Environmentalism Old and New:Karahn Alston

The presentation I went to this evening was the Environmentalism Old and New. It was an overall great experience because I learned a lot and I believe i was to walk away with a ton of charitable information.I never was very into the environment but from everything I heard about today, makes me want to continue to let people know what I learned. The goal of this presentation was to focus on the  Examination of the Environmental Movements of the Early 1900s to now. The instructor was Dr. Schuster. One important person that was targeted throughout the speech was Teddy Roosevelt. She talked about the key principles which was development, scientific planning, and the prevention of waste. She even mentioned a very known quote that sticks to anyone who learns about Roosevelt: "The greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time" ties along with the principles because old leader produce and new leaders change. Roosevelt felt as though the government should be active more than anything. He also said the government should "counter bigness" because the government gets bigger and more complex.

Now I would like to talk about the reasoning for Roosevelt's plan. The ultimate goal was for expansion and that is because it would bring more money as well as more opportunity. The great thing about this was that the producers supported the conservation. With that being said, Dr. Schuster used a great example of this when she talked about the managed forests. It was in 1987 when the Forests Management Act took place. This act was the management of waster in the wilderness. So in 1902 46.4 million acres was being used and 6 years later (1908) that number increased to 195 million (26 million acres was used by Alaska).

Next I want to talk about how this led to a the transition from the old to new environmentalism. At the end of the 19th century there were no federal agencies for soil, wildlife protection, government ownership and management . So the primary goal was for commodification. In the 1980's there was a different principle radically for example government ownership and management.  This all happened because in the 1953 the air pollution in New York City causing 200 plus deaths. This led to the environmental movemental "power of the people". A traditional day for this is what we know as 'Earth Day'.

To conclude my experience with this speaker. The issues during the 1900's changed a lot. This opened my eyes to know that technology became an issue for the environment. This makes me think of how bad factories can make our world. The government does what they have to do to continue to bring money in but i do not believe they do a lot to make the world a safer and cleaner environment. This presentation was very good because it helped me notice the goals of certain leaders how their changes and beliefs made a difference. This can make me want to pay more attention to what goes on because environmentalism can easily destroy the world we live in.





http://environmentalhistory.org/
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/NPSThinking/nps-oah.htm