History of environmental movement full of twists, turns

 Story Highlights
 The modern American environmental movement is four decades old
 Movement began in the 1960s and was sanctioned in 1970 with creation of Earth Day
 Environmentalism became trendy by the 1990s but still faced political headwinds
 Recent concerns over climate change have given new urgency to the movement

(CNN) -- It was one of the most surreal images in American history: A river, so fouled with
industrial waste that it caught fire and burned. In June 1969, Cleveland's Cuyahoga River
become the poster child for the birth of the modern American environmental movement.

Concerns over air and water pollution helped spawn the modern environmental movement in the
1960s.

No matter that this was at least the tenth time the Cuyahoga had ignited. The times, they were a-
changing, and a burning river confirmed what many already believed: The environment was
changing, too.

Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring," published seven years earlier, had lit the spark. The mild-
mannered government scientist documented how the pesticide DDT was jeopardizing countless
bird species, from tiny hummingbirds to the national symbol, the bald eagle.
Smog from traffic and factories had become a national concern. And six months before the
torching of the Cuyahoga, a massive oil spill soiled the shores of Santa Barbara, California. In
the midst of the anti-Vietnam war movement, the women's movement, and more, a divided
America also found room for an environmental movement.

"We have been acting out the classic cartoon image of a man sitting on the branch of a tree and
sawing it off behind him," wrote Philip Shabecoff in his 1993 book, "A Fierce Green Fire: The
American Environmental Movement." Shabecoff described environmentalism as a "broad social
movement" that was attempting to build a "desperately needed but difficult and obstacle-strewn
road" out of humankind's increasingly polluted predicament.

The movement was sanctioned in April 1970 with a nationwide quasi-holiday, the first "Earth
Day." New organizations formed to rally the masses: Friends of the Earth (1969), the Natural
Resources Defense Council (1970), and Canadian-born Greenpeace (1971). Books touting
recycling, vegetarianism, and all aspects of a "green" lifestyle hit the best-seller list.

An ersatz Indian who called himself Iron Eyes Cody became a national icon thanks to a 30-
second TV spot, where he canoes through an industrial wasteland and sheds a tear for Mother
Earth. Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich became a semi-regular "Tonight Show" guest.

Rachel Carson was one thing, but this was Johnny Carson. The environment had arrived.

Even Richard Nixon went green. A President besieged by Vietnam protests saw an opportunity
to be the good guy. Nixon founded the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and signed a
flurry of landmark environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the
Endangered Species Act -- the vanguard of a new government ethic.

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The Earth was well on its way to being saved. Or so we thought.

Then the movement stalled. Slowed by its own accomplishments, internal squabbles and a
growing backlash that government and "greens" could be doing more harm than good, the
environment waned as a cause.

Jimmy Carter's energy-conservation message resonated for a time in the late '70's, but didn't
outlast his presidency. Ronald Reagan's anti-regulation message swept the country in 1980, and
enforcement of conservation and pollution laws dropped off dramatically.

The pendulum swung the other way in the late '80's following a massive industrial accident in
Bhopal, India (1984) and a nuclear calamity at Chernobyl (1986). After that, the bad news piled
on: We learned about the ozone hole, the first dire reports on global warming, and widespread
clearing of the world's rainforests.
iReport.com: Share your ideas on little things you can do to save the planet

Smaller, but more telegenic, indignities told the rest of the story: an orphaned garbage barge, on
a months-long sojourn in 1988, showed the folly of making too much waste, while some
particularly odious waste in the form of sewage and syringes took up residence on the beaches of
New Jersey.

In the 1988 election, George H.W. Bush seized the issue for the Republicans, promising to serve
as "the environmental President" and attacking his Democratic rival Mike Dukakis for failing to
clean up his hometown Boston Harbor. A few weeks before the elder Bush's inauguration, Time
Magazine lauded Earth as its "Planet of the Year."

By 1990, the Earth had gone Hollywood. ABC ran a two-hour, prime time Earth Day Special
whose celebrity-studded cast included Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Robin Williams and many
others.

Membership in environmental groups boomed, while retailers and manufacturers launched huge
ad campaigns touting their newfound green-ness. In 1992, the U.N. held its "Earth Summit,"
where 108 heads of state met to set goals and declare their good intentions for saving the earth.
iReport.com: "Redneck conservation" by combining chores
But in Clinton-era America, the environmental movement soon hit political roadblocks. By 1994,
Americans had once again had it with Big Government, and Newt Gingrich's "Contract With
America" swept in a new Congress bent on curbing environmental regulations. A big booster of
"market-based" environmentalism, the Speaker of the House outraged conservationists by
neutering some of their favorite government programs.

If environmental concern was blunted in 1994, it was buried in the aftermath of September 11,
2001. Despite a growing body of evidence about vanishing habitats, waning energy resources
and global warming, green issues languished in the global focus on fighting terrorism.

Also, President George W. Bush was not widely viewed as a friend of the Earth. The son of the
"Environmental President" led a push to cut budgets, slow enforcement and open up wilderness
areas to oil and natural gas exploration.

Then, once again, the pendulum swung back. Melting ice caps and back-to-back horrific
hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 rekindled widespread concern over global warming -- in
spite of the fact that there's no proven link between an individual storm like Katrina and climate
change.

Several years after exiting the political stage, Al Gore parlayed "An Inconvenient Truth," his
global-warming slide show, into an Oscar and half of a Nobel Peace Prize. Journalists re-focused
on the issue with ambitious projects such as CNN's "Planet in Peril."

Which brings us to today. President-elect Barack Obama is promising a stronger focus on

renewable energy and environmental stewardship. But Obama also is confronting a global
economic crisis, which may limit the time and the resources he can devote to environmental
problems.

Will financial chaos turn America and the world away from environmental concern yet again? Or
will refocusing on our energy and environmental problems restructure the way the world does
business? We'll know soon enough. Maybe this time, green will help get us out of the red.

CNN.com's Brandon Griggs contributed to this story.

Early Environmental Writing and Advocacy

Seminal works that serve as milestones in environmentalism come from writers and naturalists
from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.

1854 Henry David Thoreau’s Walden

1864 George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature

1872-1913 John Muir’s essays, articles and books about the Sierra Nevada
From the 1880s on, English romantics and reformers including John Ruskin, Octavia Hill and
Edward Carpenter articulate ideas about saving nature and man from the Industrial Revolution.
German foresters like Dietrich Brandis promulgate scientific conservation. Gifford Pinchot is the
first head of the U.S. Forest Service (1899).

1949  Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac

The tile for the film “A Fierce Green Fire” comes from the pioneering ecologist’s essay,
“Thinking Like a Mountain,” in which Leopold describes his experience as a young ranger
shooting a wolf.

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then
and have known ever since that there was something new to me in those eyes, something known
only to her and to the mountain. I was young then and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because
fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing
the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” —
Aldo Leopold

The First National Parks

National parks are established first in the United States: Yellowstone (1872), Sequoia (1890) and
Grand Canyon (1908).

The movement spreads to Australia and New Zealand (1879 and 1887), South Africa (Kruger
National Park grows out of a game reserve established in 1898), India (Kaziranga grows out of a
forest reserve from 1905) and Europe (Sweden establishes seven national parks in 1909.)

The First Conservation Groups

The first conservation groups are dedicated to saving wildlife and wild lands.

1886-1905  The National Audubon Society forms to save plume birds from ladies’ hatters

1887  The Boone & Crockett Club is set up to preserve “manly sport with rifles”
1892 The Sierra Club is established by John Muir and others to defend Yosemite National Park

1918 Save the Redwoods League begins buying the last old-growth redwood trees

1935 The Wilderness Society is started by Aldo Leopold and others to preserve wilderness; and
the National Wildlife Federation brings together hunters and fishermen

1946 The Ecologists Union, later the Nature Conservancy, is started by scientists to acquire
ecologically important reserves

1961 The World Wildlife Fund is founded by Sir Julian Huxley, Dutch and British royals

Key Dates in Environmental History

1962

The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson warns of devastation that pesticides, particularly DDT,
are wreaking on birds and other creatures. Carson is criticized by the chemical industry, but the
book is a bestseller and has an immense impact worldwide.

1963

Congress passes the Clean Air Act (expanding it in 1970, 1977 and 1990), and ratifies the
Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, ending testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere,
underwater, and in space.

1964

The Wilderness Act passes, setting aside 9.1 million acres to be preserved in perpetuity, “where
man is a visitor but does not remain.” Congress will add national forest, national park and
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands to the system, which will grow to 100 million acres.

1965
Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference—an alliance of local residents and national
environmental groups—challenges a hydroelectric plant at Storm King Mountain in New York.
The U.S. Court of Appeals rules that “aesthetic, conservational, or recreational” interests can
establish standing to sue, a precedent that leads to growth of environmental litigation.

1966

The Sierra Club publishes ads opposing U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to build two dams
inside the Grand Canyon. The IRS retaliates by suspending the tax deductibility of contributions
to the club. Public opinion rallies strongly to saving the Grand Canyon. Stewart Udall, Secretary
of the Interior and conservationist, has a change of heart. Congress first postpones the dams, then
prohibits dams in the Grand Canyon and expands the national park. It is a turning point, the
biggest victory yet for conservation.

1967

The Environmental Defense Fund is founded by scientists who begin litigation to ban the
pesticide DDT. Concurrently, Yale Law grads seeking to set up “a law firm for the environment”
combine with attorneys fighting Storm King hydroelectric plant, and the Natural Resources
Defense Council takes shape. The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (later Earthjustice) is the
third major group using lawsuits — from Storm King to Mineral King — to be formed during
this time.

1968

The flowering of the conservation movement climaxes with the creation of North Cascades
National Park, Redwood National Park, the Wild and Scenic Rivers System and the National
Trails Bill — all signed into law on the same day. The Population Bomb becomes a bestseller,
predicting famine in the wake of global overpopulation. The Whole Earth Catalog provides new
tools, technology and thought to those looking for alternatives. Its guiding spirit is Buckminster
Fuller, who becomes famous for a geodesic dome at Montreal Expo in 1967. He speaks of
Spaceship Earth and the need to guide it, to find ways of doing “more with less.”
1969

An oil rig in the Santa Barbara Channel blows out, creating a slick of 800 square miles and
killing 10,000 birds. Pollution leads to massive fish kills on Lake Erie. Then the Cuyahoga River
catches on fire. Pollution enters the national consciousness just as man landing on the Moon
makes clear how small and precious is Earth. David Brower is forced to resign as leader of the
Sierra Club, and re-emerges as Friends of the Earth.

1970

A big year begins with NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates
environmental impact reviews and becomes a powerful tool. The first test is the Alaska Pipeline;
Brower and his allies nearly stop it. A major extension of the Clean Air Act establishes national
air quality standards and regulates auto emissions. President Nixon forms the Environmental
Protection Agency. He is reacting to a huge surge in public concern about environmental issues.
Earth Day, conceived as a teach-in on a few campuses, draws 20 million, not just students but
housewives and boy scouts. It’s a pivotal event, turning from the old conservation to a new
environmental movement.

1971
Congress votes down the supersonic transport after environmentalists and fiscal hawks raise a
ruckus. The Cross-Florida Canal is stopped using NEPA. Oregon enacts the first bottle bill to
encourage recycling and stop litter. Greenpeace begins with pacifists and hippies sailing to the
Aleutian Islands to prevent a nuclear bomb test. They are intercepted and forced to turn back, but
cause quite a stir and end future tests.

1972

The Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Ocean Dumping Act all
become law. Nixon vetoes the Clean Water Act, but Congress overrides his veto. EPA bans
DDT. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment brings together a hundred
countries. The U.S. proposes a moratorium on whaling. Indira Gandhi talks back to the West
about population control. Activists protest against use of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange.
Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess proposes “deep ecology.” The Limits to Growth, a computer
model of future environmental trends, is published. The “standard run” leads to overshoot and
collapse. But it’s about alternatives; and it proves both controversial and influential.

1973

The Endangered Species Act passes Congress almost unanimously. The Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES, is
finalized. The Izaak Walton League sues the U.S. Forest Service to halt clear-cutting. Their
victory begins a turning away from “get-out-the-cut” first policies.

The environmental honeymoon comes to an end with the Arab oil boycott. It causes an energy
crisis that leads to fuel standards, speed limits, exploration of alternative and renewable energy
sources, and more. Construction begins on the last nuclear power plant, Watts Bar in Tennessee,
to come on line. And in California, organic farmers form into a group and set the first standards
for organic agriculture.

1974
 President Ford signs the Safe Drinking
Water Act. Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina first describe the way refrigerants (CFCs or
chlorofluorocarbons) break up ozone. Chipko, or the tree hugger movement, in India begins
when women in the village of Reni surround trees to prevent contractors from cutting them to
make cricket bats.

1975

The Eastern Wilderness Act is signed into law after a campaign lasting several years. It protects
207,000 acres, recovering forests acquired by the federal government after extensive logging. In
Wyhl, West Germany, protestors occupy the site of a proposed nuclear power plant until it is
canceled — the first victory for an anti-nuclear movement building in Europe.
Greenpeace sets off to hunt the whalers. After two months at sea, off the coast of California, they
come upon the Russian whaling fleet. They launch their Zodiacs, get between the whalers and
the whales, and film harpoons shooting over their heads. The story explodes and launches
Greenpeace on the wildest ride of any group.

1976

The National Forest Management Act gives the public new tools to protect national forests from
rampant logging. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act guides BLM land use,
establishing wilderness areas, and ending land claims under the 1862 Homestead Act. Foreign
Affairs publishes an essay by Amory Lovins entitled Energy Strategy, The Road Not Taken? It
describes a “hard path” relying on fossil fuels and nuclear fission, and a “soft path” that depends
on conservation and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Greenpeace launches a campaign to save baby harp seals. It’s Paul Watson’s idea. They get out
on the ice off Newfoundland and block the sealers’ ship, Arctic Endeavor. However, after
meeting fierce resistance, Greenpeace leader Bob Hunter agrees not to spray dye on the pelts to
render them worthless. Paul Watson is angry. Still, the baby harp seal campaign is a great
success and brings Greenpeace many adherents in Europe.

1977

Over 2,000 Clamshell Alliance protestors occupy the construction site of a nuclear reactor at
Seabrook, New Hampshire; 1,414 are arrested and detained. Only one of two reactors planned
ultimately comes on line; and the owner is bankrupted by the project. The Abalone Alliance also
begins protests against Diablo Canyon in California. The Green Belt Movement is founded by
Wangari Maathai in Kenya. Facing forest loss, soil erosion and desertification, she organizes
women to plant seedlings and pays them to make sure they grow into trees — over 50 million so
far.

Greenpeace returns to the harp seal rookeries. Paul Watson throws a sealer’s club in the water,
then chains himself to a pile of pelts. He’s slammed against the ship, then dunked. Mounties
demand he be brought on board the sealers’ ship. The crew tries to asphyxiate him with seal
blubber, then kick and spit as he’s dragged across the deck. After the second seal campaign, Paul
Watson is voted out of Greenpeace. At issue is breaking the ban on violence. But behind it is a
power struggle. Within months Paul forms Sea Shepherd Society.

1978

The Smithsonian Institution lists close to 10 percent of 22,000 plant species native to the
continental U.S. as threatened or endangered, largely because of habitat loss. In June the
Supreme Court upholds the Endangered Species Act in a case involving the snail darter, a tiny
fish threatened by the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River. Trying to overturn the ruling,
Congress creates a “God Squad” to judge what species are worth saving. However it votes in
favor of the snail darter. Congress then exempts the project and the dam is built. But the
Endangered Species Act withstands its first test. Sherry Rowland lobbies against CFC’s and the
EPA bans their use as propellants in aerosol cans. Amoco Cadiz wrecks off the coast of France,
spilling oil over 110 miles of coastline.

After a wet spring Love Canal begins bubbling up. Articles by Michael Brown expose 20,000
tons of toxic chemicals buried in an old canal by Hooker Chemical Company (they sold it to
Niagara Falls, N.Y. school district for $1; now the 99th St. Elementary School is built atop it.)
Lois Gibbs, whose son, Michael, is starting kindergarten and coming home sick, leads a
neighborhood protest. They go to Albany to see the governor and get diverted into a press
conference where the NY State Health Commissioner declares an emergency evacuation of the
nearest houses. But the neighbors around them get nothing. They organize into the Love Canal
Homeowners Association.

Paul Watson gets a ship with funding from Cleveland Amory of the Fund for Animals. Sea
Shepherd goes after pirate whalers in the Atlantic, starting with the notorious Sierra. On July 16
Paul catches and rams it twice. As the Sierra limps back into port, Watson surrenders to the
Portuguese Navy. The port captain rules there will be no charges. In November, Watson returns
to discover the Sierra being repaired, his Sea Shepherd confiscated and about to be handed over
to the owners of the Sierra. So on New Year’s Eve, he scuttles his own ship. Then they sink the
Sierra once and for all.
Greenpeace begins its next big campaign, against ocean dumping. They discover the GEM
dumping radioactive waste and run their Zodiacs under the barrels until one is smashed.
Confrontations over dumping at sea go on for years. In 1983, the London Dumping Convention
finally calls for a moratorium on dumping waste.

1979

In March Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, suffers a partial
meltdown. The accident is a major setback that brings a de facto end to building new nuclear
power plants in the U.S. EPA bans production of polychlorinated biphenyls, a toxic class of
persistent organic pollutants. Facing a spike in oil prices precipitated by the Iranian Revolution
and a broader “crisis of confidence,” President Carter addresses the nation in July, urging
conservation. He lowers federal thermostats, and installs solar panels on the White House roof
(President Reagan has the panels removed). Inspired by Edward Abbey’s novel The Monkey
Wrench Gang (1975), Earth First! is founded by four staffers from national environmental
organizations who have grown disillusioned. Its motto: “No Compromise in Defense of Mother
Earth.” In the Amazon, Tom Lovejoy initiates the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems project,
the first large-scale experiment in habitat fragmentation; it confirms biodiversity decline and
loss.

Love Canal protests enter a second year focused on health studies. The residents conduct their
own study and find that 56 percent of their children “were born with birth defects: three ears,
double rows of teeth, extra fingers or toes, or mentally retarded…Of 22 pregnancies only 4
normal babies were born.” NY State Health officials reject their study and do their own. In
August, they announce their findings at Love Canal. They got the same results, but ascribe them
to “a random clustering of genetically defective people.”

1980
 In June, the Supreme Court
rules that a genetically modified organism may be patented, in a case involving a bacterium to
help clean up oil spills. After a campaign led by the Sierra Club, the Alaska National Interest
Lands Conservation Act passes, protecting over 100 million acres — “the last chance to get it
right the first time.”

Love Canal comes to a climax when the EPA is called in and they find genetic damage. The
White House overrules a recommendation to relocate the residents. On May 16, Lois Gibbs and
her neighbors take EPA officials hostage and give President Carter an ultimatum. Two days later
he agrees to relocation. Congress passes Superfund in the wake of Love Canal; it identifies
hazardous waste sites across the country, determines parties responsible for cleanup, and
provides funds for federal remediation where the original polluters are bankrupt or
unidentifiable. It is underfunded most of its life.

Sea Shepherd clears the Atlantic Ocean of pirate whalers in one year. Ibsa1 & Ibsa2 are sunk in
Vigo, Spain. Posters offering a $25,000 reward for sinking the Astrid appear in Las Palmas,
Canary Islands; unable to trust their own crew, owners retire the vessel. In September, the South
African navy sinks the Susan and the Theresa after seizing them from the owners of the Sierra.
All illegal whaling in the Atlantic ceases.

1981

James Watt becomes Secretary of the Interior after leading the Mountain States Legal
Foundation, which represents miners, ranchers, timber and other extractive industries. A petition
calling for his ouster is signed by more than a million people. He resigns in 1983. Ann Gorsuch
is appointed to head EPA. But after 22 months of downsizing and refusing to enforce
regulations, she too is forced out. Her deputy Rita Lavelle is hauled up on Capitol Hill, lies about
spying and is convicted of contempt of Congress. A wind boom begins in California. 17,000
turbines are built, thanks to federal and state credits. But then bad policy kills the U.S. wind
power industry, which is overtaken by the Danes.

Lois Gibbs takes her Love Canal relocation money and moves to Washington, D.C., to form an
organization “to help all the other Loises.” Called CCHW and then CHEJ (Center for Health,
Environment and Justice), Lois becomes the nexus of grassroots groups fighting pollution and
poisons. Her motto is, “Plug up all the toilets.” They stop all new toxic waste dumps, then turn to
front-of-the-pipe and health issues.

1982

The International Whaling Commission approves a moratorium on commercial whaling to take

effect in 1985, thanks to a 10-year campaign carried out by activists throughout the world. Japan
and Norway defy the ban and continue whaling. Solar One, built in the Mojave Desert,
demonstrates the feasibility of solar thermal energy. In Warren County, North Carolina, the term
“environmental racism” is first used during a battle over a toxic waste dump forced on a poor,
black community. For six weeks local citizens and their supporters march and are arrested,
igniting environmental justice as a movement.

1983
After a year of harassing James Watt and pulling up survey stakes, Earth First! engages in
confrontation for the first time in the Kalmiopsis wilderness of Southern Oregon. They are called
in by an anonymous forest service employee to protest plans to log a stand of old-growth trees.
Earth First! activists block bulldozers on Bald Mountain long enough to get a court order
stopping the plan. Later the U.S. Forest Service cancels the timber sale, and the area is
incorporated into the South Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Paul Watson returns to campaigning for
baby harp seals; the Sea Shepherd escorts three sealing ships out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence
rookery. Canadian Coast Guard assault and board the ship. Paul is arrested, tried and sentenced
to 21 months in prison. Nine days into serving time, however, an appeals court reverses his
conviction. But he doesn’t get his ship back until 1985. The German Green Party wins 27 seats
in the Bundestag, a first.

1984

An accident at a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, releases MIC, methyl
isocyanate, killing an estimated 7,000 people within a few days and ultimately causing 15,000
more deaths. Union Carbide denies responsibility; its CEO, later arrested on manslaughter
charges, leaves India on bail and is not extradited.

1985

Joe Farman of the British Antarctic Survey reports in the May issue of Nature that a hole in the
ozone layer has opened over Antarctica. (They missed it the year before because their readings
were dismissed as errors.) Depletion of the ozone layer is occurring more rapidly than expected.
As the IWC whaling moratorium takes effect Paul Watson sinks half of Iceland’s whaling fleet.
In Auckland, New Zealand, Greenpeace’s ship Rainbow Warrior is blown up on its way to
protest against French nuclear bomb tests. It turns out that French intelligence agents did it.
Support for Greenpeace soars. The Rainforest Action Network begins by boycotting Burger King
until it stops importing beef from the Amazon. In Institute, West Virginia, a plume of MIC gas
escapes from Union Carbide’s factory — a twin to Bhopal — and sickens the town.

1986
On April 26, Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine explodes, releasing a radioactive
cloud over northern Europe — the worst nuclear disaster ever. Next a fire at Sandoz’s chemical
factory in Switzerland spews a poisonous pulse down the Rhine. EPA, FDA and USDA establish
the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology to regulate newly developed
transgenic organisms.

1987

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is adopted by more than 100
countries. It calls for a reduction in the emission of ozone-depleting chemicals by 2000, but is
amended in 1990 and 1992 to call for a complete phase-out of the use of chlorofluorocarbons,
halons, and carbon tetrachloride by 2000. Timber harvesting in U.S. national forests peaks at
12.7 billion board feet — only 5 percent of native unlogged forests remain in the lower 48 states.

1988
 During a heat wave in what turns
out to be the hottest year on record in the continental U.S., NASA climatologist Dr. James
Hansen testifies that, “The greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate
now.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is established to investigate whether
carbon dioxide and other gases are causing a warming of the global atmosphere and whether
human activity is a major contributor.

Chico Mendes, union organizer and leader of the rubber tappers in the western Amazon state of
Acre, is assassinated a few days before Christmas. Chico has just established the first rubber
tapper reserve — and his death proves to be a turning point in saving the Amazon. 58 million
acres are set aside in extractive reserves and 40 percent of the Brazilian Amazon is formally
protected.
1989

Exxon Valdez runs aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, spilling 11 million gallons of oil
over 6,000 square miles and killing hundreds of thousands of marine animals. Alar, an
agricultural chemical used on apples, is withdrawn following a study by the Natural Resources
Defense Council. In October, international trade in elephant ivory is banned. The Center for
Biological Diversity is founded by former Earth Firsters, one of the new grassroots biodiversity
protection groups that use litigation to compel implementation of environmental laws to protect
wildlife and wild places.

1990

The northern spotted owl is listed as a threatened subspecies under the Endangered Species Act,
following litigation brought by environmental groups. Sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. coal
plants reach 28 million tons, double pre-WWII levels. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990
strengthen rules to reduce “acid rain” — and introduce trade-able pollution permits for sulfur
dioxide emissions. The first cap-and-trade scheme heralds the third wave of environmentalism,
based on compromise and cooperation with business. Earth First! activist Judi Bari is bombed —
the bomb is planted under her car seat — while recruiting for Redwood Summer. In a Gallup
poll, 70 percent of Americans call themselves “environmentalists.”

1991

Judge Dwyer issues an injunction against new logging of northern spotted owl habitat in national
forests in the Pacific Northwest. It is the pivotal moment in a decades-long fight to turn the U.S.
Forest Service from “getting out the cut” to environmental values. The first National People of
Color Environmental Leadership Summit is held in Washington, D.C., attracting more than a
thousand participants. The war in Kuwait is an environmental disaster, with big oil spills and
fires. An Antarctica treaty takes force. Japan vows to end driftnet fishing.

1992
The U.N. sponsors an Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that brings all the world leaders together
for a moment of promise. Two major treaties are negotiated: the Convention on Biological
Diversity, which the U.S. refuses to sign; and the Framework Convention on Climate Change,
which the U.S. threatens not to sign unless reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases are
purely voluntary. President Bush declares, “The American way of life is not up for negotiation,”
but signs the UNFCCC. It becomes the basis for all future negotiations on climate change. At the
end of 1992, Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. sign the North America Free Trade Agreement,
easing trade restrictions among the three countries. The proposed treaty causes a rift within the
environmental movement, with some groups supportive and others claiming it will undermine
environmental laws. A driftnet fishing ban takes effect, as do rules on farmworker exposure to
pesticides.

1993

On January 4, 300,000 Ogoni people protest the destruction of their Niger River delta homeland
by Shell Oil, which leaks more than an Exxon Valdez every year. Thousands are killed and
journalist/environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa is arrested. In April, President Clinton hosts a
“Forest Summit” to try to solve the timber conflict. His team comes up with a compromise called
Option 9. The Clinton administration uses strong-arm tactics to get environmentalists not only to
accept it, but to release millions of board feet of timber sales as a good-faith gesture. By 1994,
the Northwest Forest Plan leads to an end to the moratorium on logging in northern spotted owl
habitat. Simultaneously, the Center for Biological Diversity files suit to protect the Mexican
spotted owl, which results in an injunction on logging in national forests across the Southwest.

1994

The FDA allows the sale of the rot-resistant Flavr SavrTM tomato, the first genetically modified
whole food intended for public consumption; after a variety of production problems, it is
withdrawn from the market within a few years. Genetically modified canola, corn, and soybeans
are subsequently approved by the FDA and begin to be widely adopted by U.S. farmers. In June,
Exxon Mobil is ordered to pay $5 billion in damages in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster;
the company immediately appeals.
1995

The National Park Service begins a controversial plan to reintroduce the gray wolf into
Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves from Canada are released. Ken Saro-Wiwa is
wrongfully executed by Nigerian authorities with the complicity and support of Shell Oil. Next,
Greenpeace activists occupy a Shell Oil drilling platform called the Brent Spar in the North Sea;
it was to be scuttled but is brought ashore after a consumer boycott gives Shell Oil a second
black eye in one year. EPA identifies 126 types of ecosystems that are threatened or critically
endangered.

1996

Like Teddy Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to save the Grand Canyon in 1908, President
Clinton uses the same law to create Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, an area north
of the Grand Canyon threatened with mining. In California, the Headwaters Forest fight —
pitting grassroots activists against corporate raiders liquidating the last old-growth redwoods in
private hands — culminates in acquisition of the largest old-growth grove. Before the deal is
sealed, Judi Bari dies of cancer; Julia Butterfly Hill tree-sits for two years; and David “Gypsy”
Chain is killed by a tree felled on him by loggers from Pacific Lumber.

1997

The Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases is agreed to in December and signed by the U.S.,
although President Clinton declines to submit it to the Senate in the wake of the Byrd-Hagel
resolution, passed by a vote of 95–0, which opposes key provisions of the agreement. Concerned
over environmental justice, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeks “further study” before
licensing a uranium-enrichment facility at Homer, Louisiana, blocking the facility. The National
Cancer Institute reports on radiation exposures from Cold War atmospheric nuclear testing in
Nevada; an estimated 120,000 excess thyroid cancers and 6,000 deaths may have been caused by
these tests.

1998
It is the hottest year on record — again (to be superseded in 2005 and 2010).

1999

In November, tens of thousands of loosely affiliated anti-globalization protestors—including a

variety of environmental, labor, religious, student and anarchist groups—stage demonstrations in
Seattle and disrupt the third ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization. 1999 is the
pivotal year for Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) trying to halt a dam in
India, marked by protests and satyagraha led by Medha Patkar as lands behind the dam are
submerged.

2000

The population of the U.S. exceeds 281 million. Seventy-five percent of Americans live in and
around cities, up from 20 percent at the time of the Civil War. Toyota introduces a hybrid
gasoline-electric auto, the Prius, which becomes a bestseller. In Kentucky, a Massey Energy dam
collapses and 300 million gallons of coal slurry explode out of a mountainside. Clinton’s last act
as president is declaring 58 million acres of national forests off limits to logging. The “roadless
rule” survives several court challenges. Rainforest logging is banned in New Zealand after a 30-
year campaign.

2001

President Bush rejects the Kyoto Protocol as “fatally flawed in fundamental ways.” After secret
meetings with industry leaders, Vice President Cheney announces a National Energy Policy
emphasizing oil exploration and new coal and nuclear power plants. Rodolfo Montiel and
Teodoro Cabrera, who fight to save tropical rainforests in the Sierra Madre of Mexico, are
convicted of arms and drug smuggling despite evidence of torture. President Fox frees them after
their attorney is murdered. Satellite photos reveal that a third of Guerrero’s forests are gone and
Mexico is losing three million acres per year. University of California ecologist Ignacio Chapela
presents evidence that genetically modified corn has contaminated wild varieties in the Mexican
state of Oaxaca. A NASA survey of 2,000 glaciers finds that most are shrinking. In China,
relocation of one million people to make way for the Three Gorges Dam leads to protest and
police violence.

2002

The USDA creates the National Organic Program, regulating organic food production. The
German government announces plans for a massive increase in wind generation capacity over
the next 25 years. The U.S. wind energy industry wins passage of an extended production tax
credit for electricity generated by wind power. A jury in Anniston, Alabama, rules that Monsanto
polluted the town with tons of toxic PCB.

2003

The Bush administration wins a court victory on mountaintop removal mining that allows
“spoils” to be dumped into streams. Next Bush proposes “Clear Skies” legislation to weaken
targets for pollutants from power plants. Senator Inhofe passes an amendment rolling back New
Source Review. However 12 eastern states win a court injunction blocking Bush from weakening
clean air laws. Europe is hit by the hottest summer in 500 years; the death toll is 70,000. The
GloFish®, a genetically modified zebra fish, is the first transgenic organism sold as a pet.

2004

Russia ratifies the Kyoto Protocol, putting it into effect without U.S. approval. Wangari Maathai
wins the Nobel Prize. The National Wetlands Inventory reports that, since 1998, the U.S. has
seen a small net gain in wetlands acreage: restoration programs and land set-asides have
balanced ongoing losses from development.

2005

Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in August, heightening anxieties
about global warming, a possible intensifier of the region’s weather patterns. The governors of
seven northeastern states agree to a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon dioxide emissions, the
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempts fracking (hydraulic
fracturing) from EPA regulation — infamous as the “Halliburton loophole.” By 2010 anti-
fracking movements arise, aimed at saving the Delaware River basin; and Gasland by Josh Fox
premieres at Sundance.

2006

The documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, featuring Al Gore giving a Powerpoint on the
dangers of global warming, plays a transformative role in bringing back the issue of climate
change. The state of California passes the Global Warming Solutions Act, mandating a reduction
in greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2020. Scientists discover losses among
commercial honey-bee colonies; named “Colony Collapse Disorder,” the phenomenon becomes
a subject of ongoing concern. President Bush establishes the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
Marine National Monument, an ocean reserve of 140,000 square miles. The Great Bear Forest is
established on the coast of British Columbia: 5 million acres saved from logging. Greenland
glaciers are melting twice as fast as estimated.

2007

After years of recovery, the bald eagle is removed from the list of threatened species. Melting
across the Arctic takes off at a gallop; in September, satellite imagery reveals that the Northwest
Passage is free of ice and fully navigable. In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency,
the Supreme Court rules that the 1990 Clean Air Act gives EPA regulatory authority over
automobile greenhouse gas emissions, an authority EPA avoided claiming. Bill McKibben and
six students from Middlebury College form Step It Up and organize 2,000 rallies across the
country. In 2008, they become 350.org.

Also launching in 2007 is Avaaz, an online activist network that grows to 20 million members in
194 countries. The first new nuclear power plants in 30 years are proposed in Texas, but their
owner abandons the permit process in 2011. China overtakes the U.S. as the world’s leading
emitter of greenhouse gases — though Americans are responsible for over six times as much
greenhouse gas per capita.

2008
The polar bear is listed as a threatened species. The Center for Biological Diversity pioneers use
of the Endangered Species Act to address global warming. It has a 90 percent success rate, has
protected 335 species and 43 million acres of critical habitat, proving, “You don’t have to be
moderate to be effective.” Scandal rocks the U.S. DOI’s Minerals and Management Service:
gifts, sex and drugs in exchange for oil leases. Marina Silva, rubber tapper and now Brazil’s
environment minister, resigns to protest failure to protect the Amazon rainforest. She will run for
president in 2010 and poll 20 percent of the vote. GCCA, the Global Call for Climate Action, is
formed by 270 NGOs; their first campaign is Tck, Tck, Tck, aimed at a climate deal in
Copenhagen. In Antarctica, the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapses. Cyclone Nargis kills at least 138,000
in Burma. Another coal disaster ends the year: one billion gallons of coal fly ash sludge spill out
of a TVA dam.

2009

In President Obama’s first year, auto mileage standards are raised 10 mpg to 35.5 mpg; EPA
rules six greenhouse gases are a danger to the public and should be regulated; and the largest
wilderness bill in 15 years sets aside 2 million acres. The G-8 industrial nations agree to cut
greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050, a prelude to COP15. But in Copenhagen, climate
negotiations collapse. The U.S. offers to cut emissions less than expected and China seizes on the
resulting gridlock as an opportunity to walk out. President Obama tries to save the day with an
“accord.” But it is a pledge exercise, not a binding treaty — and it becomes meaningless when
climate legislation dies in the U.S. Congress.

2010

On March 31, President Obama proposes an Offshore Drilling Plan which will open vast
expanses along the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and north coast of Alaska. Less than three
weeks later, disaster strikes: BP’s Macondo oil well, being drilled by the Deepwater Horizon,
explodes. Over 200 million gallons of crude oil leak out in the next five months, devastating
coastlines from Louisiana to Florida. Moscow, surrounded by 800 wildfires, uses them as an
excuse to cut down the Khimki Forest, which Yevgenia Chirikova and Ecodefense have been
fighting to save from a highway. At Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine, a methane
explosion kills 29 miners. The Cape Wind project is approved. Proposition 23, aimed at halting
California’s climate legislation, is defeated. Australia sues Japan over whaling in the Southern
Ocean Sanctuary.

2011

In Japan, following an earthquake and tsunami, the Fukushima nuclear power complex suffers
reactor meltdown, explosions and fires ignited by fuel rods. Germany decides to phase out
nuclear power. Nations and states set renewable energy goals: 30 percent by 2020 for California;
20 percent by 2020 in Europe. Tar Sands Action — joined by NRDC, Sierra Club, 350.org,
National Wildlife Federation, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network
— begin protesting against the Keystone XL pipeline. In August, old lions like James Hansen
and Gus Speth get arrested outside the White House. In November, protestors surround the
White House. Obama rejects Keystone’s application in January. Arctic sea ice reaches a historic
low and Hurricane Irene drenches the U.S. east coast.

2012

EPA issues the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from newly built power plants. NASA
reports that the Greenland Ice Sheet melt is the most rapid since observations began 30 years
ago. 2012 is the warmest year on record, by far, in the U.S. Hurricane Sandy hits New York with
a 40-foot surge and becomes the second-most destructive hurricane in history.

2013

350.org and the Sierra Club launch the year with the biggest climate action rally yet. Carbon
trading begins in California. Nuclear power plants begin to close around the U.S.: Crystal River
in Florida, declared “inoperable”; San Onofre, due to “expensive repair bills”; Kewaunee in
Wisconsin; and Zion near Chicago. Electric utilities using coal go bankrupt, undercut by fracked
natural gas. EPA finally moves to issue regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from existing
power plants. Beijing struggles through months of toxic smog in the winter of 2012-2013.
Tornadoes in the U.S. set a new record: 811. No hurricanes hit the U.S., but the Philippines are
devastated by Typhoon Haiyan. Meanwhile, North Carolina outlaws sea level rise. An oil train
explosion wipes out Lac Mégantic, Quebec. Two more derailments occur in early 2014.
Northwestern opposition to coal trains stops three planned terminals, with three more to go. Last
we heard, the Enbridge pipeline to carry tar sands oil west through Canada was stalled…and the
Keystone XL battle goes on.

ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT.

The modern environmental movement differed from an early form of environmentalism that
flourished in the first decades of the twentieth century, usually called conservationism. Led by
such figures as Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, the conservationists focused on the
wise and efficient use of natural resources. Modern environmentalism arose not out of a
productionist concern for managing natural resources for future development, but as a consumer
movement that demanded a clean, safe, and beautiful environment as part of a higher standard of
living. The expanding post‒World War II economy raised consciousness about the
environmental costs of economic progress, but it also led increasingly affluent Americans to
insist upon a better quality of life. Since the demand for a cleaner, safer, and more beautiful
environment that would enhance the quality of life could not be satisfied by the free market,
environmentalists turned toward political action as the means to protect the earth. Still, the
preservationist strand of the conservationist movement was an important precursor to the modern
environmental movement. As represented by such figures as John Muir of the Sierra Club and
Aldo Leopold of the Wilderness Society, the preservationists argued that natural spaces such as
forests and rivers were not just raw materials for economic development, but also aesthetic
resources. Thus, they stated that the government needed to protect beautiful natural spaces from
development through such measures as establishing national parks. In the post‒World War II era,
many more Americans gained the resources to pursue outdoor recreational activities and travel to
national parks. Thus, preservationist ideas came to enjoy widespread popularity. No longer
simply the province of small groups led by pioneers such as Muir and Leopold, preservationism
became part of a mass movement.

Yet while preservationism was an important part of the environmentalism's goals, the
movement's agenda was much broader and more diverse. While preservationism focused on
protecting specially designated nonresidential areas, environmentalists shifted attention to the
effects of the environment on daily life. In the 1960s and 1970s, the environmental movement
focused its attention on pollution and successfully pressured Congress to pass measures to
promote cleaner air and water. In the late 1970s, the movement increasingly addressed
environmental threats created by the disposal of toxic waste. Toward the end of the century, the
environmental agenda also included such worldwide problems as ozone depletion and global
warming.

Environmentalism was based on the spread of an ecological consciousness that viewed the
natural world as a biological and geological system that is an interacting whole. Ecologists
emphasized human responsibility for the impact of their daily living on a wider natural world,
fearing that human disruption of the earth's ecosystem threatened the survival of the planet. The
spread of ecological consciousness from the scientific world to the general public was reflected
in popular metaphors of the planet as Spaceship Earth or Mother Earth. An ecological
consciousness was evident even in works of popular culture. For instance, in his 1971 hit song
"Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," Marvin Gaye sang:

Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east
Radiation underground and in the sky, animals and birds who live near by all die
What about this overcrowded land
How much more abuse from man can she stand?Many historians find the publication of Rachel
Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 to be a convenient marker for the beginning of the modern
American environmental movement. Silent Spring, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New
York Times best-seller list, alerted Americans to the negative environmental effects of DDT, a
potent insecticide that had been used in American agriculture starting in World War II. The
concern about the use of DDT that the book raised led John F. Kennedy to establish a
presidential advisory panel on pesticides. More significantly, however, Silent Spring raised
concerns that the unchecked growth of industry would threaten human health and destroy animal
life—the title of the work referred to Carson's fear that the continued destruction of the
environment would eventually make the birds who sang outside her window extinct. Thus, Silent
Spring conveyed the ecological message that humans were endangering their natural
environment, and needed to find some way of protecting themselves from the hazards of
industrial society. Along with the problem of nuclear war, Carson stated, "The central problem of
our age has … become the contamination of man's total environment with … substances of
incredible potential for harm."

The 1960s was a period of growth for the environmental movement. The movement began with a
newfound interest in preservationist issues. In that decade, membership in former conservationist
organizations like the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club skyrocketed from 123,000 in 1960
to 819,000 in 1970. President Lyndon Johnson also took an interest in preservationist issues.
Between 1963 and 1968, he signed into law almost three hundred conservation and beautification
measures, supported by more than $12 billion in authorized funds. Among these laws, the most
significant was the Wilderness Act of 1964, which permanently set aside certain federal lands
from commercial economic development in order to preserve them in their natural state. The
federal government also took a new interest in controlling pollution. Congress passed laws that
served as significant precedents for future legislative action on pollution issues—for instance, the
Clean Air Acts of 1963 and 1967, the Clean Water Act of 1960, and the Water Quality Act of
1965.

During the 1960s, environmentalism became a mass social movement. Drawing on a culture of
political activism inspired in part by the civil rights and antiwar movements, thousands of
citizens, particularly young middle-class white men and women, became involved with
environmental politics. The popularity of the environmental agenda was apparent by 1970. In
that year, the first Earth Day was organized on 22 April to focus the public's attention on threats
to the environment. In New York City, 100,000 people thronged Fifth Avenue to show their
support for protecting the earth. Organizers estimated that fifteen hundred colleges and ten
thousand schools took part in Earth Day, and Time magazine estimated that about twenty million
Americans participated in the event in some fashion.

Earth Day was organized by Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson, who wanted to send "a big
message to the politicians—a message to tell them to wake up and do something." Thanks to
widespread public support for environmental goals, the 1970s became a critical decade for the
passage of federal legislation. In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed into law the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which required an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for
all "major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment." During
the 1970s, twelve thousand such statements were prepared.

Along with the growth of the environmental movement, a series of well-publicized

environmental crises in the late 1960s focused the nation's attention on the need to control
pollution. Examples include the 1969 blowout of an oil well platform off the coast of Santa
Barbara, which contaminated scenic California beaches with oil, and in the same year the
bursting into flames of the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland, Ohio, because of toxic
contamination. In the 1970s, Congress passed important legislation to control pollution. The
most significant of these new laws included the Clear Air Act of 1970, the Pesticide Control Act
of 1972, the Ocean Dumping Act of 1972, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments
of 1972, the Clean Air Act of 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and the Toxic
Substance Control Act of 1976. These laws established national environmental quality standards
to be enforced by a federally dominated regulatory process known as command and control. The
Clean Air Act, for instance, established national air quality standards for major pollutants that
were enforced by a federal agency.

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Other significant environmental legislation passed in the 1970s included the preservationist
measures of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Federal Land Policy and Management
Act of 1976. Another significant piece of legislation, the Comprehensive Environmental
Response Compensation and Liability Act, or Superfund Act, was passed in 1980. Designed to
help control toxic hazards, the act established federal "superfund" money for the cleanup of
contaminated waste sites and spills.

To enforce federal regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in 1970.
An independent federal agency, the EPA was given consolidated responsibility for regulating
and enforcing federal programs on air and water pollution, environmental radiation, pesticides,
and solid waste. In response to the flurry of environmental regulation passed by Congress in the
1970s, the EPA expanded its operations: it began with a staff of eight thousand and a budget of
$455 million and by 1981 had a staff of nearly thirteen thousand and a budget of $1.35 billion.
Enforcing environmental regulations proved to be a difficult and complex task, particularly as
new legislation overburdened the agency with responsibilities. The enforcement process required
the gathering of various types of information—scientific, economic, engineering, and political—
and the agency needed to contend with vigorous adversarial efforts from industry and
environmental organizations.

The flurry of federal environmental regulation resulted in part from the rise of a powerful
environmental lobby. Environmental organizations continued to expand their ranks in the 1970s.
Membership in the Sierra Club, for instance, rose from 113,000 in 1970 to 180,000 in 1980.
During the 1970s, mainstream environmental organizations established sophisticated operations
in Washington, D.C. Besides advocating new environmental legislation, these groups served a
watchdog function, ensuring that environmental regulations were properly enforced by the EPA
and other federal agencies. While these organizations focused on their own specific issues and
employed their own individual strategies, a Group of Ten organizations met regularly to discuss
political strategy. This group consisted of the National Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife,
the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Policy Institute, the Izaak Walton League,
the National Wildlife Federation, the National Resources Defense Council, the National Parks
Conservation Association, the Sierra Club, and the Wilderness Society. During this decade,
mainstream environmental organizations became increasingly professionalized, hiring more full-
time staff. They hired lobbyists to advocate for environmental legislation, lawyers to enforce
environmental standards through the courts, and scientists to prove the need for environmental
regulation and counter the claims of industry scientists.

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In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a number of critics obtained an audience by asserting that the
ecosystem placed limits on economic development and often giving a bleak outlook for the
earth's future. For instance, Paul Ehrlich's 1968 work, The Population Bomb, which brought the
issue of global overpopulation to the nation's attention, apocalyptically claimed that "the battle to
feed all of humanity is over" and made a number of dire predictions that turned out to be false.
The Club of Rome's best selling The Limits of Growth (1972), written by a team of MIT
researchers, offered a melancholy prediction of environmental degradation resulting from
population pressure, resource depletion, and pollution. But while such critics reached an
audience for a short period of time, their calls to address long-term threats to the earth's
ecosystem, such as world population growth, went unheeded.

The 1980s: Environmental Backlash and Radical Environmentalism

In the 1970s, environmental goals enjoyed a broad bipartisan consensus in Washington. The
election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 changed that. Espousing a conservative, pro-business
ideology, Reagan sought to free American corporations from an expanding regulatory apparatus.
Reagan capitalized on the late 1970s Sagebrush Rebellion

of westerners who sought to have federal land transferred to the states in order to avoid federal
environmental regulations. Reagan appointed a leader of the Sagebrush Rebellion, James Watt,
as secretary of the Interior. Watt took a strong pro-development stand hostile to the traditional
resource preservation orientation of the Interior Department. He used his post to portray all
environmentalists as radicals outside the American mainstream. Reagan also appointed as EPA
head Anne Burford, a person committed to curtailing the agency's enforcement of environmental
regulations. Between 1980 and 1983, the EPA lost one-third of its budget and one-fifth of its
staff. Underfunded and understaffed, these cuts had a lasting effect on the agency, leaving it
without the resources to fulfill all of its functions.

Yet while Reagan was able to stalemate the environmental agenda, his anti-environmentalist
posture proved unpopular. The American public still overwhelmingly supported environmental
goals. Environmentalist organizations were able to expand their membership in response to
Reagan's policies. Between 1980 and 1990, the Sierra Club's membership multiplied from
180,000 to 630,000, while the Wilderness Society's membership soared from 45,000 to 350,000.
In 1983, Reagan was forced to replace Watt and Buford with more moderate administrators. In
the mid-1980s, a number of new environmental laws were passed, including the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act Amendments of 1984, the Safe Drinking Water Act
Amendments of 1986, and the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. As a
testament to the continuing popularity of environmental goals, Reagan's Republican vice
president, George Bush Sr., declared himself an "environmentalist" in his 1988 campaign for
president. On Earth Day 1990, President Bush stated that "Every day is Earth Day" and even
major industries that were the target of environmental regulation, such as oil and gas, took out
advertisements in major newspapers stating, "Every day is Earth Day for us."

The 1980s saw a splintering of the environmental movement. A number of radical

environmentalist groups challenged the mainstream environmental organizations, claiming that
they had become centralized bureaucracies out of touch with the grassroots and were too willing
to compromise the environmental agenda. One of the groups to make this challenge was Earth
First!, which appeared on the national scene in 1981 espousing the slogan, "No compromise in
the defense of Mother Earth." Earth First! employed a variety of radical tactics, including direct
action, civil disobedience, guerilla theater, and "ecotage," the sabotage of equipment used for
clear cutting, road-building, and dam construction. Two other radical environmentalist
organizations were Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace—each was a global organization formed
in the 1970s that had significant support in the United States. Friends of the Earth was founded
by the former Sierra Club director, David Brower. It pursued activist strategies and argued that
protection of the environment required fundamental political and social change. Greenpeace's
aggressive campaigns against nuclear testing, whaling, sealing, nuclear power, and radioactive
waste disposal received increasing attention during the 1980s. In addition, some radical
environmentalists showed a new interest in deep ecology, which challenged the traditional
anthropomorphism of the environmental movement.

The 1980s also saw the growth of grassroots organizations that organized to oppose threats to
their local environment: a contaminated waste site, a polluting factory, or the construction of a
new facility deemed to be harmful. Because their concerns were locally oriented and generally
consisted of the removal of a specific environmental threat, they were referred to as NIMBY
(Not in My Backyard) organizations. The threat of contaminated waste sites raised concerns
throughout the country, particularly after the publicity surrounding the evacuation of Love Canal,
New York, in the late 1970s after it was revealed that the town had been built on contaminated
soil. National organizations arose to support local efforts, including the Citizen's Clearinghouse
for Hazardous Waste, founded by former Love Canal resident Lois Gibbs, and the National
Toxics Campaign. Grassroots environmental groups continued to form throughout the 1980s.
While Citizen's Clearinghouse worked with 600 groups in 1984, by 1988 it was working with
over 4,500. NIMBYism often limited the impact of these groups, since they frequently disbanded
once their particular issue of concern was resolved. Yet participation in these organizations often
raised the consciousness of participants to larger environmental issues.

The late 1980s saw the growth of the environmental justice movement, which argued that all
people have a right to a safe and healthy environment. Those concerned with environmental
justice argued that poor and minority Americans are subjected to disproportionate environmental
risks. It concentrated on such issues as urban air pollution, lead paint, and transfer stations for
municipal garbage and hazardous waste. Environmental justice organizations widened the
support base for environmentalism, which had traditionally relied upon the educated white
middle class. The success of the environmental justice movement in bringing the racial and class
dimension of environmental dangers to the nation's attention was reflected in the creation of the
Office of Environmental Justice by the EPA in 1992.

By the end of the 1980s, the environmental movement had increasingly come to focus its
attention on global issues that could only be resolved through international diplomacy. Issues
such as global warming, acid rain, ozone depletion, biodiversity, marine mammals, and rain
forests could not be dealt with merely on the national level. As residents in the world's largest
economy, and consequently the world's largest polluter, consumer of energy, and generator of
waste, American environmentalists felt a special responsibility to ensure their country's
participation in international agreements to protect the earth.

While the United States was a reluctant participant in international efforts to address
environmental concerns compared with other industrial nations, the federal government did take
steps to address the global nature of the environmental issue. In 1987, the United States joined
with 139 other nations to sign the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone
Layer. The protocol pledged the signees to eliminate the production of chlorofluorocarbons,
which cause destruction to the ozone layer. In 1992, representatives from 179 nations, including
the United States, met in Brazil at the Conference on Environment and Development, where they
drafted a document that proclaimed twenty-eight guiding principles to strengthen global
environmental governance. Responding to criticism that the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) was likely to harm the North American environment, President Bill
Clinton in 1993 negotiated a supplemental environmental agreement with Mexico and Canada to
go along with NAFTA. While some environmental organizations endorsed that agreement,
others claimed that it did not go far enough in countering the negative environmental effects of
NAFTA. In 1997, Clinton committed the United States to the Kyoto Protocol, which set forth
timetables and emission targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
President George W. Bush, however, rescinded this commitment when he took office in 2001.

Environmentalists were an important part of an "antiglobalization" coalition that coalesced at the

end of the 1990s. It argued that the expansion of the global economy was occurring without
proper environmental and labor standards in place. In 1999, globalization critics gained
international attention by taking to the streets of Seattle to protest a meeting of the World Trade
Organization.

In 1996, environmentalists critical of mainstream politics formed a national Green Party,

believing that a challenge to the two-party system was needed to push through needed
environmental change. In 1996 and 2000, the Green Party ran Ralph Nader as its presidential
candidate. In 2000, Nader received 2.8 million votes, or 2.7 percent of the vote. The party elected
a number of candidates to local office, particularly in the western states.

Achievements and ChallengesAs the twentieth century ended, American environmentalists could
point to a number of significant accomplishments. The goal of protecting the planet remained a
popular one among the general public. In 2000, Americans celebrated the thirty-first Earth Day.
In a poll taken that day, 83 percent of Americans expressed broad agreement with the
environmental movement's goals and 16 percent reported that they were active in environmental
organizations. In 2000, the thirty largest environmental organizations had close to twenty million
members. Meanwhile, the country had committed significant resources to environmental control.
In 1996, the U.S. spent $120 billion on environmental control—approximately 2 percent of its
gross domestic product.

Environmental regulations put in place in the 1960s and 1970s had led to cleaner air and water.
In 1997, the EPA reported that the air was the cleanest it had been since the EPA began record
keeping in 1970; the emissions of six major pollutants were down by 31 percent. In 2000, the
EPA reported that releases of toxic materials into the environment had declined 42 percent since
1988. The EPA also estimated that 70 percent of major lakes, rivers, and streams were safe for
swimming and fishing—twice the figure for 1970. The dramatic cleanup of formerly
contaminated rivers such as the Cuyahoga and the Potomac was further evidence that
antipollution efforts were having their desired effects.

Yet many environmentalists remained pessimistic about the state of the planet. Despite the
nation's progress in reducing pollution, at the end of the 1990s sixty-two million Americans lived
in places that did not meet federal standards for either clean air or clean water. The Super-fund
program to clean up toxic areas had proven both costly and ineffective. In the mid-1990s, of the
thirteen hundred "priority sites of contamination" that had been identified by the EPA under the
program, only seventy-nine had been cleaned up. The political stalemate on environmental
legislation that persisted for much of the 1980s and 1990s stymied efforts to update outdated
pollution control efforts. In addition, a number of media sources in the late 1990s reported that
America's national parks were underfunded and overcrowded because of cuts in the federal
budget.

A more serious problem was related to do the nation's unwillingness to address long-term threats
to the environment such as global warming, population growth, and the exhaustion of fossil fuel
resources. Global warming threatened to raise ocean levels and generate violent and
unpredictable weather, affecting all ecosystems; unrestrained world population growth would put
greater pressure on the earth's limited natural resources; and the eventual exhaustion of fossil fuel
resources would require the development of new forms of energy. The administration of George
W. Bush represented the United States' lack of attention to these issues: not only did Bush pull
the nation out of the Kyoto Protocol designed to control global warming, but his energy policy
consisted of an aggressive exploitation of existing fossil fuel resources without significant efforts
to find alternate sources of energy.

By the end of the twentieth century, many environmentalists showed a new concern with the goal
of sustainable development, which sought long-term planning to integrate environmental goals
with social and economic ones. Yet even as environmental organizations addressed global issues
such as global warming, population growth, and the exhaustion of fossil fuel resources, the
American public remained more concerned with more tangible issues such as air and water
pollution. Indeed, the environmental movement had been successful because it had promised a
tangible increase in the everyday quality of life for Americans through a cleaner, safer, and more
beautiful environment. Mobilizing popular support to combat more abstract and long-term
ecological threats thus presented environmentalists with a challenge. If they proved unable to
prevent future degradation of the earth's environment from these long-term threats, few
environmentalists would consider their movement a real success.

Environmental Movement

History is marked by movements that challenge the dominant political ideology in ways that
cannot go unnoticed. Civil rights, women's rights—such movements are often rooted in small
beginnings, the passion of few, which becomes the cause of many. Born from late-nineteenth-
century concern over resource exploitation, the environmental movement has become an
overarching term for the growing public interest in protecting Earth and its natural resources.

Naturalists like John Muir, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and forester Aldo Leopold, in the
1930s and 1940s, invested their time and spirit extolling the virtues of the U.S. wilderness. Both
men shared a common vision for protecting the dynamic landscape of mountains and grasslands
that was a distinguishing characteristic of the United States. The ensuing battles over damming
rivers and logging forests helped shape the modern environmental ethic.

A Crusade for Reform

As the nation grew, the gap between people and the natural environment was widening. The
introduction of railroads, telegraphs, and stockyards, helped transform cities into major industrial
centers. Populations within cities increased, as immigrants flocked to them seeking employment.
The resulting noise, grit, and industrial waste compelled women in the cities to take action. In
Chicago, social worker Jane Addams was prepared to do just that. Coupled with the efforts of
Alice Hamilton and Mary McDowell, Hull House was formed in 1888.

The creation of Hull House helped mark what is known as the Settlement House era. Across the
United States, settlement houses sought to reform communities by raising public awareness
about problems to find resolutions. Working-class neighborhoods were in the most dire straits,
with overcrowding and poor sanitation. Hull House was concerned with the need for solid waste
and sewage management in poor working neighborhoods. To remedy this, Addams became trash
inspector for her Chicago ward. Likewise, McDowell motivated people to consider reduction,
and pressured industries to take responsibility for their trash and sewage disposal.

The crusade for reforming working-class neighborhoods continued as McDowell opened a new
settlement house in the meat-packing section of Chicago. Between the polluted waters of the
Chicago River and the fields of slaughterhouse waste, McDowell began to make a strong
connection between the conditions of work and daily life. Most people working in the industrial
sections of the city couldn't afford to live anywhere else. Industrial byproducts that contaminated
the city's air and water were unregulated, and industries weren't compelled to address the
problem. Under Teddy Roosevelt, reformers like Addams were drawn to the Progressive Party.
Joining the political ranks, reformers provided greater visibility to the problems of pollution and
social injustice. Consequently, leagues representing women and consumer interests gained
popularity. In the 1920s the National Consumer's League exposed the use of dangerous
chemicals in the watch industry, and the Gauley Bridge deaths put the national spotlight on the
role played by industry in the health of its employees.

An Age of Abundance

At the end of World War II, the United States underwent rapid economic growth. The postwar
abundance could be easily pinpointed by the mass consumption of everything from energy and
detergents to plastics and pesticides. Goods were created and marketed to provide convenience,
and amenities were plentiful. As Samuel Hays observed, a "greater distance between
consumption and its environmental consequences increasingly depersonalized the links between
the two" (Hays, p. 16). If people couldn't see an immediate environmental impact, society could
ignore it.

The postwar impact on the environment was difficult to ignore. Within ten years, three major
bouts of air pollution paralyzed the United States and Europe. In 1943 a thick smog trapped
residents of Los Angeles in an unhealthy shroud of air pollution that came to be known as Black
Monday. Five years later, in the Pennsylvania town of Donora, another deadly smog hung over
the Monongahela Valley leaving six thousand people ill and twenty dead. In perhaps the worst
case of air pollution, a deadly fog descended on London in 1952, killing several thousand. Yet in
spite of these and other environmental problems, the general public and policymakers remained
relatively unconcerned.

What did finally awaken the public was the growth of an antinuclear movement in the early
1950s. As the United States performed aboveground testing of nuclear weapons, the implications
for human life were startling. Protest efforts in neighboring Great Britain and the aftermath of
Bikini Atoll created widespread fear about the risk of radioactive fallout from nuclear testing.
Housewives and high school and college students mobilized against testing, and communities
protested. Everyone, it seemed, had a stake in the debate.

The Power of Activism

By the time the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was
signed in 1963, citizens were learning about chemical fallout right in their own backyards. In
1962 Rachel Carson's Silent Spring introduced a public dialogue about the impacts of toxic
chemicals, specifically DDT, on wildlife and the environment. César E. Chávez, leader of the
United Farm Worker's Union, raised awareness of the diseases farmworkers suffered due to
chemical exposure. Eventually farmworkers were able to use public awareness as a bargaining
tool in their work contracts, calling for a national boycott on grapes.

Carson, like the reformers before her, felt an explicit need to make information accessible to the
public, and many other scientists agreed. Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb, published in 1968,
sounded the alarm about over-population and the environmental damage that would inevitably
result from a population too large for Earth to support. Garrett Hardin's "The Tragedy of the
Commons," also published in 1968, explored the concept of the environment as a common area,
subject to misuse in the absence of regulation. The proliferation of publications and community
protests sent the message to state and national government that the pollution problem needed to
appear on their agendas.

Environmental issues were swept up in a time of great social unrest. Marked by counterculture
ethics and the tool of protest, citizen groups began to make connections between technological
progress and pollution. Traditional wilderness preservation environmental groups dating back to
the turn of the twentieth century, like the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society, were
now working alongside a new breed of antipollution activists. Protesters considered quality-of-
life issues to be environmental issues. If the industries supporting their lifestyles were also
degrading their neighborhoods, change needed to occur. Among the organic farms,
counterculture communes, and underground publications, society was seeking to reestablish a
connection with the environment.

The New National Agenda

If the 1960s arrived with a compelling or infamous start, it exited in the same fashion. In 1967 an
oil tanker off of Great Britain ran aground, spilling 40,000 tons of oil. Attempts to contain the
accident and salvage the remaining oil were useless. The tanker spilled another 77,000 tons of oil
that washed up onto British and French shores. Americans were assured that such a tragedy
could never occur in their waters, but two years later, in 1969, the Union Oil Company's
Platform A leaked over 200,000 gallons of crude oil that spread across forty miles of Pacific
coastline. The beaches in Santa Barbara, California, were soaked with oil, choking thousands of
birds and mammals. Less than five months later, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught on fire from
chemical and sewage pollution. The relationship between industries, communities, and the
environment was far from harmonious.

In 1969, in response to the public's demand for action after the Storm King case on the Hudson
River, President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). With NEPA, the
national government was taking a stand for the first time to integrate public concerns into the
national environmental agenda. NEPA gave the national government the responsibility to help
eliminate environmental destruction and seek a balance between the needs of industry and the
environment. The Council on Environmental Quality was created to help advance this cause.

The 1970s are noted by many as the doomsday decade. Nixon's enactment of NEPA was a first
step. Interest in environmental issues had remained strong from the debate over nuclear testing in
the 1950s to the uninhibited use of DDT and the devastating effects of pollution on aquatic
ecosystems. Environmental issues had been tied into larger social movements, but as the United
States moved into a new decade, concern for the environment became a stand-alone issue. Urban
pollution issues, both air and water, were tied into social interests/human health before gaining
acknowledgement as purely environmental issues that had consequences for life other than
humans. The intrinsic value of nature, with the exception of the wilderness preservation
movement at the turn of the twentieth century, was not truly addressed until this time.

The Advent of Pollution Policies

The public's environmental agenda and steady pressure to create national pollution laws led U.S.
Senator Gaylord Nelson to make a bold move. He had an idea for a national teach-in on
environmental issues. A task force calling itself Environmental Action was formed to develop
the idea. By seeking official support, avoiding confrontation, and scattering events across the
United States, the committee hoped to involve the entire society. Many established
environmental groups refused to participate, cautious of the activism that typified the era. Many
of the older environmental organizations worked from a much more traditional standpoint—
within political and social parameters. They believed the extremism of groups like EarthFirst!
and Greenpeace threatened the progress they had made thus far and would alienate mainstream
public support. Despite their hesitancy, the day met with great success. In the end, more than
twenty million Americans participated in the nation's first Earth Day events on April 22, 1970.

Shortly after the Earth Day celebration demonstrated public concern about environmental
problems, Barry Commoner, a notable scientist and professor, published The Closing Circle:
Nature, Man, and Technology. Commoner wrote about the need for humans to return to a state of
equilibrium with nature.
Citizen action groups like the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) and the Campaign
Against Pollution (CAP) lobbied their local governments for change. In Pittsburgh, GASP
activists brought attention to pollution by selling cans of clean air and opening their own
complaint department. The League of Conservation Voters published lists of top-polluting
industries and rated politicians based on their environmental voting record.

The national government responded and took steps towards regaining the balance discussed by
Commoner and those before him. The existing Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were
amended to better address the causes and effects of pollution, and regulatory measures were put
into place. Between 1972 and 1976, several new federal acts were also passed, regulating ocean
dumping, pesticides, and the transportation of waste. The pressure of local groups, acting
independently of larger mainstream groups, paid off. Several pieces of environmental legislation
were passed, addressing the transportation and cleanup of chemicals and waste.

Legal Support for Environmentalists

Special-tactic groups began to emerge to accommodate the transition of environmental issues

onto the national agenda. One such group was the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
A generous grant from the Ford Company led to the creation of the NRDC, a science-based
initiative dealing with the new legal aspects of the movement. Even local citizen groups began to
focus their interests. The Brookhaven Town Natural Resources Committee (BTNRC), a coalition
of scientists and residents of Long Island, New York, was a leading antipollution group.
Compelled to push for the litigation of chemical use, especially pesticides, they reestablished
themselves as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Throughout the 1970s the EDF, also with
the help of Ford, gained notoriety for its success in waging the war on pollution in court.

The legal and scientific services offered by groups like the NRDC and EDF became important
assets to the environmental movement during the 1970s. From 1976 to 1978, communities were
finding themselves more widely exposed to pollution than they had first realized. Hazardous
chemicals were being dumped in Virginia, the Hudson River was heavily contaminated with
PCBs, and cows in upper Michigan were poisoned by polybrominated biphenyls (PBB). In Love
Canal, New York, where many homes had been built on a chemical waste dump, Lois Gibbs
worked endlessly to rectify the situation, lobbying polluters, politicians, and attorneys for
support. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter declared a state of emergency. Gibbs later formed the
Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes (CCHW), which helped other communities with
toxic waste problems, while calling for greater toxics controls. Love Canal led directly to the
passage of the Superfund law.

The International Movement

Europeans were struggling with their own environmental disasters. Swedish scientists had been
studying the connection between common air pollutants like sulfur and nitrogen dioxides and
high levels of acidity in many of their waters. Documenting an overall decline in the biological
diversity of Scandinavia, the scientists hoped to capture international attention. The 1972 U.N.
Conference on the Human Environment, hosted by Sweden, was the perfect place to present their
findings. Air pollutants transported by precipitation and deposited across the land came to be
known as acid rain. The idea that pollution did not remain a local problem but could be carried
long distances alarmed the international community. By 1979 thirty-five countries signed the
first international air-pollution agreement, the Geneva Convention on Long-Range
Transboundary Air Pollution.

During the course of the 1970s, the face of environmentalism had shifted to civil action. Just as it
seemed that environmental policies were effectively in place, the political climate was about to
make a complete turn—but not before the fear of nuclear power reared its head again. In 1978 a
partial meltdown at the nuclear plant in Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, generated a ripple of
fear and uncertainty throughout the public. Residents were evacuated, and radiation-
contaminated water was released in the nearby Susquehanna River. One year after the enactment
of the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation Liability Act, also known as
Superfund, a national law dealing with the cleanup of contaminated areas, the alarms sounded
again. This time it was exposure to toxins in Times Beach, Missouri. Over 2,000 residents were
evacuated when the roads were contaminated with oil-containing dioxin. The government spent
around $40 million buying back homes from residents, and the cleanup efforts under Superfund
ensued. As of 2003, the town remains vacant.
A Renewed Sense of Commitment

Environmentalists were rallying for more stringent enforcement of environmental policies, but
the Reagan administration failed to express the same level of enthusiasm and support that had
characterized the Nixon and Carter presidencies. Economic and political decisions that once
involved environmental organizations now seemed to undermine the very spirit and intent of
NEPA by sidelining environmental efforts. The membership ranks of environmental groups grew
in response to these political threats, and a new environmental agenda focused on acid rain,
ozone depletion, and global warming.

Without the willing support of the national government, environmental groups began to take
matters into their own hands. Organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which had
always encouraged direct action, had an ally with the radical Earth First!, which used similar
tactics. Often referred to as direct-action groups, their methods embraced the prevention of
nuclear testing, whaling, and logging through physical means. Their actions met with mixed
reviews. Some felt that the movement had out-grown this type of action and that such efforts
undermined the legislative progress that had been established. But activists felt that national
legislation was being relied on too heavily to provide all the answers. Reintroducing the activism
of the earlier movement seemed to be one of the few methods that educated the public about
hazards of pollution and kept the debate alive.

With greater access to information, increasing numbers of antitoxics groups, and pressure from
the international community, the pollution problem was not going to disappear. An incident in
Bhopal, India, in 1984 prompted much debate about the need for uniform environmental
standards and it brought a dire problem into the spotlight that had for years been ignored:
environmental injustice. In Bhopal over 2,000 people died and nearly 250,000 others suffered
lung and eye damage when a poorly maintained chemical storage tank overheated. The Union
Carbide Company, which operated the plant internationally, was not abiding by the same
regulations that applied to its West Virginia branch. The accident echoed eerily of the Gauley
Bridge deaths in the late 1920s, when Union Carbide knowingly exposed hundreds of African-
American miners to dangerous silica deposits.
The environmental movement expanded throughout the 1990s, becoming more international in
its efforts. In 1992 the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was attended by over 142 heads of state.
Environmental organizations joined the proceedings with hopes of influencing the outcome. Five
years later, organizations reconvened to assess the progress that had been made since the Earth
Summit. Bound by the underlying desire to improve the environment, grassroots actions,
national organizations, and legal proceedings have combined to present a positive force for
change. NGOs were excluded from the 1992 Earth Summit. A satellite conference was
established instead. The result was that the NGOs drafted their own alternative plans, put
together daily news on their conference and delivered it to the hotels of those attending the main
conference, and essentially—not much was truly accomplished at the first Earth Summit.
However, the satellite conference put NGOs on the board as the key players in the environmental
movement. They were perceived as more knowledgeable and could network more easily in the
absence of red tape that government parties encountered.

The movement represents an amalgamation of issues, from species protection and land
conservation to pollution. It has also propelled itself by employing a variety of tactics to attract
attention, from petitions and protests to publications and organizations. The prospect of danger to
human life in the form of pollutants has motivated people from all classes and walks of life to
engage in the movement to improve the quality of life. The ability to relate the causes of
pollution back to human industry gave communities a sense of empowerment. Witnessing the
perils of pollution in several different forms, the public has been moved to respond. The issue of
pollution has compelled nations to consider the wider implications of their decisions and actions.
It has shaped the course of the environmental movement, as the realization has grown that the
environment extends beyond a county sign or a border patrol—and that the issue of pollution is
about the shared responsibilities of consumers, manufacturers, and all residents of the larger,
global community.

see also Activism; Addams, Jane; Agenda 21; Antinuclear Movement; Brower, David; Carson,
Rachel; ChÁvez, CÉsar E.; Citizen Suits; Commoner, Barry; Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA); Dioxin; Disasters: Chemical Accidents
and Spills; Disasters: Environmental Mining Accidents; Disasters: Natural; Disasters: Nuclear
Accidents; Disasters: Oil Spills; Dioxin; Donora, Pennsylvania; Earth Day; EarthFirst!; Earth
Summit; Ehrlich, Paul; Environmental Racism; Gauley Bridge, West Virginia; Gibbs, Lois;
Government; Green Party; Greenpeace; Hamilton, Alice; LaDuke, Winona; Nader, Ralph;
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); National Toxics Campaign; New Left; Politics;
President's Council on Environmental Quality; Progressive Movement; Property Rights
Movement; Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs); Public Participation; Public Policy
Decision Making; Right to Know; Settlement House Movement; Smart Growth; Snow, John;
Times Beach, Missouri; Tragedy of the Commons; Treaties and Conferences; Union of
Concerned Scientists; Wise Use Movement; Zero Population Growth.

ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

The environmental movement in the United States is often dated to the 1962 publication of
Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. This seminal description by an articulate scientist on the
dangers of the chemical era to the environment and to human health struck a responsive chord
with the general public and among opinion leaders. It tapped into a perhaps inbred human belief
of the sanctity of air, water and soil, as well as an atavistic human concern about insidious and
unknown poisons. The widespread success of the first "Earth Day," in 1969, revealed the
environment to be a potent political issue as well. This led to the formation of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, in 1969, and to a wide range of laws to control existing and
potential threats to the environment.

There are many parallels between the environmental movement and the Sanitary movement of
the nineteenth century. The Sanitary movement was characterized by a broad concern among all
segments of society with poor sanitary conditions and their perceived linkages to ill health, and
by a recognition that advocacy was necessary to achieve societal changes. In many ways both of
these movements preceded the scientific discoveries upon which effective public policy was
eventually built.

The environmental movement in the United States has its roots not only in public health but also
in longstanding public support for conservation that led, for example, to our National Park
system. The wide range of environmental organizations reflect this duality of approach. The
success of these environmental advocacy organizations also reflects the expectations of more
from the environment than can be expressed solely in health or economic terms. This
transcendent aspect continues to fuel the environmental movement despite highly significant
gains in air and water quality and in wilderness preservation in recent decades.