A Brief History of Environmentalism in America
The history of environmentalism and conservation is linked closely with the social movements that began during the Industrial Revolution. And, indeed, it was the emerging environmental problems of polluted air, dirty water, and the resulting public health problems, coupled with growing populations and "taming" of the last wilderness of the Industrial Revolution time that catalyzed American environmentalism. At that time, people were flocking to urban centers, and air pollution, public health and preservation of open, natural areas became concerns. Early pioneers included Ellen Swallow, who in 1887 supervised a massive water quality-testing project in Massachusetts. To the aptly-named Swallow, clean drinking water was a fundamental human right. Her pioneering efforts to test drinking water quality and use the results to guide better sanitation and water treatment resulted in a reduction in waterborne diseases for many. Her work led to the first water quality standards in the U.S., and to water sewerage treatment technologies. She is also credited with founding the professions of water quality science and public health. In the early 1900s, members of the garden club in Butte, MT lamented the death of the very last tree in that mining town. Choked with coal-fire smoke from open ore-processing pits that made the town dark twenty-four hours a day, the death of the last tree was a cause that the citizens rallied around to pressure for cleaner mining methods. In 1872, Congress created Yellowstone, the first national park, saying that the park's resources shall remain "unimpaired for future generations." The movement to create more national parks, monuments, forest reserves and wildlife refuges took off. John Muir formed the Sierra Club in California in 1892, now the nation's oldest environmental nonprofit. In 1978, Lois Gibbs, a mother in Love Canal, NY organized her neighborhood to fight against toxic pollution, laying the groundwork for the Superfund Act and increased attention to toxics and environmental health. Environmental justice -- the movement to prevent environmental harms from disproportionately impacting communities of color and low-income people -- took root in the 1980s. The environmental movement continues to evolve. Today, the cutting edge is the movement working globally to place the right to clean water, clean air and a healthy environment securely within the realm of basic, and enforceable, human rights.
The environmental movement is broad, diverse and varied in its methods to create change. The number and diversity of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. reflect this. The range of government programs and private industry jobs focusing on the environment also reveals the importance of working for the environment in the 21st century.
The private environmental sector emerged in the 1970s when federal legislation including the Clean Air Act and National Environmental Policy Act necessitated an infrastructure of expert practitioners to enforce the new laws. Hazardous waste management and solid waste management industries grew in the 1970s and 1980s after public attention focused on the massive chemical spill at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India and the plight of Love Canal, a suburban New York neighborhood built atop a hazardous waste dump. Through necessity, and public pressure, national focus turned to clean-up and remediation of pollution. Today, the environmental industry remains focused on these and other issues, while also responding to increasing consumer desire for "green" goods like organic foods and products. Increasing demand in North America helped fuel a 10.1 percent increase in the organic product sector globally, as North America overtook Europe as the largest market for organic food and drink with a 20% annual growth rate in demand throughout the 1990s. Organic products are now available in nearly 20,000 natural food stores and 73 percent of conventional grocery stores, and account for approximately 1-2 percent of total food sales in the U.S. Current issues like global climate change and energy efficiency continue to provide opportunities for environmental employment.
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