Environment

A

Environmentalism in the United States

In the United States the modern environmental movement is rooted in a 19th-century New England philosophical movement called transcendentalism, whose leaders included the poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson and the naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau. In their writings, both men expressed a reverence for the natural world, believing that humans and nature shared a divine spirit. Emerson asserted that nature was eternal and capable of recovering from mistreatment at the hands of humans. Thoreau, more protective and pessimistic, has been quoted as saying, “Thank God, men cannot yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”

Although Emerson and Thoreau wrote eloquently about the value of nature and its spiritual importance to humans, neither of them undertook a systematic analysis of the effects that humans have on their environment. That task was left for 19th-century American diplomat George Perkins Marsh. In 1864 Marsh published Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, considered the first book to demonstrate that human activity could cause dramatic and irreversible damage to Earth. Marsh explained how some agricultural practices had led to deforestation, loss of wetlands, desertification (the process of land becoming desert), species extinction, and changes in weather patterns.

In the early 20th century, U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt greatly expanded both the national forest and national park systems and created a system of national wildlife refuges. Roosevelt appointed forestry expert Gifford Pinchot as head of the U.S. Forest Service, and together they molded the foundation of the American conservation movement, developing methods for the sustainable use and protection of natural resources. Roosevelt and Pinchot recognized that even the vast natural resources of the United States were not limitless and thus had to be managed carefully, and they believed that those resources should be used for the betterment of the American people. Roosevelt, thinking broadly about resources, claimed that one of the most valuable natural assets was the American people themselves, and he argued that the protection of human health was a central and valid focus for the conservation movement.

Roosevelt also was a friend of Scottish American naturalist and essayist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club. Muir’s philosophical approach to the environment was very different from Pinchot’s: Muir valued nature for its own sake and argued forcefully to protect species and preserve wilderness, whereas Pinchot was much more concerned with the use of natural resources to serve human needs. Their perspectives fully diverged in the debate over California’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, often considered a twin to the Yosemite Valley, also in California. Pinchot wanted to dam the Tuolumne River and flood the valley to provide water and electricity to San Francisco, while Muir thought the destruction of such a natural wonder an abomination. Eventually Pinchot’s view won and the dam was authorized in 1913.

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When Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the U.S. presidency in 1933, he continued and expanded on the conservation efforts begun earlier in the century during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt expanded national parks and national forests. During the 1930s, he faced the twin challenges of massive unemployment in the Great Depression and environmental havoc wreaked by the Dust Bowl conditions in the Midwest. In response, Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps to replant forests and improve recreational opportunities on public land and the Soil Conservation Service to protect valuable topsoil.

In 1962 in her book Silent Spring, American biologist Rachel Carson warned of the grave dangers posed by the indiscriminate use of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and related pesticides. The book’s title suggested a time when birds, their populations greatly reduced by pesticides, could no longer be heard singing in the spring. Carson, by arguing that humans as well as wildlife were at risk, issued a call to action. Silent Spring combined solid science, a reverence for nature as strong as that of the transcendentalists, and a wonderfully poetic style that moved people to a new level of environmental awareness and activism.

By the late 1960s environmental awareness had become much more commonplace. Numerous grassroots environmental organizations were established to work for political change, including the Environmental Defense Fund in 1967 (now known as Environmental Defense), Friends of the Earth in 1968, the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970, and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund in 1971. On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, approximately 20 million Americans gathered at various sites across the country to protest corporate and governmental abuse of the environment.

B

U.S. Legislation

The strong environmental sentiments that led to Earth Day yielded dramatic changes in American legislation and reflected an expanded set of priorities. In 1964 the Congress of the United States passed the Wilderness Act in an attempt to set aside, in the words of the act, “an area where Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man”; the lands designated as wilderness areas were to be “affected primarily by nature.” In 1968 Congress adopted the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to ensure that at least some of the scenic and recreational value of the country’s rivers was preserved in the face of a growing number of dams and riverside development.

In 1970 the United States government established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and attention began to shift toward pollution control and the establishment of national environmental quality standards. The EPA is responsible for the environmental well-being of the country as defined through numerous specific pieces of legislation. One of these, the Clean Air Act of 1970, became the model for future measures. The act established national air-quality standards, gave states the responsibility for developing and enforcing plans to use these standards, and set up compliance schedules. Additionally, the act made federal funding available to states to assist in their efforts. The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), also enacted in 1970, required an environmental assessment of all federally funded projects.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was formed in 1971, although it was placed under the control of the Department of Labor rather than the EPA. Reflecting Theodore Roosevelt’s belief that human health was a natural resource worthy of protection, OSHA’s mission was “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions.”

In 1972 Congress passed the Clean Water Act, designed to do for the nation’s water supply what the Clean Air Act accomplished for the atmosphere. The Endangered Species Act was passed the following year and has been described by the Supreme Court of the United States as “the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act, lists over 1,200 plants and animals in the United States in danger of extinction. Organisms listed as endangered receive federal protection and funding to establish conservation programs. As a result of this act, the populations of some endangered species, such as the American alligator and Robbins’ cinquefoil (a rare plant found in the White Mountains of New Hampshire), have recovered and have been removed from the endangered list. Others species, including the dusky seaside sparrow and the Maryland darter, received aid too late and these animals have become extinct.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was adopted in 1976 with the twin goals of protecting human health and the environment and conserving valuable natural resources. Through this act, the federal government took a more active role in controlling solid and hazardous waste, as well as in promoting recycling. Despite the good intentions of RCRA, numerous hazardous-waste sites were created throughout the country. To combat the dangers posed by these sites, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980. Known as Superfund, the act created a $15-billion fund of public money, to be increased by taxes paid by polluting industries. Despite its large funding, Superfund remains inadequate to deal with the thousands of hazardous sites in need of cleanup. The vast majority of these sites occur on federal military reservations. Of the more than 43,000 sites screened since the passage of CERCLA in 1980, the EPA has earmarked 1,200 sites for remediation. Of these, cleanup has been completed on fewer than 800.

C

U.S. Politics and Environmental Regulation

In the United States, federal environmental legislation often faces heated debates between Republicans, who believe industry and development are being unnecessarily stifled, and Democrats who contend that the environment is being irreparably damaged. For example, environmental legislation came under attack during the conservative Republican presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the 1980s and early 1990s. During this time, as each piece of environmental legislation was modified or came before Congress for reauthorization, battles developed between Republicans and Democrats. Conservatives in Congress successfully argued that too much public money was being spent on the environment and that the federal government should play a much-reduced role in environmental regulation.

The federal government took a more active role in protecting the environment during the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton (1993-2001). During Clinton’s administration, the United States participated in the development of international agreements targeting global warming, logging and mining were prohibited in areas that had no roads, and the United States and Canada signed an agreement to clean up toxic substances in the Great Lakes. Clinton also protected more federal lands from development than any president since Theodore Roosevelt.

President George W. Bush, elected in 2001, advocated that government should be less involved in environmental protection and that environmental restrictions that stymie business are bad for the economy. To ease environmental restrictions placed on industries, Bush relaxed air quality and fuel efficiency standards, and he took steps to open roadless areas to logging and mining. The Bush energy policy promoted the construction of new power plants while encouraging oil exploration, often in environmentally sensitive areas.

Early in his administration, Bush declined to endorse the Kyōto Protocol, an international agreement that limits emissions of heat-trapping gases. Bush argued that the emissions reductions called for by the Kyōto Protocol are unfair because they do not affect nations, especially China and India, that are also major producers of gas emissions. Bush also argued that the emissions reductions would be too costly and would adversely affect the U.S. economy.

D

Global Efforts

During the late 1960s and early 1970s nations began to work together to develop worldwide approaches for monitoring and restricting global pollution. The first major international conference on environmental issues was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972 and was sponsored by the United Nations. This meeting, at which the United States took a leading role, was controversial because many developing countries were fearful that a focus on environmental protection was a means for the developed world to keep the undeveloped world in an economically subservient position. The most important outcome of the conference was the creation of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).

UNEP was designed to be “the environmental conscience of the United Nations,” and, in an attempt to allay fears of the developing world, it became the first UN agency to be headquartered in a developing country, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to attempting to achieve scientific consensus about major environmental issues, a major focus for UNEP has been the study of ways to encourage sustainable development—increasing standards of living without destroying the environment.

D

1

International Treaties

Dozens of international agreements have been reached in recent decades in an effort to improve the world’s environmental status. In 1975 the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) went into effect to reduce commerce in animals and plants on the edge of extinction. In 1982 the International Whaling Commission agreed to a moratorium on all commercial whaling. Perhaps the most important international agreement was the 1987 Montréal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. For the first time, an international pact set specific targets for reducing emissions of chemicals responsible for the destruction of Earth’s ozone layer. The international community again came together in 1989 to form the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, a treaty that limits the movement of hazardous wastes between countries.

In 1992 the UN Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Popularly known as the Earth Summit, this meeting was the largest gathering of world leaders in history. The conference produced two major treaties. The first was an agreement for nations to voluntarily reduce emission of gases leading to global warming, and the second was a pact on biodiversity requiring countries to develop plans to protect endangered species and habitats. At the insistence of the United States, however, the final version of the global warming treaty was dramatically scaled back. The United States was also one of the very few countries that refused to sign the biodiversity treaty. United States representatives objected to a part of the treaty that specified that money to come from the use of natural resources from protected ecosystems, such as rain forests, should be shared equally between the source country and the corporation or institution removing the materials.

The 1992 agreement on global warming limited each industrialized nation to emissions in the year 2000 that were equal to or below 1990 emissions. However, these limits were voluntary and with no enforcement provisions included in the agreement it became clear by 1997 that these goals would never be met. At a follow-up conference in Kyōto, Japan, representatives from 160 countries signed the Kyōto Protocol. This agreement called for industrialized nations to reduce emissions to an average of about 5 percent below 1990 emission levels and to reach this goal between the years 2008 and 2012. For this accord to become international law, however, it had to be ratified by at least 55 countries. The United States has refused to ratify the accord, but Japan and the 15 countries that make up the European Union have ratified it. Even if the Kyōto Protocol does become international law, however, scientists expect that its emission requirements are too minimal to be effective. Some experts predict that a 60 percent reduction in emissions will be necessary to stabilize the world’s climate.

In 2002 delegates from nearly 200 countries convened at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, to establish new sustainable development goals for the 21st century. They also negotiated to strengthen commitments from the governments of developed nations to provide aid for sustainable development. Among the outcomes, the 2002 summit created an action plan that called on nations to reduce by half the proportion of people who lack sanitation by 2015, to minimize health and environmental problems caused by chemical pollution by 2020, and to reduce significantly the number of endangered species by 2010.

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