Evolution of Environmental Thinking

Celia Roesser Environmental Foundations and Principles EM500-01 November 5, 2013

http://changesinland.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/changes-in-the-land-summary-and-analysis/

SHIFT TO EUROPEAN DOMINANCE

Native American
Territorial rights and owned what they made with their hands

European Settlers
Land ownership Granted land by the crown with no consideration of prior ownership and disregard for the Indians claim to it. Improved land for grazing by destroying the forests or cut and burn Men farm (thought of Native Americans as lazy for hunting) Traded wampum for furs Brought disease

Seasonal migration to where there was plenty of food Men hunt, women farm

Started fur trade and formed new economy in New England, and later land Created fenced in properties and permanent settlements

Retrieved from http://changesinland.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/changes-in-the-land-summary-and-analysis/

NATIVE AMERICANS

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth Befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, He does to himself.

--CHIEF SEATTLE

PRESERVATION
National Park Movement - Yellowstone Sierra Club

Shaped the commons Land Air Water Forest management Endangered species Intrinsic value of nature

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. John Muir

Aldo Leopold

Forgive them; they know not what they do.

PRESERVATION
Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

CONSERVATION
where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run. Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester, 1905

Father of American Conservation Riches of this continent should be used for all the people to provide a more abundant life Waste of these resources or exploitation by a few were a threat to our democratic life Career marked the beginning of a professional approach in preserving our natural resources U.S. Forest Service had to invent the tools and policies needed to manage public lands After WWII, a new scientific understanding of ecosystems helped form a vision for public land management that continues to evolve and guide the U.S. Forest Service.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU - WILDNESS

IN WILDNESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF THE WORLD. HENRY D. THOREAU

We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frosts familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road the one less traveled by offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Rachel Carson
First of three installments of Silent Spring published as Reporter at Large in The New Yorker September Silent Spring published by Houghton Mifflin December Silent Spring, a book-of-the-month club selection Albert Schweitzer award from Animal Welfare Institute April 3 CBS Reports airs The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson. Carson testifies on the misuse of pesticides; US Senate Subcommittee of Government Operations. 88th Cong. 1st.sess. Carson testifies before the US Senate Committee on Commerce December Awarded the National Audubon Society Medal. Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

1962 June

1963 January

1963 June 3

1963 June 6

1964 April 14

Carson dies in Silver Spring, Md. at age 56.

Wilderness and the American Mind, 1967.

The American Environment: Readings in the History of Conservation, 1968. The Call of the Wild 1900-1916. 1970. Environment and Americans: The Problem of Priorities. 1972. The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. 1989. American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation History, 1990. The Big Drops: Ten Legendary Rapids of the American West, 1989. The Nervous Generation: American Thought, 1917-1930. 1990. Nash, Roderick, Gregory Graves. From These Beginnings: A Biographical Approach to American History, Volume II, 6/e. 1995.

Wilderness appealed to those bored or disgusted with man and his works. It not only offered an escape from society but also was an ideal stage for the Romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul. The solitude and total freedom of the wilderness created a perfect setting for either melancholy or exultation. Roderick Nash

MODERN ATTITUDES

http://www.pbs.org/fmc/book/2work1.htm

MODERN ATTITUDES
A part of the frontier myth.the notion that you go the United States, you go to the wilderness and you start over, you shed the trappings of civilization, you wipe clean the slate, start from first principles, invent the good society, that is operating in American politics long after we're concerned about the frontier. When John Kennedy talks about the new frontier of space, and when Star Trek talks about space the final frontier, those are all about the newness of America, and the possibility of being new in this landscape, and the frontier is very much a part of that vision. William Cronon The ancient manner of telling these interconnected stories to explain, nature, the gods, and human life, was called mythology. Our modern manner is similar, but our complex mythology entails historical research. It includes the history of science. It demands that we determine what we value in our relationships to all of life and to the non-human. And it reimagines and discloses the natural world in color, word, song and tale. Glenn Adelson

References
Adelson, G., Engell, J., Ranalli, B., & Van Anglen, K.R. (2008). What is wilderness and do we need it? (Ed.), Environment: An interdisciplinary anthology, (pp. 541-549). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Carson, R. (1954). Rachel Carson, from And No Birds Sing in Silent Spring (1962). In G. Adelson (Ed.), Environment: An interdisciplinary anthology, (pp. 541-549). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cronon, W. (2003). Changes in the land: Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England. Retrieved on November 5, 2013, from http://changesinland.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/changes-inthe-land-summary-and-analysis/ Kelley, M.G. (2011). Most desperate people: The genesis of Texas exceptionalism. Georgia State University. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Retrieved on March 26, 2012 from http://search.proquest.com/docview/887724344?accountid=35812 USDA Forest Service. (2007). The greatest good: A forest service centennial film. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m-oFZMhJqc