In this entry, you will be highlighting 2 to 3 major events throughout human history that have helped shape our planet positively or negatively with respect to the environment. For example, I will choose TWO specific events, actually books, that have been critical to helping start an environmental conscience in the modern world. Some people may view these choices as insignificant on a larger scale of global impact, however I disagree due to the fact the two books below increased awareness of the human role in nature and the impacts we have on ALL living and non-living systems. Not only do the books speak to the layperson, but they also speak to the scientific community as a whole, sparking new debates and new ideas.
Book 1: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. The book was first published in 1962 and has since been reprinted numerous times. Carson was a scientist by academic standards and a passionate observer of the natural world around her. She began noticing declines in bird populations and while discussing this among colleagues from around the U.S., she began pulling research from multiple sources to prove the cause of bird decline was the uncontrolled use of pesticides, particularly DDT. Her book is really a scientific paper and novel hybrid, which she meticulously cited all her sources of information and placed at the back of the book for ease of reading. She had been criticized for this form of publication, but the audience was the public, not just the scientific community. Her book help inspire the modern environmental movement that has spread throughout the globe. If given the chance, you should read Silent Spring.
Book 2: Our Stolen Future: are we threatening our fertility, intelligence, and survival? A scientific Detective Story. By Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers. First published in 1996, the group of researchers focused on the development of endocrine disruptors and wrote the book in narrative form similar to what Rachel Carson did in Silent Spring. The book Our Stolen Future is one of frightening context in which hormone mimicking toxins are described in detail. The fear that can be generated from this book is palpable as it clearly chronicles the types and amounts of toxins found in everyday items and how they enter and interact with our bodies. The content of the book can be a bit heavy to read but it is explained well enough for most people. Since the book's publication, the U.S. has changed governmental policy to aid in the research of endocrine disruptors. If you are looking for a modern (yes it is still modern even for a 1996 book) look at what chemicals affect the human population of the earth, please read the book. It has a high probability to change your life. For more information about the book and the research, go to http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/
Have a good read.
Mr. Bittle
1. 1952: KILLER SMOG
ReplyDeleteThe Killer Smog was produced by the condensation of water on the 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and pollutants produced daily by coal-burning industrial furnaces and home-heating systems in London. Consequently, the air became a suffocating cloud of gas that choked breathing passages and caused skin irritation. Twelve thousand people died as a result. The disaster helped lead to a rethinking of air pollution and afterwards new regulations were put in place restricting the use of dirty fuels in industry and banning black smoke.
2. 1986: CHERNOBYL DISASTER
The Chernobyl nuclear accident is the worst technological disaster mankind has ever known. It occurred on April 26, 1986 when a nuclear reactor in a power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded. The explosion caused radiation to spread to many places around the world, and all of Europe was affected. This accident serves as a warning as to the dangers of chemical reactors and the safety procedures necessary to keep them safe and working.
Major Event 1: In 1963 there were 300 deaths and thousands of illnesses in New York City from air pollution. As a result, the Clean Air Act began regulation of air pollution. I think this event played an important part in environmental history because it alerted us to the dangers of air pollution. When we are polluting the air with toxins we don’t think about how it will harm us. Events like this had happened many times before in London but I think that this seemed more severe because it happened closer to home.
ReplyDeleteMajor Event 2: The 20th annual Earth Day was observed in 1990. This seems like an important event to me because it shows that our society cares enough about Earth Day to keep it going. Now we know that Earth Day wasn’t just a one-time thing. Earth Day is a great event because everyone who cares about the environment can participate, even if it’s just in a small way. I think Earth Day will always exist and people will forever be reminded to take better care of our environment
Of all the events that have affected our world, positively or negatively, I recognize two as the most important.
ReplyDeleteThe first is the realization that global warming would, and is, a problem. Back in 1908 Svante Arrhenius hypothesized that the burning of fossil fuels would lead to global warming. In that time global warming wasn’t a serious consideration, mostly because they couldn’t see any direct complications of pollution, except of course things like the killer fog that people accepted and did nothing to prevent. So pollution grew and global warming with it until it became the problem that it is today. I deemed this instance important not only because of the change it’s had to the environment, but also because of the foresight shown by Arrhenius. This should encourage us to look into all we can, plausible or not, that may seriously effect us in the future.
The second most important event that shaped the environment for the worse was the DDT crisis. DDT was first recognized as a pesticide in 1939 and was widely used because it was very effective. But soon enough people saw that it was doing serious damage to the environment. In 1962 even, Rachel Carson wrote your favorite book Silent Spring, the title referring to the lack of birdcalls in the spring because of the shrinking population of birds due to the effects of DDT. DDT didn’t exclusively kill birds, but the drop in number of birds was most noticeable. Amazingly, it still took until 1972 for the U.S. to ban use of DDT in agriculture. This incident is incredibly important because it displays how humans effect our environment for the worse, and shows that we need to take more care when tampering with the balance of nature and the environment.
There are many different things that have occurred in Earths history that have shaped and evolved things in to what we now call the present. One event was in 1937, which the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act levied federal tax on gun and ammunition sales, with funds used for wildlife research and protection. Without this happening we wouldn’t have such great wildlife protection and researching.
ReplyDeleteThe second event occurred in 1954 were the Atomic Energy Act promoted devolvement of nuclear power plants, which is still used today and provides a substantial amount of today’s energy for power things from your kitchen appliances to the street lights, and a lot of other things.
One more major event in Earths history would be in 2000 were President Bill Clinton protects large areas in national forests from logging and protects various parcels of public land as national monuments, this helps forests from becoming depleted and from the public to disturb and interrupt the wildlife.
On May 28, 1892 the Sierra Club was founded by John Muir, and had a total of 182 charter members. Muir was elected the first President of the club. In the first campaign the club tried to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. The first Sierra Club magazine SIERRA was published in 1893. The U.S. President Benjamin Harrison established a 13 million-acre Sierra Forest Reserve. In 1897 the club urged the strengthening of public forest policy, and supports U.S. Forestry Commission recommendations for more “national forest parks” some of them including Grand Canyon and Mount Rainier.
ReplyDeleteIn 1934 the Taylor Grazing Act was signed by President Roosevelt, and was to “stop injury to the public grazing lands by preventing overgrazing and soil deterioration; to provide for their orderly use, improvement, and development…” Approximately 80 million acres of land valuable for grazing and forage crops were available to be placed into grazing districts. Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, created a Division of Grazing with Farrington Carpenter, a Colorado rancher, at the helm. Carpenter held series of meeting with the rancher and state officials to determine the district boundaries for grazing. By June 1935 over 65 million acres had been placed in these grazing districts. All the grazing districts that were established are still in effect today.
1)
ReplyDeleteYellowstone National park, the world’s first national park, was opened March 1st 1872. Being the first national park it gave a starting point for other parks to emerge. Due to it being labeled a national park, it is protected. Not only are they built for human recreation and enjoyment, both the environment and the animals are protected. Throughout history, 7000 nation parks have been established.
Directly following Yellowstone being established – more of these ‘reserves’ started popping up in different nations. Australia established the Royal National Park in 1879, Canada established the Rocky Mountain National Park in 1885, and New Zealand established Tongariro National Park in 1887 and many more. This park became the ’mother’ of all other parks to be born, ensuring that more land and animals are protected.
2)
In 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Act authorize federal funds for local, state, and federal purchase of open space and parkland. What makes this act important is the fact that it offers a ‘bribe,’ of sorts, to governments to become more eco-friendly. It offers a helping hand for them to set aside land and make it into a park or even have land free of building. I don’t so much find it fitting that to have these reserved spaces they have to be bribed, but at least it’s something. It gives the governments that extra push to become environmentally friendly and gives the public that extra space.
Nathan Marks
ReplyDelete1) The BP oil spill: Occurred in the Gulf of Mexico and flowed for three months in 2010. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The spill stemmed from a sea-floor oil gusher that resulted from the April 20, 2010 explosion of Deepwater Horizon (name of the drill), which drilled on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, The explosion killed 11 men working on the platform and injured 17 others. On July 15, the leak was stopped by capping the gushing wellhead, after it had released about 4.9 million barrels (780×103 m3), or 205.8 million gallons of crude oil.
2) The earthquake triggered extremely destructive tsunami waves of up to 37.9 meters (124 ft) that struck Japan minutes after the quake, in some cases traveling up to 10 km (6 mi) inland, with smaller waves reaching many other countries after several hours. Tsunami warnings were issued and evacuations ordered along Japan's Pacific coast and at least 20 other countries, including the entire Pacific coast of the Americas. The Japanese National Police Agency has officially confirmed 12,175 deaths, 2,858 injured, and 15,489 people missing across eighteen prefectures, as well as over 125,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. The earthquake and tsunami caused extensive and severe structural damage in Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.5 million without water. Many electrical generators were taken down, and at least three nuclear reactors suffered explosions due to hydrogen gas that had built up within their outer containment buildings after cooling system failure. On 18 March, Yukiya Amano—the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency—described the crisis as "extremely serious." Residents within a 20 km (12 mi) radius of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and a 10 km (6 mi) radius of the Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant were evacuated. In addition, the U.S. recommended that its citizens evacuate up to 80 km (50 mi) of the plant.
1870- First official wildlife refuge established at Lake Merritt, California.
ReplyDeleteIn order to protect the birds from duck hunters and stop the noise and danger of gunfire so close to the city, Dr. Merritt proposed to turn the lake into a wildlife refuge in 1869. The state legislature voted Lake Merritt Wildlife Refuge into law in 1870, making it the first such refuge in North America. No hunting of any sort was to be allowed and the only fishing was to be by hook and line. This event not only pioneered the idea of a wildlife refuge but also gave the public some insight on how we affect the environment from hunting. This was the first of many wildlife refuges and national parks and served as a guideline and example for other establishments such as Yellowstone National Park that was opened in 1872, two years after Lake Merritt’s wildlife refuge was established. This refuge made a big impact on birds and kick started bird awareness- Lacey Act in 1900 and Migratory Bird Act in 1918.
2001- President George W. Bush attempts to weaken environmental laws
The tone was set in the first 100 days when Bush reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants, the biggest contributors to global warming. Days later, the White House announced that America would not implement the Kyoto global climate change treaty. President George W. Bush repealed a 25-year ban on loaded guns in national parks, eased air pollution regulations on power plants near parks, exempted factory farms from key provisions of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, allowed mountaintop mining near streams, and made it easier to dump hazardous waste into the recycling system all in order to reward big businesses and special interest groups that have supported him. Bush did however did designate nearly 200,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean as national monuments which is basically the only positive thing I could find. The Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks in America’s environmental laws altogether. These setbacks left the environment much less protected than it was years before and by passing such things it made it okay to pollute and destroy our environment.
Silent Spring:
ReplyDeleteWritten by Rachel Carson and published in 1962, “Silent Spring” is generally credited with jump-starting the environmental movement. Carson argued widespread and uncontrolled pesticide use was significantly harming and killing not only birds, but humans as well. Toxins may contaminate animals and plants lower on the food chain seemingly insignificantly, however the contaminants transfer up the food chain, progressively affecting the predators until species become ill, endangered or even extinct. Considering humans may consume these affected species became a major concern, as well as that we live in or near these toxic environments. Agribusiness advocates contend insecticides are necessary for humans lest insects “once again inherit the earth” (which is funny…and you know why). However, Carson did understand the importance of preventing malaria because of mosquitoes, so she argues DDT must be limited to only a necessity and that in excess chemicals will be just as bad if not be devastatingly worse than malaria on the human population.
COP15:
Located in Copenhagen, Denmark, the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (otherwise known as the Copenhagen Summit) met to create a new framework for climate change mitigation. The Copenhagen Summit was organized by the Copenhagen Climate Council (COC) and in which engaged governmental officials from around the world to confront the issue of global climate change. Drafted by five industrialized and influential nations, the Copenhagen Accord was signed by 138 countries. However, the document was not legally binding and contained no obligatory commitments for reducing nations’ CO2 emissions or taking other precautions to prevent further damage to the environment. Later in 2010 it was determined that the United States and China collaborated (as the world’s top two carbon dioxide emitters), deterring most every attempt made in the summit to reach an agreement.
The failure of COP15 proved disastrous for the international community as people anticipated no progression to come from the summit. The failure may be discouraging, but should instead empower our future generations to look beyond the greed of industrialized nations and individuals, and toward a brighter and more dignified future for our planet.
1892: The Sierra Club was founded on May 28th with only 182 members. John Muir was elected first president. In the first conservation campaign, the club led an effort to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. In 1893 the first Sierra Club Bulletin was issued and President Benjamin Harrison established a 13 million acre Sierra Forest Reserve. The club later publishes a map of Yosemite Valley and the central Sierra Nevada. Congress then establishes Mr. Rainier National Park through legislation, which was based on a statement prepared by the Sierra Club. Then in 2009 the club secured the protection of 2 million acres of natural spaces, helped pass new clean car standard, and took more than 90,000 kids on their first fishing trip.
ReplyDelete1934: Taylor Grazing Act regulates livestock grazing on public lands. This act was signed by President Roosevelt and was intended to “stop injury to the public grazing lands by preventing overgrazing and soil deterioration…” Approximately 80 million acres of land valuable for grazing were able to be placed into grazing districts. The first grazing district was established in Wyoming on March 20, 1935.