 What do we mean by the word “environment”?  What makes the environment political?  How do we, in the US, try to resolve political dilemmas concerning the environment?  How do we know we are getting good answers?  Where do US approaches sit in relation to those of other nations and regions?  How can we (US and world) do better? 9/7/09ESPP 78 1

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 18th C: Weather and agriculture (Pres. Thomas Jefferson)  19th C: Nature preservation and national parks ▪ Yellowstone National Park in 1872 (Pres. Theodore Roosevelt)  20th C: Pollution control and risk ▪ Silent Spring in 1962 ( Rachel Carson ) ▪ Earth Day in 1970 (Sen. Gaylord Nelson) ▪ Establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 (Pres. Richard Nixon) ▪ Risk society – Love Canal s (Lois Gibbs)  21st C: Sustainability 9/7/09ESPP 78 3

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 "The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.” (1949) 9/7/09ESPP 78 7

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 There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings. 9/7/09ESPP 78 9

 Before Katrina there was Love Canal at Niagara Falls, NY  : chemical dump site  1953: land sold to Board of Education for $1  : health complaints and studies  : evacuation, public purchase of houses  1980: passage of “Superfund” Act  Gibbs became symbol of local activism 9/7/09ESPP 78 10

 Common goods:  National parks and American exceptionalism  Air, water, birdsong  Public health, especially health of children  Strategies:  Constructing the “commons”  Enlarging the moral community  Pinning responsibility 9/7/09ESPP 78 11

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 Movement for federal action  Shared public goods (trees, parks, air, living things)  Shared responsibility for environment and each other  Movement against federal action  Limited and private goods; individual choice to develop or conserve  No national environmental ethic, only market 9/7/09ESPP 78 13