environmental history
TRANSCRIPT
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY:
AN OVERVIEWThe Walker School
Environmental Science
WHAT MAJOR HUMAN,
AND CULTURAL CHANGES
HAVE TAKEN PLACE?
Major Human Evolutionary Developments
Bipedalism
Binocular Vision
Opposable Thumb
Increased Brain Size
Human Population Growth And Technological
Advancement
Major Changes
Human Evolution
Agricultural Revolution
Urban Revolution
Industrial Revolution
Medical Revolution
Information and Globalization Revolution
HOW DID ANCIENT
HUNTING AND GATHERING
SOCIETIES AFFECT THE
ENVIRONMENT?
Hunter-Gather Camp
Hunter-Gatherers
Early hunter-gatherers are believed to have had
minimal environmental impacts
Thought to have believed that animals and humans
were nearly interchangeable
Migrated because of changing climate and to find
new food sources
Advanced hunter-gathers may have killed off large
animal populations, or manipulated forests to
promote animal populations of choice
Prehistoric Treatment of the Environment
Seen in Paintings
HOW HAS THE
AGRICULTURAL
REVOLUTION AFFECTED THE
ENVIRONMENT?
Agricultural Revolution
Occurred 10,000-12,000 years ago
Believed to have started in Middle East, Southeast Asia, Northeast Africa, Mexico
Developed from annual fields of wild grasses and tubers
Domestication of plants or animals varies by amount available water
Diffusion Theory of the Origins of Agriculture
Corn
Wheat
Rice
Barley
Yams
Potatoes
Agricultural Practices and Wilderness
Started seeing themselves as separate from plants
and animals; that they could be manipulated
toward the survival of humans
Planted crops, no intensified agriculture
Slash and burn agriculture, also called “swidden”
agriculture
Amazon Slash and Burn Agriculture
HOW HAS THE URBAN
REVOLUTION AFFECTED THE
ENVIRONMENT?
Jericho – World’s Oldest City
Indus Valley –
First Planned
City
Urban Revolution
Higher population densities
Division of labor
Greater sense of security and wealth
Greater need for potable water and food
Invention motivated around movement of water and wastes; intensified agriculture
Concentration of human wastes
Increased infection due to human wastes and air borne diseases
Wilderness and Judeo-Christians
Wilderness represents a refuge from oppressors, like
the Pharaoh
A place of hardship, testing, and proving oneself,
especially before God
A place that brings one closer to the spiritual life but
also a place where monsters and evil spirits can lurk
Old Testament states that is it man’s role to overcome
the wilderness and its wild beasts, to dominate it, to
cultivate it, to make it suitable for human habitation
WHAT HAPPENED DURING
THE FRONTIER ERA?
Manifest Destiny
Painting by John Gast 1872
Frontier Era (1607-1890)
Homestead Act of 1860’s and the railroad brought
humans to the plains
Humans viewed as conquers of environment, not
caretakers
View of continent as having endless resources
Killing of animals for sport or dress
John James Audubon
He was an American
ornithologist, naturalist,
hunter, and painter. He
painted, catalogued,
and described the birds
of North America
between 1827 and
1836.
1846 - Smithsonian Institution Established
John Smithson
bequeathed his
fortune, art and
natural history
collection in
1829 to the U.S.
Government to
start the
institution.
1846 – Joseph Henry
First Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution.
Spencer Baird Publishes Man and Nature
First grand
conceptualizing of
man’s shaping,
changing, controlling ,
and degrading nature.
HOW HAS THE INDUSTRIAL-
MEDICAL REVOLUTION
AFFECTED THE
ENVIRONMENT?
Industrial-Medical Revolution
Shift from wood to coal as a fuel source
New dependence on machinery
More wasteful attitude toward production
Pollution from noise, dirt and hazardous conditions
Understanding of bacterial infections
Understanding of chemical composition
Greater separation from nature, and processes of production
Poor Child Labor Laws
Increased Amounts of Pollutants
WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN
1870 AND 1930?
1870 – U.S. Fish Commission Established
First wildlife
protection
agency
established by
the United
States.
Mid-19th Century
Government and private groups tried to protect our
resources
Forest Preservation Act of 1891 established
John Muir & Theodore Roosevelt
Congress created the US Forest Service in 1905
Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906
National Park Service created in 1916
John Muir
Founded the Sierra Club
Established the preservationist movement
Lobbied for the creation of national parks
Theodore Roosevelt
Established wildlife
reserves
Tripled size of
national forests
1872 – Yellowstone National Park Establishedhttp://www.nps.gov/yell/
First National
Park
Established
Woodrow Wilson
George Perkins Marsh
Considered to be America’s first environmentalists.
One of the first works to document the effects of human action on the environment and helped to launched the modern conservation movement.
Marsh argued that deforestation
could lead to desertification.
What Happened Between 1930 and 1960?
Civilian Conservation Corps established
Depression workers to plant trees, maintain parks,
and recreation areas.
They also restored silted water ways and built dams
for flood control
1937 – First Sanitary Landfill
Built by Jean Vincenz,
the commissioner of
public works for Fresno,
CA
Charles Elton
Author of Animal Ecology
First saw the natural world
as one community
Established ideas of
modern population and
community ecology,
including studies of invasive
organisms.
Credited with the idea of a
“food chain”
Who Was Aldo Leopold?
Fought for large tracks of wilderness and open areas for hunting and fishing
Founded the profession of game management
Invented the concept of “land ethics”
Founder of the Conservation and Environmental Movements
What Happened During the 1960s?
Rachel Carson helps to broaden the concept of resource conservation
Beginning of the environmental movement
People become aware of the relationships between population growth, resource use, and pollution
Congress passes the Wilderness Act in 1964
1962 - Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
1. Did most of
her original
studies and
research at
Wood’s Hole
Oceanographic
Institute.
2. Later
published a
famous book
about the effects
of DDT on the
environment.
What Happened During the 1970s?
First annual Earth Day held in 1970
Richard Nixon establishes the Environmental Protection
Agency
Endangered Species Act established in 1973
Bureau of Land Management established in 1978
Carter creates the Department of Energy
Carter passes the Superfund Act in 1980
1970 – NOAA Establishedhttp://www.history.noaa.gov/noaa.html
Establishment of
National
Oceanographic and
Atmospheric
Administration.
1970 – Earth Day Establishedhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day
What Happened During the 1980s?
Anti-environmental movement starts by ranchers and
leaders of the oil industry
Regan increases private energy and mineral
development, timber cutting and federal funds for
research on energy conservation and renewable energy
are cut
Wise Use Movement formed which sought to repeal most
of the country’s environmental laws
What Happened from 1990 to 2002?
Clinton appoints respected environmentalists to key government positions
Clinton repeals most anti-environmental legislation
Stiffer regulations on SUVs
Grassroots environmental organizations spring up to deal with threats to local communities
People become aware of complex environmental problems such as sustainability, population growth, biodiversity protection, and global warming
2003 - Global Footprint Network Establishedhttp://www.footprintnetwork.org/
•William Rees and Mathis
Wackernagel
•Developed Ecological
Footprint Concept
HOW MIGHT THE
INFORMATION AND
GLOBALIZATION
REVOLUTION AFFECT THE
ENVIRONMENT?
Globalization - Technology
Telecommunications
Computerization
Democratization
Miniaturization
Compression Technology
Digitization
Effects of Globalization on Traditional Cultures
Globalization - Environment
Helps us better
understand
environmental problems
Environmental problems
are a matter of risk
assessment and cost-
benefit analysis
Solutions can suffer from
information overload
Environmental Historyhttp://www.runet.edu/~wkovarik/envhist/
More Milestones in Environmental Historyhttp://www.worldwatch.org/brain/features/timeline/