Environmental Perspectives

1
Environmental Perspectives

• Developments in Americans
• Conceptions of Nature

2
Early American Conceptions of Nature
3
Ideas of Nature in the New World (Europeans in
North America)

• The Puritans
• New world as a wilderness to be conquered, wild
  and evil. (Literally and spiritually.)
• Understood Gods call as to tame and subdue this
  wilderness, make it habitable.
• Calvinists in general
• Emphasis on work and order. Farming by design,
  not by nature.

4
Thomas Jeffersons Agrarian Ideal

• People and land are to exist in harmony
  expressed in farming.
• No need for cities. The best life is rural and
  farm-oriented.
• Land is a source of strength.

5
Romanticism (in Europe)

• Reacted to the colorless, dry science of the
  rationalistic new scientists.
• Rejected the mechanistic view of nature and the
  reduction of nature to formulae and numbers.
• Saw nature as a source of inspiration, of a
  higher truth, of spiritual enlightenment.

6
Transcendentalism (A Romantic Movement in
America)

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• H.D. Thoreau
• This thinkers saw wilderness as a symbol, as a
  source of spiritual strength, as an avenue to
  God. In wildness is the preservation of the
  earth. (Thoreau)

7
The Growth of Conservationism and Preservationism
in the U.S.
8
Attitude changes

• By the late 19th century, Americans had begun to
  realize that the land (and resources) was not
  unlimited.
• Under the Progressive political reform
  movement, led by President Theodore Roosevelt,
  the Conservation Movement became firmly
  established.
• This movement, emphasized the conservation of
  Americas forests and other resources as an
  economic necessity for the continuing support of
  human life.
• Under the conservation movement, government
  experts informed by the best science of the
  day, would regulate the Americas forests, land
  and natural resources.

9
Some historical developments

• 1872 Establishment of Yellowstone National Park
• 1892 Establishment of the Sierra Club by John
  Muir
• 1890s Establishment of Forest reserves
• 1908 69,000 tourists visited Yellowstone
• 1910 Founding of the Boy Scouts
• 1912 Founding of the Girl Scouts
• 1915 335,000 tourists visted Yellowstone
• 1916 Creation of the National Park Service. By
  this year 13 National Parks had been established.

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Diverging Resource Use Philosophies

• Western business interests government
  regulation prevents us from using our valuable
  resources.
• Conservationists Valuable resources should be
  regulated by the government to insure right use
  for the benefit of mankind. Economic arguments
  used. (Gifford Pinchot, 1865-1946)
• Preservationists Nature should be protected
  for its own sake. Aesthetic arguments (arguments
  invoking natural beauty) used. (John Muir,
  1838-1914)
• These diverging views reflect a tension that
  continued through the twentieth century up to our
  own time.

11
Lost ground in the 20s and 30s

• The over-cultivation of the plains, leading to
  the dust bowl. Americans tilled an additional
  5 million acres of land between 1925-1930. This
  land was unsuitable for such intense use
  leading to topsoil loss and deterioration.
• Conservation policies not enforced by corrupt
  administrations.
• Electricity and automobile use exploded.

12
Aldo Leopold (1886-1946)

• 1909 Joined the U.S. Forrest Service, assistant
  district forester for operations in the Southwest
  district from 1917.
• 1930s Professor at the University of
  Wisconsin, in Madison.
• 1935 Founded the Wilderness Society (with
  Robert Marshall)
• 1946 Died fighting a grass fire on the
  Wisconsin River.

13
Leopolds Legacy Ecology

• Helped establish ecology as an approach to the
  environment.
• Since Francis Bacon, science had emphasized
  breaking its subject matter down to its parts and
  studying each part individually.
• Ecology studies the interrelationships of
  organisms within their environments. They cannot
  be understood as isolated parts or individuals
  apart from the whole. Thus ecology changes the
  focus from the parts to the whole system.

14
Leopolds Legacy The Land Ethic

• Leopold suggested that we should come to see
  ethics in a new way.
• We need to move beyond valuing the land as an
  economic resource, beyond mere conservation.
• We value land as a whole, as a living
  community.
• Humans are to be valued as one member of this
  community.

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An Excerpt from Aldo Leopolds Essay, The Land
Ethic.
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of
the community to include soils, waters, plants,
and animals, or collectively the land. This
sounds simple do we not already sing our love
for and obligation to the land of the free and
the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and
whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we
are sending helter-skelter downriver Certainly
not the waters, which we assume have no function
except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry
off sewage Certainly not the plants, of which we
exterminate whole communities without batting an
eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have
already extirpated many of the largest and most
beautiful species. A land ethic of course cannot
prevent the alteration, management, and use of
these 'resources,' but it does affirm their right
to continued existence, and, at least in spots,
their continued existence in a natural state. In
short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo
sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to
plain member and citizen of it. It implies
respect for his fellow-members, and also respect
for the community as such. (Emphasis added)
16
Another Quotation from The Land Ethic

• The 'key-log' which must be moved to release the
  evolutionary process for an ethic is simply this
  quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an
  economic problem. Examine each question in terms
  of what is ethically and esthetically right, as
  well as what is economically expedient. A thing
  is right when it tends to preserve the integrity,
  stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It
  is wrong when it tends otherwise. (Emphasis
  added)

17
30s, 40s, 50,s

• Conservation policies became a part of the
  Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal.
  (Beginning in 1933)
• Conservation takes more of a back seat again in
  the 40s and 50s,

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The Environmental Movement Emerges

• 1962 Rachel Carson published The Silent
  Spring. This book established the effect of the
  use of the pesticide DDT on the bird population
  and other wildlife.
• 1963 The Clean Air Act.
• 1964 The Wilderness Act.
• 1970 April 22, The first Earth Day.
• Established as the result of an idea by Senator
  Gaylord Nelson, of Wisconsin, to set aside a day
  action an d learning to live as environmental
  citizens.

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Summary

• As American attitudes toward the environment have
  developed, three ideas have competed for
  influence
• Non-human nature and its resources are there for
  us to use to the fullest.
• Non-human nature and its resources are there for
  us to use, but they are scarce and must be used
  wisely (right use). (Conservationist approach)
• Nature is valuable, not merely as a resource, but
  as a good and beautiful thing in itself and
  should be preserved, at least in some places,
  untouched by human development. (Preservationist
  approach)
• These three competing strands have interwoven as
  we have developed environmental policies. Which
  has had the most support has varied from time to
  time.

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How do all these ideas influence our view of
nature?

• In America, we tend to have be conflicted in our
  attitudes about nature
• We see nature in these ways
• Humans are above the rest of nature.
• The rest of the natural world consists of
  resources for humans.
• Science is the solution to our problems It is
  the source of power and dominion.
• But we also sometimes think nature is
• Something wonderful, and a place for meditation
  and praise.
• Something to be conserved and preserved, and even
  appreciated for itself.