Of the major greenhouse gas emitting nations, the U.S. is among the highest per person emitters. Annual CO2 emissions, total by country (2017 data) shows the U.S. trails China in total annual emissions (not per capita).Environmental issues in the United States include climate change, energy, species conservation, invasive species, deforestation, mining, nuclear accidents, pesticides, pollution, waste and over-population. Despite taking hundreds of measures, the rate of environmental issues is increasing rapidly instead of reducing. The United States is among the most significant emitters of greenhouse gasses in the world. In terms of both total and per capita emissions, it is among the largest contributors.[2] The climate policy of the United States has a major influence on the world.[3][4]
The modern Environmental movement, which began in the 1960s with concern about air and water pollution, became broader in scope to include all landscapes and human activities. See List of environmental issues.
Environmental health movement dating at least to Progressive Era (the 1890s - 1920s) urban reforms including clean water supply, more efficient removal of raw sewage and reduction in crowded and unsanitary living conditions. Today Environmental health is more related to nutrition, preventive medicine, ageing well and other concerns specific to the human body's well-being.
As public awareness and the environmental sciences have improved in recent years, environmental issues have broadened to include key concepts such as "sustainability" and also new emerging concerns such as ozone depletion, global warming, acid rain, land use and biogenetic pollution.
Some US colleges are now going green by signing the "President's Climate Commitment," a document that a college President can sign to enable said colleges to practice environmentalism by switching to solar power, etc.[5]
Membership of selected US environmental organizations (thousands)[6]
Native Americans are frequently categorized as "the original environmentalists", however this assertion is frequently challenged for being overly simplistic.[7][8] Early European settlers came to the United States brought from Europe the concept of the commons. In the colonial era, access to natural resources was allocated by individual towns, and disputes over fisheries or land use were resolved at the local level. Changing technologies, however, strained traditional ways of resolving disputes of resource use, and local governments had limited control over powerful special interests. For example, the damming of rivers for mills cut off upriver towns from fisheries; logging and clearing of forest in watersheds harmed local fisheries downstream. In New England, many farmers became uneasy as they noticed clearing of the forest changed stream flows and a decrease in bird population which helped control insects and other pests. These concerns become widely known with the publication of Man and Nature (1864) by George Perkins Marsh. The environmental impact method of analysis is generally the main mode for determining what issues the environmental movement is involved in. This model is used to determine how to proceed in situations that are detrimental to the environment by choosing the way that is least damaging and has the fewest lasting implications.[9]
Conservation movement
Conservation first became a national issue during the progressive era's conservation movement (1890s - 1920s). The early national conservation movement shifted emphasis to scientific management which favored larger enterprises and control began to shift from local governments to the states and the federal government.(Judd) Some writers[who?] credit sportsmen, hunters and fishermen with the increasing influence of the conservation movement. In the 1870s sportsman magazines such as American Sportsmen, Forest and Stream, and Field and Stream are seen as leading to the growth of the conservation movement.(Reiger) This conservation movement also urged the establishment of state and national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, and national monuments intended to preserve noteworthy natural features. Conservation groups focus primarily on an issue that's origins are rooted in general expansion. As industrialization became more prominent as well as the increasing trend towards urbanization the conservative environmental movement began. Contrary to popular belief conservation groups are not against expansion in general, instead, they are concerned with efficiency with resources and land development.[9]
Theodore Roosevelt and his close ally George Bird Grinnell, were motivated by the wanton waste that was taking place at the hand of market hunting. This practice resulted in placing a large number of North American game species on the edge of extinction. Roosevelt recognized that the laissez-faire approach of the U.S. Government was too wasteful and inefficient. In any case, they noted, most of the natural resources in the western states were already owned by the federal government. The best course of action, they argued, was a long-term plan devised by national experts to maximize the long-term economic benefits of natural resources. To accomplish the mission, Roosevelt and Grinnell formed the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887. The club was made up of the best minds and influential men of the day. The Boone and Crockett Club's contingency of conservationists, scientists, politicians, and intellectuals became Roosevelt's closest advisers during his march to preserve wildlife and habitat across North America.[10] As president, Theodore Roosevelt became a prominent conservationist, putting the issue high on the national agenda.[11] He worked with all the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter, Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt was deeply committed to conserving natural resources and is considered to be the nation's first conservation President. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230,000,000 acres (93,000,000ha) under federal protection. Roosevelt set aside more Federal land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.[12]
Gifford Pinchot had been appointed by McKinley as chief of Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. In 1905, his department gained control of the national forest reserves. Pinchot promoted private use (for a fee) under federal supervision. In 1907, Roosevelt designated sixteenmillion acres (65,000km2) of new national forests just minutes before a deadline.
In May 1908, Roosevelt sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on natural resources and their most efficient use. Roosevelt delivered the opening address: "Conservation as a National Duty."
In 1903 Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, who had a very different view of conservation and tried to minimize commercial use of water resources and forests. Working through the Sierra Club he founded, Muir succeeded in 1905 in having Congress transfer the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the National Park Service. While Muir wanted nature preserved for the sake of pure beauty, Roosevelt subscribed to Pinchot's formulation, "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees."[13] Muir and the Sierra Club vehemently opposed the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite in order to provide water to the city of San Francisco. Roosevelt and Pinchot supported the dam, as did President Woodrow Wilson. The Hetch Hetchy dam was finished in 1923 and is still in operation, but the Sierra Club still wants to tear it down.[14]
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–45), like his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, was an ardent conservationist. He used numerous programs of the departments of Agriculture and Interior[15] to end wasteful land-use, mitigate the effects of the Dust Bowl, and efficiently develop natural resources in the West.[16] One of the most popular of all New Deal programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933–1943), which sent two million poor young men to work in rural and wilderness areas, primarily on conservation projects.[17]
Post-1945
After World War II increasing encroachment on wilderness land evoked the continued resistance of conservationists, who succeeded in blocking a number of projects in the 1950s and 1960s, including the proposed Bridge Canyon Dam that would have backed up the waters of the Colorado River into the Grand Canyon National Park.
The Inter-American Conference on the Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources met in 1948 as a collection of nearly 200 scientists from all over the Americans forming the trusteeship principle that:
"No generation can exclusively own the renewable resources by which it lives. We hold the commonwealth in trust for prosperity, and to lessen or destroy it is to commit treason against the future"[18]
During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, several events occurred which raised the public awareness of harm to the environment caused by man. In 1954, the 23 man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon was exposed to radioactive fallout from a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll. By 1969, the public reaction to an ecologically catastrophic oil spill from an offshore well in California's Santa Barbara Channel, Barry Commoner's protest against nuclear testing, along with Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring,[19] and Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1968)[20] all added anxiety about the environment. Pictures of Earth from space emphasized that the earth was small and fragile.[21]
As the public became more aware of environmental issues, concern about air pollution, water pollution, solid waste disposal, dwindling energy resources, radiation, pesticide poisoning (particularly use of DDT as described in Carson's influential Silent Spring),[22] noise pollution, and other environmental problems engaged a broadening number of sympathizers. That public support for environmental concerns was widespread became clear in the Earth Day demonstrations of 1970.[23]
Several books after the middle of the 20th century contributed to the rise of American environmentalism (as distinct from the longer-established conservation movement), especially among college and university students and the more literate public. One was the publication of the first textbook on ecology, Fundamentals of Ecology, by Eugene Odum and Howard Odum, in 1953.[24] Another was the appearance of the Carson's 1962 best-seller Silent Spring. Her book brought about a whole new interpretation of pesticides by exposing their harmful effects in nature. From this book, many began referring to Carson as the "mother of the environmental movement".[25] Another influential development was a 1965 lawsuit, Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, opposing the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York (state), which is said[by whom?] to have given birth to modern United States environmental law. The wide popularity of The Whole Earth Catalogs, starting in 1968, was quite influential among the younger, hands-on, activist generation of the 1960s and 1970s. Recently,[when?] in addition to opposing environmental degradation and protecting wilderness, an increased focus on coexisting with natural biodiversity has appeared, a strain that is apparent in the movement for sustainable agriculture and in the concept of Reconciliation Ecology.[citation needed]
During his time as U.S President, Lyndon Johnson would sign over 300 environment protection measures into law. This was credited as forming the legal basis of the modern environmental movement.[26]
Wilderness preservation
In the modern wilderness preservation movement, important philosophical roles are played by the writings of John Muir who had been activist in the late 19th and early 20th century. Along with Muir perhaps most influential in the modern movement is Henry David Thoreau who published Walden in 1854. Also important was forester and ecologist Aldo Leopold, one of the founders of the Wilderness Society in 1935, who wrote a classic of nature observation and ethical philosophy, A Sand County Almanac, (1949).[27][28]
There is also a growing movement of campers and other people who enjoy outdoor recreation activities to help preserve the environment while spending time in the wilderness.[29]
Protest about the Love Canal contamination by a resident, ca. 1978
Antitoxics groups
Antitoxics groups are a subgroup that is affiliated with the Environmental Movement in the United States, that is primarily concerned with the effects that cities and their by-products have on humans. This aspect of the movement is a self-proclaimed "movement of housewives".[9] Concern around the issues of groundwater contamination and air pollution rose in the early 1980s and individuals involved in antitoxics groups claim that they are concerned for the health of their families.[9] A prominent case can be seen in the Love Canal Homeowner's association (LCHA); in this case, a housing development was built on a site that had been used for toxic dumping by the Hooker Chemical Company. As a result of this dumping, the residents had symptoms of skin irritation, Lois Gibbs, a resident of the development, started a grassroots campaign for reparations. Eventual success led to the government having to purchase homes that were sold in the development.[9]
Federal legislation in the 1970s
Prior to the 1970s the protection of basic air and water supplies was a matter mainly left to each state. During the 1970s, the primary responsibility for clean air and water shifted to the federal government. Growing concerns, both environmental and economic, from cities and towns as well as sportsman and other local groups, and senators such as Maine's Edmund S. Muskie, led to the passage of extensive legislation, notably the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. Other legislation included the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which established the Council on Environmental Quality; the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972; the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1977, which became known as the Clean Water Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly known as the Superfund Act (1980). These laws regulated public drinking water systems, toxic substances, pesticides, and ocean dumping; and protected wildlife, wilderness, and wild and scenic rivers. Moreover, the new laws provide for pollution research, standard setting, contaminated site cleanup, monitoring, and enforcement.[51]
The creation of these laws led to a major shift in the environmental movement. Groups such as the Sierra Club shifted focus from local issues to becoming a lobby in Washington and new groups, for example, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense, arose to influence politics as well. (Larson)[52]
Renewed focus on local action
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan sought to curtail the scope of environmental protection taking steps such as appointing James G. Watt. The major environmental groups responded with mass mailings which led to increased membership and donations.
When industry groups lobbied to weaken regulation and a backlash against environmental regulations, the so-called wise use movement gained importance and influence.(Larson)[citation needed]
Attacks on environmental activists
In the early 1990s, multiple environmental activists in the United States became targets of arson attacks. In 1991, Greenpeace toxics researcher Pat Costner’sArkansas home was set on fire, and Maine anti-logging activist Michael Vernon narrowly escaped a similar attack. In October 1993, Leroy Jackson, a Native American environmentalist, was found dead in his van in New Mexico shortly before he was scheduled to testify in Washington, D.C., against the clearcutting of old-growth trees on Navajo land.[53]
"Post-environmentalism"
In 2004, with the environmental movement seemingly stalled, some environmentalists started questioning whether "environmentalism" was even a useful political framework. According to a controversial essay titled "The Death of Environmentalism" (Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, 2004) American environmentalism has been remarkably successful in protecting the air, water, and large stretches of wilderness in North America and Europe, but these environmentalists have stagnated as a vital force for cultural and political change.
Shellenberger and Nordhaus wrote, "Today environmentalism is just another special interest. Evidence for this can be found in its concepts, its proposals, and its reasoning. What stands out is how arbitrary environmental leaders are about what gets counted and what doesn't as 'environmental.' Most of the movement's leading thinkers, funders, and advocates do not question their most basic assumptions about who we are, what we stand for, and what it is that we should be doing." Their essay was followed by a speech in San Francisco called "Is Environmentalism Dead?" by former Sierra Club President, Adam Werbach, who argued for the evolution of environmentalism into a more expansive, relevant and powerful progressive politics. Werbach endorsed building an environmental movement that is more relevant to average Americans and controversially chose to lead Wal-Mart's effort to take sustainability mainstream.
These "post-environmental movement" thinkers argue that the ecological crises the human species faces in the 21st century are qualitatively different from the problems the environmental movement was created to address in the 1960s and 1970s. They argue that climate change and habitat destruction are global and more complex, therefore demanding far deeper transformations of the economy, the culture and political life. The consequence of environmentalism's outdated and arbitrary definition, they argue, is a political irrelevancy.
These "politically neutral" groups tend to avoid global conflicts and view the settlement of inter-human conflict as separate from regard for nature – in direct contradiction to the ecology movement and peace movement which have increasingly close links: while Green Parties, Greenpeace, and groups like the ACTivist Magazine regard ecology, biodiversity, and an end to non-human extinction as an absolute basis for peace, the local groups may not, and see a high degree of global competition and conflict as justifiable if it lets them preserve their own local uniqueness. However, such groups tend not to "burn out" and to sustain for long periods, even generations, protecting the same local treasures.
Local groups increasingly find that they benefit from collaboration, e.g. on consensus decision-making methods, or making simultaneous policy, or relying on common legal resources, or even sometimes a common glossary. However, the differences between the various groups that make up the modern environmental movement tend to outweigh such similarities, and they rarely co-operate directly except on a few major global questions. In a notable exception, over 1,000 local groups from around the country united for a single day of action as part of the Step It Up 2007 campaign for real solutions to global warming.
Groups such as The Bioregional Revolution are calling on the need to bridge these differences, as the converging problems of the 21st century they claim compel the people to unite and to take decisive action. They promote bioregionalism, permaculture, and local economies as solutions to these problems, overpopulation, global warming, global epidemics, and water scarcity, but most notably to "peak oil" – the prediction that the country is likely to reach a maximum in global oil production which could spell drastic changes in many aspects of the residents' everyday lives.
Novelist Michael Crichton appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on September 28, 2005, to address concerns and recommended the employment of double-blind experimentation in environmental research. Crichton suggested that because environmental issues are so political in nature, policymakers need neutral, conclusive data to base their decisions on, rather than conjecture and rhetoric, and double-blind experiments are the most efficient way to achieve that aim.[56]
A consistent theme acknowledged by both supporters and critics (though more commonly vocalized by critics) of the environmental movement is that we know very little about the Earth we live in. Most fields of environmental studies are relatively new, and therefore what research we have is limited and does not date far enough back for us to completely understand long-term environmental trends. This has led a number of environmentalists to support the use of the precautionary principle in policy-making, which ultimately asserts that we don't know how certain actions may affect the environment and because there is reason to believe they may cause more harm than good we should refrain from such actions.[57]
In the December 1994 Wild Forest Review, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair wrote "The mainstream environmental movement was elitist, highly paid, detached from the people, indifferent to the working class, and a firm ally of big government....The environmental movement is now accurately perceived as just another well-financed and cynical special interest group, its rancid infrastructure supported by Democratic Party operatives and millions in grants from corporate foundations."
Many environmental organizations lack diversity, including often white women as the main demographic. However, environmental problems are experienced differently by different social groups, including black versus white groups.[58] For the middle class white population in the US, environmental issues have often included pollution, barriers to recreational activities, etc.. On the other hand, for people of color, environmental issues were often life or death including issues of "smoke, soot, dust, . . . fumes gases, stench, and carbon monoxide."[58] In the past environmental organizations have focused "on preserving natural resources and endangered species instead of protecting people of color from hazardous waste sites being built in their communities".[58] When environmental organizations appoint people of color to positions of leadership, the focus will often shift more towards focus on these major, life-threatening issues. However, a significant 2014 State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations study found that the percentage of minorities working for environmental organizations has never exceeded 16% and less than 12% have achieved positions of leadership.[59]
Wilderness myth
Historians have criticized the modern environmental movement for having romantic idealizations of wilderness.[60]William Cronon writes "wilderness serves as the unexamined foundation on which so many of the quasi-religious values of modern environmentalism rest." Cronon claims that "to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead."[61]
Similarly Michael Pollan has argued that the wilderness ethic leads people to dismiss areas whose wildness is less than absolute. In his book Second Nature, Pollan writes that "once a landscape is no longer 'virgin' it is typically written off as fallen, lost to nature, irredeemable."[62]
Debates within the movement
Within the environmental movement, an ideological debate has taken place between those with an ecocentric viewpoint and an anthropocentric viewpoint. The anthropocentric view has been seen as the conservationist approach to the environment with nature viewed, at least in part, as a resource to be used by man. In contrast to the conservationist approach the ecocentric view, associated with John Muir, Henry David Thoreau and William Wordsworth referred to as the preservationist movement. This approach sees nature in a more spiritual way. Many environmental historians consider the split between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. During the preservation/conservation debate, the term preservationist becomes to be seen as a pejorative term.[63]
While the ecocentric view focused on biodiversity and wilderness protection the anthropocentric view focuses on urban pollution and social justice. Some environmental writers, for example, William Cronon have criticized the ecocentric view as have a dualist view as a man being separate from nature. Critics of the anthropocentric viewpoint contend that the environmental movement has been taken over by so-called leftist with an agenda beyond environmental protection.
Fewer environmental laws have been passed in the last decade as corporations and other conservative interests have increased their influence over American politics.[64] Corporate cooperation against environmental lobbyists has been organized by the Wise Use group.[citation needed] At the same time, many environmentalists have been turning toward other means of persuasion, such as working with business, community, and other partners to promote sustainable development. Since the 1970s, coalitions and interests groups have directed themselves along the democrat and republican party lines.[65]
Much environmental activism is directed towards conservation[66] as well as the prevention or elimination of pollution. However, conservation movements; ecology movements; peace movements; green parties; green- and eco-anarchists often subscribe to very different ideologies, while supporting the same goals as those who call themselves "environmentalists". To outsiders, these groups or factions can appear to be indistinguishable.
As human population and industrial activity continue to increase, environmentalists often find themselves in serious conflict with those who believe that human and industrial activities should not be overly regulated or restricted, such as some libertarians.
Environmentalists often clash with others, particularly corporate interests, over issues of the management of natural resources, like in the case of the atmosphere as a "carbon dump", the focus of climate change, and global warming controversy. They usually seek to protect commonly owned or unowned resources for future generations.
Environmental justice in the United States
Environmental justice is a movement that began in the U.S. in the 1980s and seeks an end to environmental racism. Environmental justice (EJ) did not come into regular use until 1982 when Warren County, a predominantly African American community, became a site for toxic waste dumping. This sparked protests which eventually led to the arrest of 414 peaceful African American protestors. In 1987, the publication of the United Church of Christ (UCC) Commission for Racial Justice's report "Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States" offered the first clear description of environmental racism (ER). ER looks different in different communities, and each context requires distinct policies and actions. Closely related to ER, the environmental justice movement is also grassroots in practice and "importantly, a movement, which means that it starts and lives with the people".[67]
Often, low-income and minority communities are located close to highways, garbage dumps, and factories, where they are exposed to greater pollution and environmental health risk than the rest of the population. The Environmental Justice movement seeks to link "social" and "ecological" environmental concerns, while at the same time keeping environmentalists conscious of the dynamics in their own movement, i.e. racism, sexism, homophobia, classicism, and other malaises of the dominant culture.
In 1991, the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit drafted the 17 principles of environmental justice calling for an "appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives" along with the "ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction".[68] Throughout the EJ movement there has been a focus on everyone being safe from environmental harms including pollution, hazardous wastes, land access, and also the ability of all to participate in decision-making. Over time, the main principle that has developed within the movement is "We speak for ourselves" meaning those within the community experiencing the environmental injustice should be the leaders of change.[69]
Major US environmental justice organizations
Communities for a Better Environment: An organization founded in 1978 in San Francisco, California with the main mission of building power for low-income and communities of color to ultimately achieve environmental justice. They focus on reducing pollution and helping to create healthy, environmentally-friendly communities. In order to create action to tackle such an encompassing mission, CBE follows a threefold approach including community organizing, legal advocacy, and science. CBE, focuses on bringing marginalized communities together to create power and hence change in environmental decisions in their local areas.[70] Volunteers from throughout the community come together to participate in door-knocking, community meetings, school groups, and various other educational opportunities. Today Communities for a Better Environment has expanded into Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Indigenous Environmental Network: An organization founded in 1990 in North America with the main mission of uniting indigenous communities to protect "sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities".[72] IEN works with tribes to increase environmental education, organization, and in turn inspire action. IEN has expanded its reach globally, in recent years, providing global meetings to Indigenous communities on indigenous environmental issues.
Climate Justice Alliance: An organization founded in 2013 in Detroit, Michigan with the main mission of uniting communities and organizations to following the just transition theory, versus the exploitative economic system in place. They place a strong emphasis on race, gender, and class in creating this transition. With creating this link between organizations and communities they hope to inspire action towards confronting climate change and the economy that creates it. Climate Justice Alliance focuses on making the transition within local communities to "clean community energy, regional food systems, zero waste, efficient, affordable, and durable housing, public transportation, ecosystem restoration and stewardship within scientific planetary boundaries".[73] Climate Justice Alliance has currently expanded in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and North Carolina.
Environmental rights
Many environmental lawsuits turn on the question of who has standing; are the legal issues limited to property owners, or does the general public have a right to intervene? Christopher D. Stone's 1972 essay, "Should trees have standing?" seriously addressed the question of whether natural objects themselves should have legal rights, including the right to participate in lawsuits. Stone suggested that there was nothing absurd in this view, and noted that many entities now regarded as having legal rights were, in the past, regarded as "things" that were regarded as legally rightless; for example, aliens, children and women. His essay is sometimes regarded as an example of the fallacy of hypostatization.
One of the earliest lawsuits to establish that citizens may sue for environmental and aesthetic harms was Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, decided in 1965 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The case helped halt the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York State. See also United States environmental law and David Sive, an attorney who was involved in the case.
Conservation biology is an important and rapidly developing field. One way to avoid the stigma of an "ism" was to evolve early anti-nuclear groups into the more scientific Green Parties, sprout new NGOs such as Greenpeace and Earth Action, and devoted groups to protecting global biodiversity and preventing global warming and climate change. But in the process, much of the emotional appeal, and many of the original aesthetic goals were lost. Nonetheless, these groups have well-defined ethical and political views, backed by science.
While most environmentalists are often mainstream and peaceful, other groups are more radical in their approach. Adherents of radical environmentalism and ecological anarchism are involved in direct action campaigns to protect the environment. Some campaigns have employed controversial tactics including sabotage, blockades, and arson, while most use peaceful protests such as marches, tree sitting, and the like. There is substantial debate within the environmental movement as to the acceptability of these tactics, but almost all environmentalists condemn violent actions that can harm humans.
Clashes by police
In 2023, for the first time in the history of the United States, the police killed an environmental activist during a protest. The protesters were camping in Atlanta's South River Forest, a natural area that the City of Atlanta and Police planned to raze in order to erect a police training facility to be called "Cop City." Police attacked protesters on 18 January 2023. One protester, Tortuguita or, Manuel Esteban Páez Terán was killed and seven more were arrested.
An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities". An environmentalist is engaged in or believes in the philosophy of environmentalism or one of the related philosophies.
The environmental movement is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. Environmentalists advocate the just and sustainable management of resources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policy and individual behavior. In its recognition of humanity as a participant in ecosystems, the movement is centered on ecology, health, as well as human rights.
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the future. Conservationists are concerned with leaving the environment in a better state than the condition they found it in. Evidence-based conservation seeks to use high quality scientific evidence to make conservation efforts more effective.
The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the progressive movement, it was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world. Since the 1950s, it has lobbied politicians to promote environmentalist policies, even if they are controversial. Recent goals include promoting sustainable energy and mitigating global warming, as well as opposing the use of coal, hydropower, and nuclear power. Its political endorsements generally favor liberal and progressive candidates in elections.
Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. Ecologism is more commonly used in continental European languages, while environmentalism is more commonly used in English but the words have slightly different connotations.
Eco-nationalism is a synthesis of nationalism and green politics. Eco-nationalists may be from many points across the left–right political spectrum, but all are bound to the idea that the nation-state and its citizens have a special duty to protect the environment of their country.
Anti-environmentalism is a set of ideas and actions that oppose environmentalism as a whole or specific environmental policies or environmental initiatives.
The environment of the United States comprises diverse biotas, climates, and geologies. This diversity leads to a number of different distinct regions and geographies in which human communities live. This includes a rich variety of species of animals, fungi, plants and other organisms.
Environmental issues in the United States include climate change, energy, species conservation, invasive species, deforestation, mining, nuclear accidents, pesticides, pollution, waste and over-population. Despite taking hundreds of measures, the rate of environmental issues is increasing rapidly instead of reducing. The United States is among the most significant emitters of greenhouse gasses in the world. In terms of both total and per capita emissions, it is among the largest contributors. The climate policy of the United States has a major influence on the world.
The environmental policy of the United States is a federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the United States. The goal of environmental policy is to protect the environment for future generations while interfering as little as possible with the efficiency of commerce or the liberty of the people and to limit inequity in who is burdened with environmental costs. As his first official act bringing in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon signed the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law on New Year's Day, 1970. Also in the same year, America began celebrating Earth Day, which has been called "the big bang of U.S. environmental politics, launching the country on a sweeping social learning curve about ecological management never before experienced or attempted in any other nation." NEPA established a comprehensive US national environmental policy and created the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement for "major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment." Author and consultant Charles H. Eccleston has called NEPA the world's "environmental Magna Carta".
Beginning as a conservation movement, the environmental movement in Australia was the first in the world to become a political movement. Australia is home to United Tasmania Group, the world's first green party.
The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, includes all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth.
Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. Conservation generally refers to the act of consciously and efficiently using land and/or its natural resources. This can be in the form of setting aside tracts of land for protection from hunting or urban development, or it can take the form of using less resources such as metal, water, or coal. Usually, this process of conservation occurs through or after legislation on local or national levels is passed.
This timeline of the history of environmentalism is a listing of events that have shaped humanity's perspective on the environment. This timeline includes human induced disasters, environmentalists that have had a positive influence, and environmental legislation.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to environmentalism:
Environmentalism of the poor is a set of social movements that arise from environmental conflicts when impoverished people struggle against powerful state or private interests that threaten their livelihood, health, sovereignty, and culture. Part of the global environmental justice movement, it differs from mainstream environmentalism by emphasizing social justice issues instead of emphasizing conservation and eco-efficiency. It is becoming an increasingly important force for global sustainability.
The Environmental history of the United States covers the history of the environment over the centuries to the late 20th century, plus the political and expert debates on conservation and environmental issues. The term "conservation" appeared in 1908 and was gradually replaced by "environmentalism" in the 1970s as the focus shifted from managing and protecting natural resources to a broader concern for the environment as a whole and the negative impact of poor air or water on humans.
↑ Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (2009) ch 15-26
↑ W. Todd Benson, President Theodore Roosevelt's Conservations Legacy (2003)
↑ Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground, (1947) p. 32.
↑ Robert W. Righter, The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism (2005)
↑ T.H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874-1952 (1990)
↑ David B. Woolner and Henry L. Henderson, eds. FDR and the Environment (2009)
↑ Neil M. Maher, Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement (2007)
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↑ Perez, Alejandro Colsa, Bernadette Grafton, Paul Mohai, Rebecca Hardin, Katy Hintzen, and Sara Orvis. "Evolution of the environmental justice movement: activism, formalization and differentiation." Environmental Research Letters 10, no. 10 (2015): 105002.
↑ Coolsaet, Brendan, ed. (2021). Environmental justice: key issues. Key issues in environment and sustainability. London; New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN978-0-367-13992-6.
Bosso, Christopher. Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2005
Bosso, Christopher, and Deborah Guber. "Maintaining Presence: Environmental Advocacy and the Permanent Campaign." pp.78–99 in Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty First Century, 6th ed., eds. Norman Vig and Michael Kraft. Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2006
Brinkley, Douglas. Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening (2022) excerpt
Brinkley, Douglas. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (2009)
Carter, Neil. The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy, 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007
Tresner, Erin. 2009. "Factors Affecting States' Ranking on the 2007 Forbes List of America's Greenest States" (Applied Research Project, Texas State University. online)
A Fierce Green Fire: The Battle for a Living Planet - Documentary film directed and written by Mark Kitchell. Explores 50 years of environmental activism in the USA. Inspired by the book of the same name by Philip Shabecoff.
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