UVM HST96 (Moore) The Environmental Movement

Background Conditions

Technological hubris -- e.g., polio vaccine, satellites, nuclear power

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) and "The Sand County Almanac" (1948) -- Land Ethic

Eugene Odum and "Fundamentals of Ecology" (1953)

Pesticides and Food

DDT used during World War II on soldiers, refugees and crops, mosquitos

1973 -- DDT banned in the U.S.

J.I. Rodale (1898-1971) and Organic Farming and Gardening Magazine

The Rebirth of the Sierra Club

founded by John Muir (1892)

1913 -- Hetch Hetchy Dam authorized by Congress in Yosemite National Park

David Brower (1912- ) -- becomes president in 1952

Dinosaur National Monument -- because of pressure U.S. government drops plans for Echo Park Dam in 1955

1956 -- construction begins on the Glen Canyon Dam

1965 -- sues over Storm King Mountain power project in New York

1966 -- takes out ads against damming the Grand Canyon; IRS takes away tax exempt status; plan killed in 1968

Environmental Disasters

1948 -- smog near Pittsburgh kills 22 people

1960 -- 1st commercial nukes go online

1963 -- thermal pollution kills fish at new Con Edison Indian Point, New York nuke

1965 - major drought in northeast United States.

March 18, 1967 -- Torrey Canyon wreck in the English Channel

June 1969 -- massive fish kill from pesticides in the Rhine River

1978 -- Love Canal and Lois Gibbs

1977-81 -- height of anti-nuclear movement; Seabrook (Clamshell Alliance), Diablo Canyon (Abalone Alliance)

Three Mile Island (March 28, 1979) partial meltdown

Paul R. Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb (1968); Zero Population Growth

Mainstream Environmentalism

Older Groups -- Audobon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Wilderness Society, Isaac Walton League, Sierra Club

Governmental Reforms

New National Parks created -- Canyonlands (1964); North Cascades (1968); Redwood (1968)

Highway Beautification Act (1965) - pushed by Lady Bird Johnson

Clean Air Act (1970)