America, the Environment, and the Global Economy
Spring 1997-- Global Human
Ecology:
America, the Environment, and the Global Economy
Question for Discussion: What are the major web sites on the internet that report
and analyze the state of the global environment?
Readings: No assigned reading
Assignment: Bring a list of the three
most useful internet sites that can help us understand the global
environmental crisis.
Internet Sites and Documents:
ENVIRONMENTAL SITES ON THE INTERNET
Global Environmental Policy Research Tools
World Resources Institute's Environmental Education Project
Best Environmental Resources Directories
Linkages: Global Development and Environment
United Nations Development Programme Sustainable Human Development
US Global Change Research Information
Global Change: Electronic Edition
Because the LCD internet projector still hasn't been fixed, we couldn't complete this assignment in class. Instead, the February 10th class focused on this question:
What role did Rachel Carson play in the growth of the environmental movement?
video: "American Experience: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring"
Published in 1962, Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, played a major role in the growth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Carson argued that the federal and state government, the chemical companies, and agricultural interests had misled the public about the safety of pesticides. After World War II, with the support of the Department of Agriculture and the Federal government, the Chemical industry began promoting the widespread agricultural and public use of pesticides. By the late 1950s, federal and state governments were spraying pesticides on both private and public lands in order to "eradicate" insect pests. Carson argued that such a "war against nature," a war to eradicate insects, was actually a "war against humanity," because humans were part of nature.
After Silent Spring, Americans became increasingly concerned about the increasing destruction of the natural world and the threat caused by new technologies to both human health and the larger environment. Carson insisted that Americans had the right to be free from the threat of exposure to dangerous chemicals in the environment. She declared that the chemical industry should not have the right to expose a mass public to dangerous chemicals whose effects on human health were relatively unknown.
But even with the growth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s, Americans are still exposed to millions of tons of chemicals that are sprayed and used throughout the United States. Despite the warnings of Rachel Carson and others, we are still exposed to dangerous chemicals, many of which cause cancer and other biological problems in humans. Many Americans, despite Carson's dire warnings, have come to accept exposure to these dangerous chemicals as merely the "price of progress." By the late 1970s, many Americans came to fear that "everything caused cancer," because so many products they had used contained chemicals that we now know can cause cancer. Carson's larger question is still valid: What gives government and industry the right to expose the mass public to dangerous chemicals without their consent and knowledge?