Before Earth Day

Author : Adam Rome
Publisher : Hill and Wang
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2013-04-16
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781429943550

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The Genius of Earth Day by Adam Rome Pdf

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.

Author : David M. Guion
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 173 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2020-04-24
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9798639339127

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Before and After the First Earth Day 1970 by David M. Guion Pdf

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.

Author : Karl Boyd Brooks
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2012-03-09
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780700618934

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Before Earth Day by Karl Boyd Brooks Pdf

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.

Author : Rachel Carson
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 347 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2020-03-26
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780141994000

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Silent Spring by Rachel Carson Pdf

Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Despite condemnation in the press and heavy-handed attempts by the chemical industry to ban the book, Carson succeeded in creating a new public awareness of the environment which led to changes in government and inspired the ecological movement. It is thanks to this book, and the help of many environmentalists, that harmful pesticides such as DDT were banned from use in the US and countries around the world. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Lord Shackleton, a preface by World Wildlife Fund founder Julian Huxley, and an afterword by Carson's biographer Linda Lear.

Author : Gaylord Nelson,Susan M. Campbell,Paul A. Wozniak
Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2002-11-04
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780299180430

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Beyond Earth Day by Gaylord Nelson,Susan M. Campbell,Paul A. Wozniak Pdf

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.

Author : David Guion
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 134 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2015-04-29
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1511691727

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Before and After the First Earth Day, 1970 by David Guion Pdf

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.

Author : Philippe Tortell
Publisher : Open Book Publishers
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2020-04-22
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781783748488

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Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet by Philippe Tortell Pdf

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.

Author : Willma Willis Gore
Publisher : Enslow Publishers
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 0894903802

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Earth Day by Willma Willis Gore Pdf

Discusses the concern for the environment that produced the original Earth Day and describes the activities that accompany its continuing celebration in the United States and around the world.

Author : Christy Peterson
Publisher : Millbrook Press
Page : 121 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-03
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781541595811

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Earth Day and the Environmental Movement by Christy Peterson Pdf

On April 22, 1970, an estimated twenty million people held in a teach-in to show their support for environmental protections. This new celebration, Earth Day, brought together previously fragmented issues under the same banner. It was the largest nationwide event ever, and lawmakers took notice. But one day didn't change everything. Fifty years after the first Earth Day, climate change remains a dire concern. The divide between political parties continues to widen, and environmental policy has become an increasingly partisan issue. The spread of disinformation has also made climate change a debatable idea, rather than scientific fact. A new generation of advocates continue the fight to make environmental policy a top priority for the United States and for nations around the globe. "Our goal is an environment of decency, quality, and mutual respect for all human beings and all other living creatures . . . Our goal is a decent environment in its broadest, deepest sense."—Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day founder "[T]he potential consequences are certainly major in their impact on mankind. Now is the time. The research is clear. It is up to us now to summon the political will."—Robert Walker, US Representative from Pennsylvania "There's always a perception that business and industry and conservation groups . . . don't agree on anything. . . . [W]e can come together to demonstrate that we might be looking at it from different sides, but the outcome is the same."—Doug Miell, consultant, Georgia Chamber of Commerce

Author : Environmental Action (Association)
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 1970
Category : Earth Day
ISBN : UCAL:B4482286

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Earth Day--the Beginning by Environmental Action (Association) Pdf

Author : Jean Griffith
Publisher : Page Publishing Inc
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2019-06-05
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781644249468

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Earth Day by Jean Griffith Pdf

Issues. They are the conflagrations, the bonfires, the burning controversies so profound, so personal they move people to take action and generate the momentum to change the political system and the course of history. Be it the Boston Tea Party of 1773, Jacob Coxey's Army, the Bonus Army March of June 1932, the National Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, the Women's March of January 2018, or March for Our Lives to end gun violence in America in March of 2018, all came about because of Americans motivated by issues so much so they took their message of change to the street. Driven by issues which galvanized public opinion, people protested, demonstrating public solidarity for a cause. Earth Day: America at the Environmental Crossroads is a political history focusing on the issues which generated the first Earth Day in April 1970. It is about the people who brought about this momentous political turning point during a period in American history of unprecedented turmoil and political protest. Open its cover, and you will learn about the agents of change. Some have risen to take their place in the pantheon of environmental history; others are all but forgotten in the collective public mind. It begins with herbicide contamination and the Cranberry Scare of November 1959 then explains the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and its impact on the environmental movement. Though the use of two nuclear weapons by the United States military ended World War II in the Pacific, the inevitable arms race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War led to the testing of these weapons of mass destruction. The second chapter explains how nuclear contaminated fallout became a health threat and a concern for environmentalists and the general public. Overpopulation seems to be a nonissue today. During the decades prior to Earth Day in 1970, the world's population numbers were a concern of monumental importance. This is the focus of chapter three. No credible treatment of the twentieth century environmental movement would be complete without addressing the contribution of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. Unlike pesticides, the effects of which oftentimes surface years after exposure, deteriorating air quality burned the eyes and made it difficult to breathe. Polluted air particularly in the country's urban areas not only left an indelible impression in the minds of environmentalists, but it also threatened public health. And clean water, taken for granted today by most Americans, is the subject of chapter six, which describes the extent to which the country's waterways were part of a multibillion-dollar restoration project on the part of the states mandated by the federal government. The seventh chapter is a retelling of the oil spill disaster in Santa Barbara, California, and the radical fringe of the environmental movement which manifested itself before Earth Day, a fitting precursor to the event itself the subject of the final chapter.

Author : Thomas Robertson
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2012-05-07
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780813553351

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The Malthusian Moment by Thomas Robertson Pdf

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.”

Author : John McConnell
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 600 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2011-07-22
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781608995417

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Earth Day by John McConnell Pdf

After a half-century of activism, John McConnell, the true founder of Earth Day, here relates his global promotion of peace, justice, and Earth care. Following the Kennedy assassination, McConnell's Minute for Peace gained worldwide attention. This led to his Earth Day and other initiatives aimed at promoting people and planet. In this book, he shares the views that garnered support during the environmental movement from 1969 onward, and that have inspired followers for forty years at annual Earth Day ceremonies at the UN and cities across the globe. John McConnell coined the term Earth Day in 1968, proposed its celebration on the spring equinox to the City of San Francisco in October 1969, and announced it in November at a UNESCO Conference. The City responded by hosting the first Earth Day on March 21, 1970. Margaret Mead, UN Secretary-General U Thant, President Ford, and thirty-three Nobel laureates supported McConnell's Earth Day, and thirty-six worldwide dignitaries signed McConnell's Earth Day Proclamation, supporting Earth Day on the spring equinox, an annual planetary holiday linking people everywhere without regard to politics, culture, national border, or religion. In 1957, after Sputnik, McConnell promoted the Star of Hope, a satellite devoted to peace. This effort sparked his origination of Earth Day, the Earth Flag, Earth Trustees, and the Earth Magna Charta. He worked with UN officials and other leaders to overcome differences and build common ground for peace, aiming to ensure our planet's future and human survival. This book chronicles his global mission, his life journey, and his unique contributions toward a peaceful and cherished planet.

Author : Molly Aloian
Publisher : Crabtree Publishing Company
Page : 36 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 0778742881

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Earth Day by Molly Aloian Pdf

Plant a tree and walk to work--it's Earth Day! An annual celebration of awareness, Earth Day is designed to encourage people to take part in the preservation of their environment. Come inside Earth Day to learn the history of the event, the celebrations, and how you can get involved. Young readers will enjoy this inviting look into the world of environmental consciousness.

Author : John Manos
Publisher : Benchmark Education Company
Page : 24 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 9781410861245

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It's Earth Day! by John Manos Pdf