The Environmentalism Movement In 1960s: Theodore Roosevelt And Gifford Pinchot
Around the early 1960s, Americans were harshly awoken to the badly damaged environment around them, which created the idea of environmental protection. According to Robert Nisbet’s prediction “ History would judge environmentalism as having been the single most important social movement of the twentieth century.” Because Americans viewed themselves as superior to other countries this movement came as a shock to most. Many people do not know that environmentalism is closely related to anti slavery, temperance, women’s rights, and civil rights movements.
Two of the most influential leaders were Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot who focused on demanding a “cleaner, safer, and more beautiful environment as part of a higher standard of living”, according to Encyclopedia.com. The environmental movement originated in mid 19th century Europe in response to the Industrial Revolution, but became widely recognized in the U.S. in the 1970s. This is still practiced all over the country and the world by activists or celebrities who believe in the cause like Jane Goodall, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, James Cameron, and many more.
The goal of (extreme) environmentalists is to get rid of anything harming the environment and to create a better life for themselves and the people around them along with the future generations. According to Akdart.com, environmentalists oppose every “practical” source of energy such as oil, gasoline, nuclear energy, coal, and windmills along with others. They hate the idea of “fellow” humans destroying the planet with many different types of pollution when they are the ones who have to live in it; they want the earth to be around for many more generations to come. Environmentalists can also be described as abhorring capitalism and industry because they “can’t stand it” when a big business succeeds.
One of the values that environmentalists challenged is adaptability because they believed that once you get rid of all the things that are harming the environment we should be able to adapt to the soon to be “normal life” you would have. The lasting effect was finding new energy sources, a lasting awareness that what you do now could affect your surroundings for future generations,new reservations, treaties, and more.
They opposed norms of trusting certain companies to do the right thing such as oil (ExxonMobil), electrical, nuclear, and wind power which created boycotts not only by the environmentalists but by people thinking that it is the right thing to do because the others persuaded them to trust them and their own beliefs. They challenged the belief that Americans or humans in general were superior and can do anything to the environment and anything that lives in it without any consequences. This allowed them to create awareness that they were concerned about environmental protection and improvement of the world, and this also allowed them to plan and carryout protest to government officials.
Overall the environmentalism movement was a valuable piece of our history and is a great tool to learn from about how we impact the world around us and how we can help solve problems that otherwise would think is impossible for us to solve.
