directly except on a few major global questions. In a notable exception, over 1,000 local groups from around the country united for a single day of action as part of the Step It Up 2007 campaign for real solutions to global warming.

Groups such as The Bioregional Revolution are calling on the need to bridge these differences, as the converging problems of the 21st century they claim compel us to unite and to take decisive action. They promote bioregionalism

Bioregionalism

Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics...

, permaculture

Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...

, and local economies as solutions to these problems, overpopulation

Overpopulation

Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...

, global warming

Global warming

, global epidemics, and water scarcity, but most notably to "peak oil

Peak oil

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. This concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, projected reserves and the combined production rate of a field...

"--the prediction that we are likely to reach a maximum in global oil production which could spell drastic changes in many aspects of our everyday lives.

Environmental rights

Many environmental lawsuits turn on the question of who has standing; are the legal issues limited to property owners, or does the general public have a right to intervene? Christopher D. Stone's 1972 essay, "Should trees have standing?" seriously addressed the question of whether natural objects themselves should have legal rights, including the right to participate in lawsuits. Stone suggested that there was nothing absurd in this view, and noted that many entities now regarded as having legal rights were, in the past, regarded as "things" that were regarded as legally rightless; for example, aliens, children and women. His essay is sometimes regarded as an example of the fallacy of hypostatization.

One of the earliest lawsuits to establish that citizens may sue for environmental and aesthetic harms was Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, decided in 1965 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The case helped halt the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York State. See also United States environmental law and David Sive

David Sive

David Sive is an attorney, environmentalist, and professor of environmental law, who has been recognized as a pioneer in the field of United States environmental law, and is credited with helping create the field of environmental law...

, an attorney who was involved in the case.

Role of science

Conservation biology is an important and rapidly developing field.

One way to avoid the stigma of an "ism" was to evolve early anti-nuclear groups into the more scientific Green Parties, sprout new NGOs such as Greenpeace and Earth Action, and devoted groups to protecting global biodiversity and preventing global warming and climate change. But in the process, much of the emotional appeal, and many of the original aesthetic goals were lost. Nonetheless, these groups have well-defined ethical and political views, backed by hard science.

Criticisms of the Environmental Movement

Some people are skeptical of the environmental movement and feel that it is more deeply rooted in politics than science. Although there have been serious debates about climate change and effects of some pesticides and herbicides that mimic animal sex steroids, science has shown that some of the claims of environmentalists have credence.

Claims made by environmentalists may be perceived as veiled attacks on industry and globalization rather than legitimate environmental concerns. Detractors note that a significant number of environmental theories and predictions have been inaccurate and suggest that the regulations recommended by environmentalists will more likely harm society rather than help nature.

DDT

Specific examples include when Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....

, in her book Silent Spring, suggested that the pesticide DDT

DDT

DDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....

caused cancer and drastically harmed ecosystems. DDT is highly toxic to aquatic life, including crayfish, daphnids, sea shrimp and many species of fish. However, DDT might be useful in controlling malaria.

Prominent novelist and Harvard Medical School graduate Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton

John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...

appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to address such concerns and recommended the employment of double-blind experimentation in environmental research. Crichton suggested that because environmental issues are so political in nature, policy makers need neutral, conclusive data to base their decisions on, rather than conjecture and rhetoric, and double-blind experiments are the most efficient way to achieve that aim.

A consistent theme acknowledged by both supporters and critics (though more commonly vocalized by critics) of the environmental movement is that we know very little about the Earth we live in. Most fields of environmental studies are relatively new, and therefore what research we have is limited and does not date far enough back for us to completely understand long-term environmental trends. This has led a number of environmentalists to support the use of the precautionary principle

Precautionary principle

The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those...

in policy making, which ultimately asserts that we don’t know how certain actions may affect the environment, and because there is reason to believe they may cause more harm than good we should refrain from such actions.

Elitist

In the December 1994 Wild Forest Review, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair wrote "The mainstream environmental movement was elitist, highly paid, detached from the people, indifferent to the working class, and a firm ally of big government.…The environmental movement is now accurately perceived as just another well-financed and cynical special interest group, its rancid infrastructure supported by Democratic Party operatives and millions in grants from corporate foundations.”

Wilderness myth

Writer William Cronon

William Cronon

William 'Bill' Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison...

criticizes the modern environmental movement for having a romantic idealizations of wilderness

Wilderness

Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...

. Cronon writes "wilderness serves as the unexamined foundation on which so many of the quasi-religious values of modern environmentalism rest." Cronon claims that "to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead."

Similarly Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...

has argued that the wilderness ethic leads people to dismiss areas whose wildness is less than absolute. In his book Second Nature, Pollan writes that "once a landscape is no longer 'virgin' it is typically written off as fallen, lost to nature, irredeemable."

Debates within the movement

Within the environmental movement an ideological debate has taken place between those with an ecocentric view point and an anthropocentric view point. The anthropocentric view has been seen as the conservationist approach to the environment with nature viewed, at least in part, as resource to be used by man. In contrast to the conservationist approach the ecocentric view, associated with John Muir

John Muir

, Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...

and William Wordworth sometimes referred to as the preservationist movement. This approach sees nature in a more spiritual way. Many environmental historians consider the split between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...

. During the preservation / conservation debate the term preservationist become to be seen as a pejorative term.

While the ecocentric view focused on biodiversity and wilderness protection the anthropocentric view focus on urban pollution and social justice. Some environmental writers, for example William Cronon

William Cronon

William 'Bill' Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison...

have criticized the ecocentric view as have a dualist view as man being separate from nature. Critics of the anthropocentric view point contend that the environmental movement has been taken over by so called leftist with an agenda beyond environmental protection.

Several books after the middle of the 20th century contributed to the rise of American environmentalism (as distinct from the longer-established conservation movement), especially among college and university students and the more literate public. One was the publication of the first textbook on ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

, Fundamentals of Ecology, by Eugene Odum

Eugene Odum

Eugene Pleasants Odum was an American scientist known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology. He wrote the first ecology textbook: Fundamentals of Ecology....

and Howard Odum

Howard Odum

Howard Odum may refer to:* Howard W. Odum , American sociologist* Howard T. Odum , his son, ecologist...

, in 1953. Another was the appearance of the best-seller Silent Spring

Silent Spring

Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement....

by Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement....

, in 1962. Her book brought about a whole new interpretation on pesticides by exposing their harmful effects in nature. From this book many began referring to Carson as the "mother of the environmental movement". Another influential development was a 1965 lawsuit, Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, opposing the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain, which is said to have given birth to modern United States environmental law. The wide popularity of The Whole Earth Catalog

Whole Earth Catalog

The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture catalog published by Stewart Brand between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998...

s, starting in 1968, was quite influential among the younger, hands-on, activist generation of the 1960s and 1970s. Recently, in addition to opposing environmental degradation and protecting wilderness, an increased focus on coexisting with natural biodiversity has appeared, a strain that is apparent in the movement for sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...

and in the concept of Reconciliation Ecology

Reconciliation ecology

Reconciliation ecology is the branch of ecology which studies ways to encourage biodiversity in human-dominated ecosystems. Michael Rosenzweig first articulated the concept in his book Win-Win Ecology, based on the theory that there is not enough area for all of Earth’s biodiversity to be saved...

Environmentalism and politics

Environmentalists became much more influential in American politics after the creation or strengthening of numerous U.S. environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act

Clean Air Act

and Clean Water Act

Clean Water Act

and the formation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA

United States Environmental Protection Agency

in 1970. These successes were followed by the enactment of a whole series of laws regulating waste

Waste

Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...

(Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act , enacted in 1976, is the principal Federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.-History and Goals:...

), toxic substances

Toxin

A toxin is a poisonous substance produced within living cells or organisms; man-made substances created by artificial processes are thus excluded...

(Toxic Substances Control Act

Toxic Substances Control Act

The Toxic Substances Control Act is a United States law, passed by the United States Congress in 1976, that regulates the introduction of new or already existing chemicals. It grandfathered most existing chemicals, in contrast to the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals ...

), pesticides (FIFRA: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act

Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act

The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act , et seq. is a United States federal law that set up the basic U.S. system of pesticide regulation to protect applicators, consumers, and the environment. It is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency and the appropriate...

), clean-up of polluted sites (Superfund

Superfund

), protection of endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

(Endangered Species Act

Endangered Species Act

), and more.

Fewer environmental laws have been passed in the last decade as corporations and other conservative

American conservatism

Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...

interests have increased their influence over American politics

Politics of the United States

The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...

. Corporate cooperation against environmental lobbyists has been organized by the Wise Use

Wise use

group. At the same time, many environmentalists have been turning toward other means of persuasion, such as working with business, community, and other partners to promote sustainable development

Sustainable development

.

Much environmental activism is directed towards conservation

Conservation movement

, as well as the prevention or elimination of pollution. However, conservation movement

Conservation movement

s, ecology movement

Ecology movement

The global ecology movement is based upon environmental protection, and is one of several new social movements that emerged at the end of the 1960s. As a values-driven social movement, it should be distinguished from the pre-existing science of ecology....

s, peace movement

Peace movement

A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...

s, green parties, green-

Green anarchism

Green anarchism, or ecoanarchism, is a school of thought within anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on environmental issues. An important early influence was the thought of the American anarchist Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden...

and eco-anarchists often subscribe to very different ideologies, while supporting the same goals as those who call themselves “environmentalists”. To outsiders, these groups or factions can appear to be indistinguishable.

As human population

World population

The world population is the total number of living humans on the planet Earth. As of today, it is estimated to be billion by the United States Census Bureau...

and industrial activity continue to increase, environmentalists often find themselves in serious conflict with those who believe that human and industrial activities should not be overly regulated or restricted, such as some libertarians

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

.

Environmentalists often clash with others, particularly “corporate interests,” over issues of the management of natural resources

Natural Resources

Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...

, like in the case of the atmosphere

Earth's atmosphere

The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention , and reducing temperature extremes between day and night...

as a “carbon dump”, the focus of climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

, and global warming

Global warming

controversy. They usually seek to protect commonly owned or unowned resources for future generations.

Those who take issue with new untested technologies are more precisely known, especially in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, as political ecologists. They usually seek, in contrast, to preserve the integrity of existing ecologies and ecoregions, and in general are more pessimistic about human “management”.

Radical environmentalism

While most environmentalists are mainstream and peaceful, a small minority are more radical in their approach. Adherents of radical environmentalism

Radical environmentalism

Radical environmentalism, is a grassroots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged out of an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism...

and ecological anarchism

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

are involved in direct action

Direct action

Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...

campaigns to protect the environment. Some campaigns have employed controversial tactics including sabotage

Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...

, blockade

Blockade

A blockade is an effort to cut off food, supplies, war material or communications from a particular area by force, either in part or totally. A blockade should not be confused with an embargo or sanctions, which are legal barriers to trade, and is distinct from a siege in that a blockade is usually...

s, and arson

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

, while most use peaceful protests such as marches, tree-sitting, and the like. There is substantial debate within the environmental movement as to the acceptability of these tactics, but almost all environmentalists condemn violent

Violence

Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

actions that can harm humans.

External links

Emerging Environmental Majority by Christina Larson
The Illusion of Preservation. Harvard Forestry
State of Denial
The Unlikely Environmentalists
Worldchanging - Leading online magazine about environmental sustainability
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Environment
Essays on environmental teachings of major religions
The State of the Environmental Movement Thoreau Institute
History of the environmental movement - Jeremiah Hall

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Scope of the movement

History

Conservation movement

Progressive era

New Deal

Post 1945

Beginning of the modern movement

Wilderness preservation

Anti-nuclear movement

Antitoxin groups

Federal legislation in the 1970s

Renewed focus on local action

“Post-environmentalism"

Environmental rights

Role of science

Criticisms of the Environmental Movement

DDT

Elitist

Wilderness myth

Debates within the movement

Environmentalism and politics

Radical environmentalism

See also

Further reading

External links