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Before and After the First Earth Day, 1970: a history of environmentalism, its success, failures, errors, and why climate change is the wrong issue for today
When you think of Earth Day, do you know that
David M. Guion looks at how Americans faced a new kind of economic crisis after the Second World War. After decades of scarcity, overabundance threatened recession. The federal government dealt with it by encouraging consumerism. The resulting wastefulness caused environmental problems. Guion explores how public fear of nuclear fallout and pesticides brought concern for the environment to a wider public. He surveys the legal evolution that started after the Second World War. Conservationists fought to preserve wilderness from dam builders. Later, environmental law came to deal with pollution, food safety, and other new issues. Conservation broadened into environmentalism, just as environmentalism has since refocused as sustainability.
Senator Gaylord Nelson conceived of a national teach-in. He wanted to put the energy of the antiwar movement to work on environmental issues. Guion traces the choices that caused the event to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. Most important, leaders abandoned central control in favor of grass-roots organization around local concerns. Guion takes readers on a tour of Earth Day activities in specific places. He explores what they had in common and how they differed. He shows how the nation, divided over Vietnam, united around environmental issues.
The decade following the first Earth Day saw passage of landmark environmental legislation and continued grassroots activism. Guion documents how some environmental problems of the 1960s have largely been solved and how others have been partly solved or not at all. He traces the collapse of the social consensus around environmental issues that the first Earth Day sparked and how the current political polarization arose.
This approachably written history of environmentalism is based both on meticulous research and his own personal involvement in issues of the environment and sustainability. It provides a balanced view of the strengths and weaknesses of the environmental movement as it has developed since the Second World War. Guion also fills a gap in Earth Day planning. The first Earth Day was about what government and industry should do. No one thought of what ordinary people could do with their own lives. Guion challenges the common assumption that individuals are powerless. He provides good-sense suggestions for more sustainable living.
David M. Guion looks at how Americans faced a new kind of economic crisis after the Second World War. After decades of scarcity, overabundance threatened recession. The federal government dealt with it by encouraging consumerism. The resulting wastefulness caused environmental problems. Guion explores how public fear of nuclear fallout and pesticides brought concern for the environment to a wider public. He surveys the legal evolution that started after the Second World War. Conservationists fought to preserve wilderness from dam builders. Later, environmental law came to deal with pollution, food safety, and other new issues. Conservation broadened into environmentalism, just as environmentalism has since refocused as sustainability.
Senator Gaylord Nelson conceived of a national teach-in. He wanted to put the energy of the antiwar movement to work on environmental issues. Guion traces the choices that caused the event to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. Most important, leaders abandoned central control in favor of grass-roots organization around local concerns. Guion takes readers on a tour of Earth Day activities in specific places. He explores what they had in common and how they differed. He shows how the nation, divided over Vietnam, united around environmental issues.
The decade following the first Earth Day saw passage of landmark environmental legislation and continued grassroots activism. Guion documents how some environmental problems of the 1960s have largely been solved and how others have been partly solved or not at all. He traces the collapse of the social consensus around environmental issues that the first Earth Day sparked and how the current political polarization arose.
This approachably written history of environmentalism is based both on meticulous research and his own personal involvement in issues of the environment and sustainability. It provides a balanced view of the strengths and weaknesses of the environmental movement as it has developed since the Second World War. Guion also fills a gap in Earth Day planning. The first Earth Day was about what government and industry should do. No one thought of what ordinary people could do with their own lives. Guion challenges the common assumption that individuals are powerless. He provides good-sense suggestions for more sustainable living.
134 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 15, 2015
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