Environmentalism: Old and New

On Monday, April 17, 2017, Dr. Schuster held a informational session for Focus Frostburg about the change of perspective of environmentalism over the years. During this session, she explains how and why the idea of environmentalism has changed through consumers and producers.

During Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, she explains, "this is the first wave of the movement where the leaders were the producers". This is because at the time, Roosevelt pushed conservation. This means constant use of natural resources to make money for the government. This became possible because the principles of conservation includes development, scientific planning, and prevention of waste. Since the government was in control of natural resources, it became easy to use as much as they want to make money.

(Here is an image of Dr. Schuster explaining the principles of conservation)

During the mid 1900's it started to become more apparent that the environment was becoming a problem. People began recognizing this and started to come together and speak out about America's poor habits. This began the environmentalist group. According to Dr. Schuster, "Environmentalist could include mothers who see that their drinking water looks like crap". In New York City, 200 people died because of the polluted air. There is also photo evidence of kids being washed off with DDT, which is a pesticide used largely around America. This is just a few of the gruesome things Americans did during this first wave of Environmentalism. 

Environmentalism came about as a response to conservationalism. On April 22, 1970, a group started "Earth Day". This became the beginning of the environmental era. After this exploded nationwide, perspective began to change and the people who were once at the bottom of the power totem pole for the environment quickly shot to the top. This power shift became and now the government wasn't the forefront of environmental awareness.

With this shift of power, the consumers of America such as the middle-class became the face of awareness. Groups such as "hippies" became very prominent with their ideals of protecting the Earth and its natural resources. Because of this shift in perspective, we still have things such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park. If Americas direction was still conservation, many parks or "wilderness" would've been cut down in use for product and profit. Resources will be used in spurts until their is eventually no more left.

Ultimately, Earth Day has made a major impact on the lifestyles of many Americans and has benefitted the ecosystem tremendously. There is now an endless amount of propaganda, events, groups, and advocates for the environmental movement to help better our living conditions. 

Below is a link provided that more in depth describes Earth Day and its history. This is important because it shows which actual Acts and other events that pushed people to come up with Earth Day. It also goes into the current issues and events that are going on in 2017.Their is also tabs where you can buy Earth Day paraphernalia, donate to a great cause, or even enter a blog with many people who are also fond of the topic. 

http://www.earthday.org/about/the-history-of-earth-day/