Environmental History: Looking to the Future by Learning from the Past

1
Environmental History Looking to the Future by
Learning from the Past
GSI Living in the Environment 14th
Edition Chapter 2
Los Angeles Smog
2
Essential Learning Questions / Objectives

• Define three major cultural and environmental
  changes that have occurred since humans were
  hunter-gatherers.
•  
• Describe the environmental history of the United
  States in terms of the Tribal and Frontier Eras,
  the Early Conservation Era, and the Environmental
  Era.
•  
• Compare slash-and-burn agricultural practices
  with the modern advanced forms of farming. State
  the advantages and disadvantages of each.
•  
• List individuals who made major contributions to
  conservation/environmental movements in the
  United States and briefly describe these
  contributions.
•  
• Define environmental backlash. Briefly describe
  the effects of this backlash.
•  
• Summarize the key environmental events of the
  1980s in the U.S. and the World
•  
• Compare and contrast the environmental policies
  of the Clinton administration and the Bush
  administration.

3
Cultural Changes and the Environment
Hunter-gatherers Humans (Homo sapiens) have been
in existence for about 160,000 years, a mere
blink of an eye in terms of biological life.
(early humans lived off the land
nomadic) Agricultural (Neolithic)
Revolution (10,000 to 12,000 years
ago) Industrial-Medical Revolution (began in the
1700s in England Progressed to United States in
the 1800s) Information and Globalization
Revolution (since 1950 and especially since 1970)
return
4
Cultural Changes and the Environment
Hunter-Gatherer Culture

• Hunter-gatherers

• Nomadic
• seasonal movement

• Usually limited environmental impact

Race to Save the Planet The Environmental
Revolution Video Clip
return
5
Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution

• Early Agricultural practices
• With the agricultural revolution, people settled
  into communities, cultivated plants and
  domesticated animals.
• Slash-and-burn cultivation developed in tropical
  regions. Sustainable cultivation (such as seen
  with this rotational type) meant little impact on
  the land.
• Essentially sustainable resource use

• Modern Agricultural practices
• Encourages monoculture, irrigation, fertilizers
  and pesticides.
• Causes problems like soil erosion, habitat
  fragmentation, land, air and water pollution.
• Damage to humans and wildlife through the use of
  fertilizers and pesticides
• - eutrophication
• - genetic resistance
• Increased Environmental Impact

return
6
Slash and Burn and Shifting Cultivation
return
7
Trade-Offs in the Name of Progress
8
Cultural Changes and the Environment The
Industrial-Medical Revolution

• Industrial Revolution (mid-1700s) higher
  standard of living couple with greater
  environmental degradation.

• Shift to dependence on non-renewable resources
  (coal).
• The steam engine was the workhorse of the
  industrial revolution
• Centralized factories now began to mass-produce
  goods.
• Advancements in farming and medicine improve
  living conditions

Race to save the planet Industrial revolution
video clip
Dramatic increase in environmental impact
9
Cultural Changes and the Environment The
Information/Globalization Revolution

• Information Revolution

• Rate of information increase and speed of
  communication

• Globalization leads to a world socially,
  economically, and environmentally more
  interconnected.
• Decrease in cultural diversity
• Awareness of environmental problems can lead us
  to respond effectively.
• Information overload can lead to confusion and
  hopelessness.

Oil in the Amazon TV - 60 minutes The Internet
Influence 60 seconds Little Green Men
return
10
Environmental History of the United States
The Tribal Era The Frontier Era (1607-1890) The
Early Conservation Era (1832 1960) The
Environmental Era (1960 Present)
return
11
Environmental History of the United States The
Tribal and Frontier Eras
Impacts of the Frontier Environmental Worldview
The near extinction of the American Bison

• Tribal Era
• Native Americans
• 5-10 million tribal people
• Native Americans for at least 10,000 years caused
  some extinctions, but generally were low-impact
  hunter-gather or agricultural societies
• Most cultures had a deep reverence for nature and
  did not believe in land ownership.

• Frontier Environmental Worldview European
  Settlement (1607-1890)
• Resources were thought to be inexhaustible
• The land was viewed as hostile, dangerous, and
  needing to be conquered
• The frontier was to be conquered, and this
  attitude is still a part of American culture

12
The Early Conservation Era (1832-1960)

• A few people warned Americans of resource base
  degradation, but now many listened to warnings
• Conservationists urged protection of public
  wilderness areas
• Henry David Thoreau wrote Life in the Woods, an
  environmental classic about his observations of
  nature for two years in the Massachusetts woods
• George Perkins Marsh, a scientist and Vermont
  legislator, published Man and Nature in 1864 in
  which he presented studies to show resources must
  be conserved

• Between 1870 and 1930, the role of the federal
  government and private citizens increased to
  protect natural resources
• The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 established that
  federal government was responsible for protecting
  public lands from exploitation.
• John Muir was a geologist and naturalist who
  founded the Sierra Club in 1892. He lobbied for
  conservation laws, he led the preservationist
  movement to limit use of public wilderness to
  hiking and camping, he lobbied for a National
  Park system, and he was responsible for
  establishing Yosemite National Park in 1890

13
The Early Conservation Era (1832-1960)

• President Theodore Roosevelt (19011909)
  established wildlife reserves and tripled the
  size of national forest reserves.
• He persuaded Congress to grant the president
  power to designate public land as federal
  wildlife reserves
• The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) was created in
  1905 with Gifford Pinchot as its first chief.
• The Antiquities Act of 1906 allows the president
  to protect areas of scientific or historical
  interest on federal lands as national monuments.
• In 1907 Congress banned executive withdrawals of
  public forests.
• Roosevelt is considered to be the best
  environmental president.

The National Park Service Act was passed by
Congress in 1916
14
The Early Conservation Era (1832-1960)

• Set backs to early conservation
• Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover promoted
  resource removal from public lands at low prices
  to stimulate economic growth
• Hoover proposed selling all public lands to
  private interests for economic development.
• The Great Depression was devastating for the
  nation, but forestalled the purchase of public
  lands by private interests

• Attempts at restoration
• In the 1930s the government bought land and hired
  workers to restore the countrys degraded
  environment
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt established
  conservation projects and public health projects
  in the 1930s.
• The Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) was
  established in 1933.
• Two million people obtained work with CCC
  restoring degraded environments and building dams
  providing jobs, flood control, irrigation water,
  and cheap electricity.

return
15
Important Figures During The Early Conservation
Era
Life in the Woods he saw a loss of wild species
in the Northeastern United States

• Henry David Thoreau
• (1817-1862)
• George Perkins Marsh
• (1801-1882)
• John Muir
• (1838-1914)
• Theodore Roosevelt
• (1858-1919)
• Gifford Pinchot
• (1865-1946)
• Franklin Roosevelt
• (1882-1945)

Man and Nature questioned whether resources
were inexhaustible
Founder of the Sierra Club
His term in office was called the Golden Age of
Conservation 1901-09
Appointed to manage and protect forests USFS-
Scientifically managed forests (multiple use
policy)
The New Deal and (CCC) Civilian Conservation
Corps- Restoration projects including tree
plantings, dam and levee repairs
Back to Essential Questions
16
The Environmental Era (1960-Present)
Events that influenced the Environmental
Movement Minamata Bay, Japan Methyl Mercury
(1959) Rachel Carson Silent Spring (1962)
Impacts of pesticide use Oil polluted Cuyahoga
River flowing through Cleveland, Ohio, catches
fire and burns for 8 days. (1968)
The Science of Ecology Paul Ehrlich The
Population Bomb (1968) Garrett Hardin Tragedy
of the Commons (1968) Barry Commoner-The Closing
Circle (1971) Aldo Leopold Sand County Almanac
(1949)
Leopold Land Ethics
Spaceship Earth Worldview Apollo 11 (1969)
photographs from space reminded us that we live
on a unique miraculous planet The first annual
Earth Day was held April 22, 1970
Endangered Planet Impacts of the industrial way
of life trigger the Environmental Revolution
17
Environmental Era
Firefighters battle a fire on Ohio's Cuyahoga
River in 1952. The polluted river caught fire on
several occasions between 1936 and 1969, when
debris and oil had concentrated on the water's
surface and ignited. A blaze in 1969 came at a
time of increasing environmental awareness and
symbolized years of environmental neglect. The
Cuyahoga River fires helped spur grassroots
activism that resulted in a wave of federal
legislation devoted to taking serious action
against air and water pollution.
A crushed Caspian tern egg, broken because of
DDT-induced weakening of the shell, next to a
normal egg.
18
Important Figures During The Environmental Era
Richard Nixon EPA Environmental Protection
Agency (1970) ESA Endangered Species Act (1973)
strengthen the role of the federal government in
protecting endangered species and their
habitats Clean Air Act (1970) Resources Recovery
Act (1970) Safe Drinking Water Act (1973)
Jimmy Carter DOE Department of Energy
(1977) Superfund - Comprehensive Environment
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act in 1980
designed to clean up abandoned hazardous waste
sites like Love Canal, New York
Carter used the Antiquities Act 1906 to triple
the land in the National Wilderness system and
doubled the land in the National Park system.
19
The Environmental Decade - The 70s
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) received its
first real authority to manage public lands under
its control with the passage of the Federal Land
Policy and Management Act in 1978, 85 of public
lands are in 12 western states. The law angered a
number of western interests whose use of public
lands was restricted for the first
time. Opposition to the Environmental Movement A
political campaign known as the sagebrush
rebellion resulted as miners, ranchers, loggers,
developers, farmers, and others joined together
to try to greatly reduce government regulation
and to persuade legislators to sell or lease
these lands to private interests at low prices
Back to Essential Questions
return
20
1980s backlash against environmentalism
Environmental backlash - An anti-environmental
movement formed to weaken or rescind many of the
environmental laws passed during the 1960s and
1970s in order to destroy the political
effectiveness of the environmental movement
1980s backlash against environmentalism

• Ronald Reagan a self-declared sagebrush rebel
  advocated less federal control
• Greatly increased private energy and mineral
  development and timber cutting on public lands
  during his eight years in office
• During this period federal funding for research
  on energy conservation and renewable energy
  resources was drastically cut
• The wise-use movement was formed in 1988,
  backed by coal, oil, mining, automobile, timber,
  and ranching interests. The goals were to
  weaken/repeal environmental laws and incapacitate
  the environmental movement

21
Some environmental events of the 1980s
Three Mile Island (1979) Pennsylvania, United
States nuclear accident the core was exposed
and there was small radiation leak. Poor design
an human error Union Carbide Pesticide Plant
(1984) Bhopal, India Toxic fumes from a
pesticide plant killed 6000 people and injure
between 50,000-60,000 people. Chernobyl (1986)
Ukraine the worlds most serious nuclear
accident (explosion) 30 people killed thousand
developed cancer after the exposure. Times Beach,
Missouri (1986) evacuated and bought by the EPA
because of dioxin contamination Exxon Valdez
(1989) Oil tanker accident in Alaskas Prince
William Sound These events made the public more
aware of the dangers of ignoring the
environment Recent Event BP Gulf Oil Spill
(2010) Greatest environmental disaster in
United States history
Environmental Timeline
22
Current Environmental Politics

• Bush Administration
• George W. Bush became president in 2001 and
  proceeded to weaken many environmental and public
  land use laws and policies
• Bushs policies rest on increasing use of fossil
  fuels and a relaxation of air and water quality
  standards. He also tried to repeal or weaken
  most of the pro-environmental measures
  established by Clinton
• Moderate Republicans and most Democrats agree
  that environmental problems are too serious to be
  used as a political tool. They urge elected
  officials to become the world leader in making
  the 21st century the environmental century

• Clinton Administration
• Most environmental efforts since 1990 have been
  spent trying to keep anti-environmentalists from
  weakening or eliminating laws passed in the 1960s
  and 1970s
• Bill Clinton appointed environmentalists to key
  positions in environmental and resource agencies
  during the eight years of his presidency
• He protected more public land as national
  monuments in the lower 48 states than any other
  president
• Environmentalists have had to counter claims that
  problems such as global warming and ozone
  depletion are hoaxes or not serious

23
Case Study Aldo Leopold and His Land Ethic

• Individuals are interdependent

• Ethics respect for land

• Shift from conqueror to member

• Problems arise when land viewed as a commodity

• Preservation of the integrity, stability, and
  beauty of land is right

24
References Race to Save the Planet The
Environmental Revolution (1990) Endangered Planet
(1998)