John Hamilton Adams (born February 15, 1936) is an environmental activist, lawyer, and founder of the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC).
[1] With the help of his team at the NRDC, Adams has worked on numerous environmental movements including passing the Clean Water Act, phasing of lead from gasoline, and curbing the emissions of coal-burning power plants.
[6] Adams worked as the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for five years before joining with a young group of lawyers from Yale to pursue funding from the Ford Foundation to start up the NRDC in 1970.
[11] In 1998, Adams published “Salt in the Wounds” in the Amicus Journal in which he exposes the Mitsubishi Corp for the industrial saltwork operation which led to the environmental degradation of the Laguna Ojo de Liebre in Baja California, Mexico.
He explains how saltwork has caused devastating harm to the ecosystem, including killing many endangered black sea turtles.
As of 2020, Adams has published a total of three books: An Environmental Agenda for the Future (1985), A Force for Nature: The Story of NRDC and Its Fight to Save our Planet (2010), and A Force for the Future: Inside NRDC’s Fight to Save the Planet and Its People (2020) Adams' most notable award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was awarded to him by President Obama in 2010 for his extreme dedication and efforts advocating for the preservation of the environment.
Upon receiving the award, Adams says: "For forty years I've been privileged to live out my passion, standing up for the natural inheritance that belongs to us all.
In receiving this great honor today, I stand on the shoulders of a remarkable NRDC team, and of Americans everywhere, who love this country and believe we share a common duty to safeguard the waters that nourish us, the wildlife that inspires us, the air that sustains us and the land we call home.