Download or read book The Genius of Earth Day written by Adam Rome and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first Earth Day is the most famous little-known event in modern American history. Because we still pay ritual homage to the planet every April 22, everyone knows something about Earth Day. Some people may also know that Earth Day 1970 made the environmental movement a major force in American political life. But no one has told the whole story before. The story of the first Earth Day is inspiring: it had a power, a freshness, and a seriousness of purpose that are difficult to imagine today. Earth Day 1970 created an entire green generation. Thousands of Earth Day organizers and participants decided to devote their lives to the environmental cause. Earth Day 1970 helped to build a lasting eco-infrastructure—lobbying organizations, environmental beats at newspapers, environmental-studies programs, ecology sections in bookstores, community ecology centers. In The Genius of Earth Day, the prizewinning historian Adam Rome offers a compelling account of the rise of the environmental movement. Drawing on his experience as a journalist as well as his expertise as a scholar, he explains why the first Earth Day was so powerful, bringing one of the greatest political events of the twentieth century to life.

Download or read book Silent Spring written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essential, cornerstone book of modern environmentalism is now offered in a handsome 40th anniversary edition which features a new Introduction by activist Terry Tempest Williams and a new Afterword by Carson biographer Linda Lear.

Download or read book Earth Day and the Global Environmental Movement written by Christy Peterson and published by Twenty-First Century Books (Tm). This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the history and legacy of Earth Day and delve into issues of environmental justice.

Download or read book Before and After the First Earth Day 1970 written by David M. Guion and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-24 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When you think of Earth Day, do you know that the first Earth Day (April 22, 1970) did not begin the history of environmentalism? ecology and environmentalism were little known words before 1970? the landmark legislation of the 1970s was not the beginning of environmental law? Sen. Gaylord Nelson, who conceived the idea of Earth Day, was not the first senator to champion environmental legislation? Nelson modeled the idea of Earth Day after anti-Vietnam War teach-ins? he invited a Republican to co-sponsor it? the most publicized event took place took place more than a month before the official first Earth Day? today's most important environmental laws were enacted with Republican Presidents and a Democratic Congress? the Environmental Protection Agency was at first the most popular federal agency? favoring new environmental laws was once politically the safest stance? groups as different as the John Birch Society and Students for a Democratic Society agreed on the need to stop pollution? most of the predictions of environmental catastrophe were wrong? many of the most vocal environmental activists today make the same flawed arguments? Earth Day is now an international event? Thousands of people helped organize Earth Day 1970 events. Multiple thousands spoke at various events. Millions listened. The first Earth Day made environmentalism a mainstream issue. It unified the country like nothing else. The unity couldn't last. Some of the most popular and influential speakers sowed seeds of the collapse of the environmental consensus with overheated rhetoric and bad predictions. But Earth Day continues to inspire and educate people to adopt more eco-friendly lifestyles. Read this comprehensive guide to the history of environmentalism. David M. Guion, author of the respected blog Sustaining Our World, explains the often neglected and forgotten history and prehistory of Earth Day. And examines its successes and failures 50 years later.

Download or read book The Story Of The First Earth Day 1970 written by Paul Pete McCloskey and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the grassroots movement in 1970 to start the first Earth Day and the effect on the environment by bi-partisan cooperation in the Congress and Senate.

Download or read book Before and After the First Earth Day 1970 written by David Guion and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-04-29 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When you think of Earth Day, do you know that* the first Earth Day (April 22, 1970) was not the beginning of the environmental movement? * the landmark legislation of the 1970s was not the beginning of environmental law?* today's most important environmental laws were enacted with a Republican President and Democrats Congress?* the Environmental Protection Agency was at first the most popular agency in the federal government?* favoring new environmental laws was politically the safest stance?* groups as different as the John Birch Society and Students for a Democratic Society agreed on the need to stop pollution?* that the idea of Earth Day was modeled after anti-Vietnam War teach-ins?* that most of the academics' predictions of environmental catastrophe were wrong?* that the most vocal environmental activists today are still wrong because they make the same flawed arguments?Before the first Earth DayEarth Day 1970 marks a turning point in history of environmentalism. Scientists began to express concern about atomic testing and massive spraying of pesticides in the 1950s. The public feared the environmental effects of pollution and the safety of food like never before. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) made scientific knowledge known to the public and galvanized that fear into calls for action. Conservationists once concerned only about wilderness and wildlife preservation became concerned about such a wider range of issues that they started calling themselves environmentalists instead. First Earth Day, 1970Senator Gaylord Nelson conceived of a national teach-in to put the energy of the antiwar movement to work on environmental issues. He succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Academics, politicians, business leaders, labor leaders, students, housewives, and school children all spoke about the environment at teach-ins all over the country. Earth Day became an annual event.Unfortunately students and academics speaking outside their professional competence made wildly bad predictions about the looming environmental catastrophe * Some named overpopulation as the most important problem. They feared it was already impossible to prevent widespread starvation in India and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for preventing widespread starvation in India and elsewhere.* Some claimed modern technology caused of pollution and was powerless to fix what it had damaged.* Some noted that the world climate had been cooling since the 1940s and warned of a coming ice age caused by burning fossil fuels. * Some blamed our Judeo-Christian heritage for standing in the way of progress and advocated sweeping changes to the fabric of society even if they required government coercion.The environment todayDo these claims sound familiar? Environmental activists still loudly and insistently make them today. Global warming has replaced the coming ice age as the issue of choice. It is more nearly correct, but advocates propose needlessly coercive legal remedies and belittle anyone who thinks differently about the issue. That would be most of the public. The public has stopped listening to environmentalists and lost interest in environmental issues and patience with environmentalism, especially climate change rhetoric. Meanwhile, work remains real environmental problems of waste and pollution from 1970. New environmental issues have arisen, which go as far beyond environmentalism as environmentalism went beyond conservationism. A new term, sustainability, better expresses the breadth of these concerns. How can we achieve sustainability in today's polarized political climate? For starters, we can follow sustainability leaders outside of government and environmental action groups who are providing tools to live sustainable lives. I experienced the first Earth Day, and have conducted thorough research. If you care about environmental history, scroll up and click the buy button now.

Download or read book Before Earth Day written by Karl Boyd Brooks and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2012-03-09 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most Americans--even environmentalists--date the emergence of laws protecting nature to the early 1970s. But Karl Boyd Brooks shows that, far from being a product of that activist decade, American environmental law emerged well before the first Earth Day, often in unexpected places far from Capitol Hill. Surveying the landscape from the end of World War II to Earth Day 1970, Brooks traces a dramatic shift in Americans' relationship to the environment and the emergence of new environmental statutes. He takes readers into legislative hearing rooms, lawyers' conferences, and administrators' offices to describe how Americans forged a new body of law that reflected their hopes for rescuing the land from air pollution, deforestation, and other potential threats. For while previous law had treated nature as a commodity, more and more Americans had come to see it as a national treasure worth preserving. Brooks explores the way key features of the New Deal's legal legacy influenced environmental law. This path-breaking environmental history examines how cultural, intellectual, and economic changes in postwar America brought about new solutions to environmental problems that threatened public health and degraded natural aesthetics. Visiting riverbanks and freeways, duck blinds and airsheds, Before Earth Day reveals the new strategies and efforts by which the unceasing process of legal change created environmental law. And through real-world examples-how Los Angelenos pressed cases about water and air quality, how an Idaho lawyer helped clients pursue new environmental regulations, how citizens challenged government and corporate plans to dam rivers-Brooks demonstrates that key changes in property, procedure, contract, and other legal rules in those early years stimulated the national environmental laws to come. Gracefully written and meticulously researched, Brooks's work dramatically updates our understanding of the origins of environmental law. By taking the postwar years more seriously, he shows that earlier actions across the country played a central role in shaping the structure and goals of well-known federal laws passed during the "environmental decade" of the seventies. Before Earth Day describes nothing less than an entirely new way of thinking, as environmental law emerged from local jurisdictions to reshape national agendas, firing the popular imagination and only then remodeling law school curricula. A long-needed corrective to standard political and legal history, it demonstrates both the longstanding environmental concerns of Americans and the resilience of law.

Download or read book Beyond Earth Day written by Gaylord Nelson and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2002-11-04 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gaylord Nelson’s legacy is known and respected throughout the world. He was a founding father of the modern environmental movement and creator of one of the most influential public awareness campaigns ever undertaken on behalf of global environmental stewardship: Earth Day. Nelson died in 2005, but his message in this book is still timely and urgent, delivered with the same eloquence with which he articulated the nation’s environmental ills throughout the decades. He details the planet’s most critical concerns—from species and habitat losses to global climate change and population growth. In outlining strategies for planetary health, Nelson inspires citizens to reassert environmentalism as a national priority. Included in this reprint is a new preface by Gaylord Nelson’s daughter, Tia Nelson.

Download or read book The Malthusian Moment written by Thomas Robertson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-07 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) is often cited as the founding text of the U.S. environmental movement, in The Malthusian Moment Thomas Robertson locates the origins of modern American environmentalism in twentieth-century adaptations of Thomas Malthus’s concerns about population growth. For many environmentalists, managing population growth became the key to unlocking the most intractable problems facing Americans after World War II—everything from war and the spread of communism overseas to poverty, race riots, and suburban sprawl at home. Weaving together the international and the domestic in creative new ways, The Malthusian Moment charts the explosion of Malthusian thinking in the United States from World War I to Earth Day 1970, then traces the just-as-surprising decline in concern beginning in the mid-1970s. In addition to offering an unconventional look at World War II and the Cold War through a balanced study of the environmental movement’s most contentious theory, the book sheds new light on some of the big stories of postwar American life: the rise of consumption, the growth of the federal government, urban and suburban problems, the civil rights and women’s movements, the role of scientists in a democracy, new attitudes about sex and sexuality, and the emergence of the “New Right.”

Download or read book The Green Years 1964 1976 written by Gregg Coodley and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Green Years, 1964–1976, Gregg Coodley and David Sarasohn offer the first comprehensive history of the period when the United States created the legislative, legal, and administrative structures for environmental protection that are still in place over fifty years later. Coodley and Sarasohn tell a dramatic story of cultural change, grassroots activism, and political leadership that led to the passage of a host of laws attacking pollution under President Johnson. At the same time, with Stewart Udall as secretary of the interior, the Wilderness Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and other land-protection measures were passed and the department shifted its focus from western resource development to broader national conservation issues. The magnitude of what was accomplished was without precedent, even under conservation-minded presidents like the two Roosevelts. The fast-paced story the authors tell is not only about the Democratic Party; in this era there was still a vital Republican conservation tradition. In the 1960s, Republicans were chronologically as close to Teddy Roosevelt as to Donald Trump. In both the House and Senate and in the Nixon and Ford administrations, Republicans played vital roles. It was President Nixon who established the Environmental Protection Agency and signed into law the 1970 Clean Air Act, revisions in 1972 to the Clean Water Act, and the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Under Nixon, actions were taken to protect the oceans, forests, coastal zones, and grasslands while regulating chemicals, pesticides, and garbage. The authors analyze the full range of transformations during the “Green Years,” from the creation of entirely new pollution-control industries to backpacking becoming mass recreation to how revelations about chemical exposure spurred the natural food movement. And not least, the tectonic shift in the political landscape of the United States with the western states becoming Republican bastions and centers of ongoing backlash against the federal government. The Green Years, 1964–1976 is the story of environmental progress in the midst of war and civil unrest, and of the lessons we can learn for our future.

Download or read book The Environmental Moment written by David Stradling and published by . This book was released on 1783 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Environmental Moment is a collection of documents that reveal the significance of the years 1968-1972 to the environmental movement in the United States. With material ranging from short pieces from the Whole Earth Catalog and articles from the Village Voice to lectures, posters, and government documents, the collection describes the period through the perspective of a diversity of participants, including activists, politicians, scientists, and average citizens. Included are the words of Rachel Carson, but also the National Review, Howard Zahniser on wilderness, Nathan Hare on the Black underclass. The chronological arrangement reveals the coincidence of a multitude of issues that rushed into public consciousness during a critical time in American history.

Download or read book Pollution and the Death of Man written by Francis A. Schaeffer and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2011-03-02 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the creation of the world, God gave mankind the responsibility to exercise dominion over the earth. Man was to use the earth and its abundance of resources to satisfy his physical needs, but he was also to care for the earth and its creatures as a wise and godly steward. Reading about endangered species or another oil spill will make it abundantly clear that the human race has failed miserably in its God-given mandate. How did we get to this point? Where should we go from here? This classic by Francis Schaeffer, now repackaged, looks at contemporary ecological crises through the lens of theology and Scripture. Renowned for his work in applied philosophy and theology, Schaeffer answers serious philosophical questions about creation and ecology. He concludes that we must return to a profoundly and radically biblical understanding of God’s relationship to the earth, and of our divine mandate to exercise godly dominion over it. Repackaged and republished, Pollution and the Death of Man carries an important and relevant message for our day. With concluding chapter by Udo Middelmann.

Download or read book The Men Who Stare at Goats written by Jon Ronson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-06-28 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a major film, starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges, this New York Times bestseller is a disturbing and often hilarious look at the U.S. military's long flirtation with the paranormal—and the psy-op soldiers that are still fighting the battle. Bizarre military history: In 1979, a crack commando unit was established by the most gifted minds within the U.S. Army. Defying all known laws of physics and accepted military practice, they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and—perhaps most chillingly—kill goats just by staring at them. They were the First Earth Battalion, entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries. And they really weren’t joking. What’s more, they’re back—and they’re fighting the War on Terror. An uproarious exploration of American military paranoia: With investigations ranging from the mysterious “Goat Lab,” to Uri Geller’s covert psychic work with the CIA, to the increasingly bizarre role played by a succession of U.S. presidents, this might just be the funniest, most unsettling book you will ever read—if only because it is all true and is still happening today.

Download or read book Earth 2020 An Insider s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet written by Philippe Tortell and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2020-04-22 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years have passed since the first Earth Day, on 22 April 1970. This accessible, incisive and timely collection of essays brings together a diverse set of expert voices to examine how the Earth’s environment has changed over this past half century, and what lies in store for our planet over the coming fifty years. Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet responds to a public increasingly concerned about the deterioration of Earth’s natural systems, offering readers a wealth of perspectives on our shared ecological past, and on the future trajectory of planet Earth. Written by world-leading thinkers on the front-lines of global change research and policy, this multi-disciplinary collection maintains a dual focus: some essays investigate specific facets of the physical Earth system, while others explore the social, legal and political dimensions shaping the human environmental footprint. In doing so, the essays collectively highlight the urgent need for collaboration across diverse domains of expertise in addressing one of the most significant challenges facing us today. Earth 2020 is essential reading for everyone seeking a deeper understanding of the past, present and future of our planet, and the role of humanity in shaping this trajectory.

Download or read book The First Green Wave written by Ryan O'Connor and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2014-11-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The First Green Wave, Ryan O’Connor traces the rise of the environmental movement in Toronto, home to one of Canada’s earliest and most dynamic communities of environmental activists, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. At the heart of the story is Pollution Probe, an organization founded in 1969 by students and faculty at the University of Toronto. Living up to its motto (“Do it!”) in its first year of operation, Pollution Probe confronted Toronto’s City Hall over its use of pesticides, Ontario Hydro over air pollution, and the detergent industry over pollution of the Great Lakes. The organization’s successes inspired the founding of other environmental organizations across Canada and led to the development of initiatives now taken for granted, such as waste reduction and energy policy. This book describes the heady days of Canada’s early environmental movement and examines the forces that reshaped the activist landscape in the 1980s.

Download or read book Charles Darwin Geologist written by Sandra Herbert and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Pleasure of imagination.... I a geologist have illdefined notion of land covered with ocean, former animals, slow force cracking surface &c truly poetical."--from Charles Darwin's Notebook M, 1838 The early nineteenth century was a golden age for the study of geology. New discoveries in the field were greeted with the same enthusiasm reserved today for advances in the biomedical sciences. In her long-awaited account of Charles Darwin's intellectual development, Sandra Herbert focuses on his geological training, research, and thought, asking both how geology influenced Darwin and how Darwin influenced the science. Elegantly written, extensively illustrated, and informed by the author's prodigious research in Darwin's papers and in the nineteenth-century history of earth sciences, Charles Darwin, Geologist provides a fresh perspective on the life and accomplishments of this exemplary thinker. As Herbert reveals, Darwin's great ambition as a young scientist--one he only partially realized--was to create a "simple" geology based on movements of the earth's crust. (Only one part of his scheme has survived in close to the form in which he imagined it: a theory explaining the structure and distribution of coral reefs.) Darwin collected geological specimens and took extensive notes on geology during all of his travels. His grand adventure as a geologist took place during the circumnavigation of the earth by H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836)--the same voyage that informed his magnum opus, On the Origin of Species. Upon his return to England it was his geological findings that first excited scientific and public opinion. Geologists, including Darwin's former teachers, proved a receptive audience, the British government sponsored publication of his research, and the general public welcomed his discoveries about the earth's crust. Because of ill health, Darwin's years as a geological traveler ended much too soon: his last major geological fieldwork took place in Wales when he was only thirty-three. However, the experience had been transformative: the methods and hypotheses of Victorian-era geology, Herbert suggests, profoundly shaped Darwin's mind and his scientific methods as he worked toward a full-blown understanding of evolution and natural selection.

Download or read book Literature of Place written by Melanie Louise Simo and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Literature of Place Melanie Simo looks beyond crowded malls and boarded-up storefronts on Main Street to our collective memory, finding answers to these questions in stories, novels, memoirs, poetry, essays, diaries, travel writing, and nature writing that range in origin from New England and the Southern Highlands to Hawaii and in subject from little gardens to lost or reinhabited places in cities, mill towns, deserts, and woodlands. In her consideration of selected American works from 1890 to 1970 - years that mark the closing of the Western frontier and later openings in space exploration, environmental protection, genetic engineering, and cyberspace - Simo uncovers a literature of place and the often-surprising relationship of place to our daily lives."--BOOK JACKET.