Module 3 - Environmental Concerns

Question 1

Manifest Destiny

Answer 1

The idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America.

Question 2

Who was Henry Thoreau?

Answer 2

• 1800s
• argued against the increased demand on individuals on highly consumptive lifestyle being established at the time
• argued he was seeing a decline in quality of life
• believed there was a problem with progress and we needed to step back to a simpler way of living
• “thank god they cannot cut down the clouds”

Question 3

Who was George Perkins Marsh?

Answer 3

• His ideas became the foundation for the conservation movement and modern global ecology
• argued that humans are impacting global systems
• warned of the ‘dangers of imprudence and the necessity of caution’

Question 4

Who was John Muir?

Answer 4

• Naturalist and writer who was instrumental in the founding of many national parks and who co-founded the Sierra Club

Question 5

What were key acts in establishing the ‘Conservation Movement’?

Answer 5

1. John Muir - a naturalist and writer who was instrumental in the founding of many national parks an who co-founded the Sierra Club
2. President Theodore Roosevelt - created 5 new nation parks, 51 federal bird sanctuaries, 4 national game refuges, 18 national monuments, and more than 230 million acres’ worth of public land

Question 6

What is The Land Ethic?

Answer 6

“A land ethic changes the role of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it”

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beautify of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

• Aldo Leopold, 1949 - A Sand County Almanac

Question 7

Who was Rachael Carson?

Answer 7

• Silent Spring (1962) exposed the hazards of DDT and questioned humanity’s faith in technological progress
• Set the stage for the modern environmental movement

Question 8

What was ‘The Desolate Year’?

Answer 8

Publication by a chemical company pushing back against Rachael Carson saying if she had her way, the world would be taken back by bugs and we would live in misery. It was a counter movement.

Question 9

What did President Kennedy do in the 1960s? What happened?

Answer 9

Ordered the science advisory committee to examine the issues raised by Carson’s book.

Debate shifted from ‘IF’ pesticides and chemicals were dangerous to ‘Which ones’ were more dangerous.

Question 10

Why did the environmental movement become mainstream in the 1970s?

Answer 10

1. The influence of historical leaders
2. A number of prominent enviro disasters/issues in the 1960s and 70s (ex. Cuyahoga River Fire)
3. First Earth Day
4. OPEC Oil Embargo
   - artificial shortage but ppl realized how vulnerable they were
5. Images from Space
   - ‘Earth Rise’
6. Protest Music/Art arising from counter culture ‘hippy’ movement
7. Environmental protection Agency formed
8. New NGOs such as Greenpeace form

Question 11

When was the first UN Conference on environmental issues?

Answer 11

1972

Question 12

What was the 1984 WCED/Brundtland Commission?

Answer 12

• Little progress 10 yrs after the UN Conference on the Human Enviro (1972
• UN General Assembly selected Gro Brundtland to lead a commission on the issue
• Key challenge of growing much of the world out of poverty while avoiding environmental ruin
• GOAL: help direct nations of the world towards the goal of sustainable development

Question 13

What is ‘Sustainable Development’? Who was it released by?

Answer 13

Final Report “Our Common Future” was released in 1987 as a result of the 1984 WCED/Brundtland Commission.

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Question 14

When did a global awareness emerge regarding the need to address environmental issues?

Answer 14

Culminated with the Brundtland Commission in 1984

Question 15

What notion of progress did the modernist era and the Industrial Revolution push forward?

Answer 15

Progress would be made by humans dominating nature