Summary Of Forcing The Spring: The Transformation Of The American Environmentalism Movement

Environmental justice links a number of social movements—anti-racism, Aboriginals rights, and the mainstream environmental movement—and addresses the problem of environmental racism (Gosine & Teelucksignh, 2008, p. 11). The concept of environmental justice in the U.S was associated with the struggles over toxic waste sites and the call for equal treatment of all communities, radicalized or not (p. 9). It was about looking at human health rather than preserving areas deemed as “playgrounds for the rich.”

According Mol and others (2010), since the beginning of contemporary environmentalism around the 1960 sand 1970s (and with the Report to the Club of Rome, the Blueprint for Survival and the inception of several new environmental NGO), we can deduce three landmark events that have catalysed innovation in and reform of environmental policies, practices and awareness. Attracting global environmental attention, these three events are crucial to understanding the genesis and development of the ideas of ecological modernization and how these ideas have influenced change in environmental policies and regulation in both the global North and global south since the 1980s.

During the late 1700s, many Americans advocated for social justice, economic empowerment, property rights and environmental protection. Their advocacy created a national phenomenon that empowered government and policymakers to execute policies aimed at solving these problems nationwide. The government again took action to enact numerous laws, some of which became the foundation for modern environmental policy and regulations in the United States. “On the national level, the first federal action to respond to public concerns about air quality was the Clean Air Act of 1955” (Longhurst and Lewis 2010, 39).The implementation of some of these newly created environmental laws began to interfere with state regulations, and as such, they often violated citizen’s property rights. Although such policy oftentimes violates citizen rights, it allows government and policymakers to respond to the growing population and market demand. Infringement on property rights did not just take root in the environmental sector in the 1800s. It started as a result of massive construction, inadequate hazardous waste disposal systems, and overpopulation due to urbanization and economic growth in the nineteenth century. It became clear that uncontrolled pollution, including underwater pollutions, led to the spread of environmental disease, thus affecting human health and safety.

This documentary contains multiple components which spill over into other movements. One of which is the labor movement. The labor movement connects to the environmental movement because the labor movement sees particular aspects capitalism, particularly the relationship between the working class

I came across this book in my sophomore year where it was an assigned reading in professor Ranco’s class on the Environmental Justice Movement in the United States. Before taking this call I had no idea what environmental justice or injustice was. I was motivated and inspired by my particular thesis topic out of a desire to more fully understand some of the complex motivators for pro-environmental behavior. This book set a framework from which I went of to devolve a more complete understanding. From the Ground Up presents the history of the development of the environmental justice movement by way of retelling the stories of communities and activists who have worked to reshape environmental law and policy in both their communities and the nation

The emergence of the environmental justice movement in the late 1980s was constructed through local grassroots community groups, socially organized committees, and several scholars

The environmental movement to preserve and restore land has been something that has been cultivated by the west and believed to be applied everywhere even where it is not applicable. It is actually an incorrect approach to helping stop ecological degradation. In these previously colonized nations, there has been a push for “decolonal environmental justice”. This approach embodies the intersectionality of the oppression of communities of color and their land; it connects environmental degradation and political and economic inequalities. According to Reed, movements are now becoming more intertwined, “in the context of these global movements for justice, the lines between environmental movements and other movements have grown increasingly and

Background: The radical environmental movement started in the 1970s with two groups, Greenpeace and Earth First! as major influences. Greenpeace formed to address the issue of whaling and nuclear testing, they took matters into their own hands by directly addressing the issues on the front line. Earth First! started a few years later in 1979, This organization pioneered the use of publicity stunts and vandalism to display their concern on environmental issues. Using sabotage for an ecologic reason is referred to as eco-tage, and has inspired other groups to do the same, often targeting logging, and development projects.

Not only are systemic problems of a neoliberal, capitalist-structured society not often noted by those in power, but even when social movements attack them, there is a risk of staying within the boundaries by using the very same language to fight them--in short, using the system to fight the system. Kirkpatrick Sale, in “The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement 1962-1992”, details the advent of the environment movement from the 1960s on, brought on by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which

The increasing number of environmental concerns and worsening environmental situation all over the world forces people of different ages, education levels, and occupations to pay much more attention and promote environmental justice. In the reading under analysis, Dana Lanza casts light on the nature and importance of urban youth activism helping to increase people’s awareness on environmental justice in the modern society. In my opinion, people living in the modern society should value the environment they live in and being able to manage space and resources surrounding them on a daily basis.

Even though there has been increased activism and awareness of environmental issues, the environment is simultaneously depleting at a more rapid rate. Although addressing individual environmental perception and organizational flaws could create visible change, the most significant solution to environmental issues is found at the level of reforming practices at the macro-level, since the relationship between the government and capitalism perpetuates the largest-scale environmental harm.

What would you include in a brief summary on the history of the modern environmental movement, from the 1960s to the present?

The Twentieth Century conservationists like John Muir and Gifford Pinchot always argued that it was important for the government of the day to strike a balance between the two conflicting goals of economic development and environmental conservation. According to Menzel (2007; 3- 4), other environmental movements in the USA had been in constant conflict with industrial enterprises. The major root cause of conflict being the fact that industrial enterprises had ignored the fact their activities were hurting the environment through

Environmental conservation is the practice of managing the environment. Naturally the environment is a self-sustaining entity but, due to harmful intervention from man starting largely in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this frail entity has suffered. In response many changes have been enacted in attempt to preserve the environment. Many progressive conservation policies, clubs, organizations and parks were formed in attempt to counteract the near permanent destruction to the environment caused by American urbanization, industrialization, and western expansion. Through the work of conservationists throughout two conservation movements the environmental mistakes of the eighteenth and nineteenth century were overcome. The effects their work would shape the country both politically and socially throughout the twentieth century.

Ecocriticism or green studies both terms are used to denote a critical approach which began in U.S.A during 1980’s and in the U.K during 1990’s. It is still an emerging moment or an updating theory, which is feathering its wings in new colours. William Rueckert first termed the coin Ecocriticism in the year 1978, in his essay ‘Literature and Ecology- an experiment in ecocriticism’. Ecocriticism as it now extent in U.S.A, takes its literary bearings from three major 19th century American writers Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) and