Environmental movement

At its broadest, the movement includes private citizens, professionals, religious devotees, politicians, scientists, nonprofit organizations, and individual advocates like former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and Rachel Carson in the 20th century.

[3] Under increasing political pressure from the urban middle-class, the first large-scale, modern environmental laws came in the form of Britain's Alkali Acts, passed in 1863, to regulate the deleterious air pollution (gaseous hydrochloric acid) given off by the Leblanc process, used to produce soda ash.

The poet William Wordsworth had travelled extensively in England's Lake District and wrote that it is a "sort of national property in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy".

[7] Eventually, the government under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie introduced the first permanent and large-scale forest conservation programme in the world in 1855, a model that soon spread to other colonies, as well as the United States.

[15][better source needed] The Society attracted growing support from the suburban middle-classes,[16] and influenced the passage of the Sea Birds Preservation Act in 1869 as the first nature protection law in the world.

Systematic and general efforts on behalf of the environment only began in the late 19th century; it grew out of the amenity movement in Britain in the 1870s, which was a reaction to industrialization, the growth of cities, and worsening air and water pollution.

Robert Hunter, solicitor for the society, worked with Hardwicke Rawnsley, Octavia Hill, and John Ruskin to lead a successful campaign to prevent the construction of railways to carry slate from the quarries, which would have ruined the unspoilt valleys of Newlands and Ennerdale.

[22] An early "Back-to-Nature" movement, which anticipated the romantic ideal of modern environmentalism, was advocated by intellectuals such as John Ruskin, William Morris, and Edward Carpenter, who were all against consumerism, pollution and other activities that were harmful to the natural world.

"[24] Practical ventures in the establishment of small cooperative farms were even attempted and old rural traditions, without the "taint of manufacture or the canker of artificiality", were enthusiastically revived, including the Morris dance and the maypole.

[25] The movement in the United States began in the late 19th century, out of concerns for protecting the natural resources of the West, with individuals such as John Muir and Henry David Thoreau making key philosophical contributions.

Another major literary force in the promotion of the environmental movement was Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring about declining bird populations due to DDT, an insecticide, pollutant, and man's attempts to control nature through the use of synthetic substances.

[30] Both of these books helped bring the issues into the public eye[28] Rachel Carson's Silent Spring sold over two million copies[31] and is linked to a nationwide ban on DDT and the creation of the EPA.

His activities included plugging illegal sewage outfall pipes and dumping toxic wastewater produced by a US Steel factory inside the company's Chicago corporate office.

[33] Its founder, former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, was inspired to create this day of environmental education and awareness after seeing the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969.

Additionally, an association of scientists and political leaders known as the Club of Rome published their report The Limits to Growth in 1972, and drew attention to the growing pressure on natural resources from human activities.

[42] After the International Environmental Conference in Stockholm in 1972 Latin American officials returned with a high hope of growth and protection of the fairly untouched natural resources.

[57] From the late 2000s onwards community resistance saw the formerly pro-mining southeastern state of Minas Gerais cancel a number of projects that threatened to destroy forests.

In northern Brazil’s Pará state the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Landless Workers Movement) and others campaigned and took part in occupations and blockades against the environmentally harmful Carajás iron ore mine.

All of these new regulations caused the migration of those polluting industries from Taiwan and South Korea to China and other countries in Southeast Asia with more relaxed environmental laws.

[71] Comparing the experience of China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan reveals that the impact of environmental activism is heavily modified by domestic political context, particularly the level of integration of mass-based protests and policy advocacy NGOs.

Hinted by the history of neighboring Japan and South Korea, the possible convergence of NGOs and anti-pollution protests will have significant implications for Chinese environmental politics in the coming years.

The first seed of an environmental movement in India was the foundation in 1964 of Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, a labour cooperative started by Chandi Prasad Bhatt.

India has a national campaign against Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola plants due to their practices of drawing groundwater and contaminating fields with sludge.

Activists in the Indian environmental movement consider global warming, sea levels rising, and glaciers retreating decreasing the amount of water flowing into streams to be the biggest challenges for them to face in the early twenty-first century.

He said the Tipaimukh Dam project will be another "death trap for Bangladesh like the Farakka Barrage," which would lead to an environmental disaster for 50 million people in the Meghna River basin.

The environmental movement is broad in scope and can include any topic related to the environment, conservation, and biology, as well as the preservation of landscapes, flora, and fauna for a variety of purposes and uses.

One of the earliest lawsuits to establish that citizens may sue for environmental and aesthetic harms was Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, decided in 1965 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Numerous criticisms and ethical ambiguities have led to growing concerns about technology, including the use of potentially harmful pesticides,[96] water additives like fluoride,[97] and the extremely dangerous ethanol-processing plants.

As concerns about climate change moved more into the mainstream, from the connections drawn between global warming and Hurricane Katrina to Al Gore's 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, more and more environmental groups refocused their efforts.

[28] Western environmental activists have also been criticized for performative activism, eco-colonialism, and enacting white savior tropes, especially celebrities who promote conservation in developing countries.