Activity 4.1 – US Environmental History and Major Regulations.
When America was first colonized by people from the old world, the land was seen as teeming with an inexhaustible supply of natural resources including unprocessed land, timber, water, wild animals, and plantlife. In the original colonies there was no real major concern surrounding what we now refer to today as conservation and resource management because there was such an abundance of resources. Eventually though, after only a few generations of habitation by colonial people and the exponential growth in their numbers, the first ideas about conservation of resources started to be discussed in the mainstream of social consciousness.
By the early to mid 1800s ideas about natural resources and their management were starting to become more broadly discussed. The Transcendental movement changed the way that people viewed their relationship with the natural world and helped foster a spiritual connection to it. This is seen in the artwork from the period, such as in the painting In The Heart of the Andes by Frederic Edwin Church. This time period also saw the designation of America’s first national park, Yellowstone, in 1872 (Al-Hallaj, 2018). For the first time since the founding of the original colonies, the zeitgeist shifted from strictly survival to considering existential ideas about how people interact with their environment. This movement coincided with the later end of the Industrial Revolution, and might be in part a reaction to the Industrial Revolution itself; as industrialization intensified, so did the concern for its effects on the environment. This could be especially true if you were someone living in a densely populated city such as New York or Chicago at this time. Lack of proper resource management, particularly water, resulted in frequent outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhoid in the cramped city streets and tenements.
As industrialization expanded in America, so did its ill effects. In the 1920’s and on, global conflicts superseded environmental issues in public consciousness and previous ideas about soil conservation and sustainable forestry fell by the wayside. This resulted in events such as the Texas Dust Storm of 1935, where the combination of drought and overworking of the land resulted in massive dust storms that drastically reduced the air quality in some Texas towns and resulted in deaths of people, cattle, and crops across the entire region. Other areas of the US were suffering from poor air quality as well but as a result of pollution from industrial processes. In states like Pennsylvania, some cities were so polluted that even a few minutes of exposure to the outside air could cause respiratory disease, watery eyes, and diminished visibility.
In the late 1960’s to early 1970’s there was renewed interest in environmental protection policy. In the 60’s scientists like Rachel Carson helped bring awareness to the issue of chemical pesticides and toxins with her book Silent Spring, and 1970 saw the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as the designation of Earth Day. The struggle was far from over at this point though; moving forward into the 1980’s and 1990’s there were continued fights over environmental regulation and deregulation and issues such as acidic rain and smog that plagued urban cities.
From the year 2000 through today, much of the conversation about the environment pertains to emissions from burning fossil fuels, but there are many other factors to consider that affect quality of life. Economic segregation, plastic waste, water quality, air quality, extreme weather events, and food production, are all influenced by environmental issues and affect the health and longevity of people living on earth. These issues are now being discussed on a global scale, whereas previously they were largely isolated to geographic regions. Environmental issues are also now being seen as an existential threat to humanity. Environmental issues no doubt will continue to evolve as they have over the previous centuries as technology changes, and hopefully it will be changed in the right direction.
Works cited
Al-Hallaj, Said, et al. "Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation." openstax.org, edited by Tom Theis and Jonathan Tomkins, 26 Dec. 2018, < cnx.org/content/col11325/1.45/ >.
Russell, E., & Fairfax, S. K. (2014). Guide to U.S. Environmental Policy . CQ Press. Chapter 28, pp. 400 - 407. https://nvcproxy.alamo.edu/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.nvcproxy.alamo.edu/login.aspx?
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