Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Part I: Foundations of American Environmental Thought and Action

DOCUMENT 1: Biblical Views of Nature and Humanity

DOCUMENT 2: Virgil’s Pastoral View of Nature (c. 50 B.C.E.)

DOCUMENT 3: Christopher Columbus Inventories the New World’s Natural Resources (1493)

DOCUMENT 4: Jean Ribaut Discovers the Natural Abundance of Terra Florida (1563)

DOCUMENT 5: Baltasar de Obregon’s Account of the Riches of New Mexico (1584)

DOCUMENT 6: Thomas Hariot on the Death of Indians from a Disease Brought from Europe (1588)

DOCUMENT 7: William Bradford on Life in the Wilderness (1620, 1621)

DOCUMENT 8: Francis Bacon on Science and Technology (1629)

DOCUMENT 9: Regulating the Herring Run in the Town of Plymouth (1637, 1638, 1639, 1662)

DOCUMENT 10: Predator Control and Game Hunting Regulation in Rhode Island Colony (1639, 1646)

DOCUMENT 11: Thomas Hobbes's Social Contract Theory (1651)

DOCUMENT 12: Pollution in Plymouth Colony Harbor (1668)

DOCUMENT 13: William Penn Contracts to Set Aside Timbered Lands (1681)

DOCUMENT 14: John Locke on Property and Labor (1690)

DOCUMENT 15: John Ray on Gardens and Wilderness (1691)

DOCUMENT 16: Jonathan Edwards on God and Nature (1739)

DOCUMENT 17: Peter Kalm on Land Management (1753)

DOCUMENT 18: William Blackstone’s On the Rights of Things (1765-1769)

DOCUMENT 19: John Bartram on Reclaiming Florida’s Wetlands (1767)

Part II: Politicians, Naturalists, and Artists in the New Nation, 1776–1839

DOCUMENT 20: Thomas Jefferson on Agrarianism and Industrialization (1785, 1816)

DOCUMENT 21: James Madison on Population and Property (1786, 1787/1788)

DOCUMENT 22: Philip Freneau’s Noble Savage (1788)

DOCUMENT 23: William Bartram on the Human Impact on the Environment (1791)

DOCUMENT 24: Benjamin Rush on Saving the Sugar Maple (1791)

DOCUMENT 25: The Founding Fathers on the Care of the Land (1793, 1818)

DOCUMENT 26: Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

DOCUMENT 27: Meriwether Lewis on the Slaughter of Buffaloes (1804-1806)

DOCUMENT 28: Act Establishing the First Federal Forest Reserve (1817)

DOCUMENT 29: Act to Protect Useful Birds in Massachusetts (1818)

DOCUMENT 30: James Fenimore Cooper Laments the Disappearance of Unregulated Wilderness (1823)

DOCUMENT 31: George Catlin’s Proposal for a National Park (1832)

DOCUMENT 32: Black Hawk on the Indians and the Land (1833)

DOCUMENT 33: John James Audubon on the Senseless Destruction of Fish, Birds, and Quadrupeds (1833)

Part III: The Origins of Environmental Activism, 1840–1889

DOCUMENT 34: Thomas Cole’s Lament of the Forest (1841)

DOCUMENT 35: John James Audubon on the Decimation of the Bison Herds (1843)

DOCUMENT 36: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Nature (1844, 1884)

DOCUMENT 37: William Cullen Bryant’s Proposal for a Great Municipal Park (1844)

DOCUMENT 38: Andrew Jackson Downing Talks about Public Parks and Gardens (1848)

DOCUMENT 39: Swamp and Overflow Act (1850)

DOCUMENT 40: The Shattuck Report’s Recommendations for Sanitary Improvement (1850)

DOCUMENT 41: Rebecca Harding Davis on Smoke and Soot in a Mill Town (1861)

DOCUMENT 42: Homestead Act (1862)

DOCUMENT 43: George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature (1864)

DOCUMENT 44: Henry David Thoreau on the Value of Living Things (1864)

DOCUMENT 45: Act Granting Yo-Semite Valley to California (1864)

DOCUMENT 46: The Citizens’ Association of New York on Sewage and Disease (1865)

DOCUMENT 47: John Muir on the Spirituality of Nature (1866)

DOCUMENT 48: Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux on Creating Parks to Serve the Public (1866, 1872)

DOCUMENT 49: Charles Darwin on the Similarity between Humans and Other Animals (1871)

DOCUMENT 50: Act Establishing Yellowstone National Park (1872)

DOCUMENT 51: Mining Act (1872)

DOCUMENT 52: Carl Schurz on the Need for Federal Forest Conservation (1877)

DOCUMENT 53: Henry George on Land Development (1879)

DOCUMENT 54: Act Establishing the Adirondack Forest Preserve Act (1885)

DOCUMENT 55: American Ornithologists’ Union’s Model Law (1886)

DOCUMENT 56: George Bird Grinnell and Celia Thaxter on the Audubon Society Cause (1886)

DOCUMENT 57: Constitution of the Boone and Crockett Club (1887)

DOCUMENT 58: John Wesley Powell on the Lands of the Arid Regions (1890)

Part IV: The Roots of the Conservation Movement, 1890–1919

DOCUMENT 59: Forest Reserve Act (1891)

DOCUMENT 60: Frederick J. Turner on the Disappearance of the Frontier (1894)

DOCUMENT 61: Rivers and Harbors Act (1899)

DOCUMENT 62: Theodore Roosevelt Addresses Congress on Forest Preservation and Land Reclamation (1901)

DOCUMENT 63: Reclamation Act (1902)

DOCUMENT 64: Upton Sinclair on the Adulteration of Processed Food (1906)

DOCUMENT 65: Ellen Swallow Richards on Sanitation and Human Ecology (1907)

DOCUMENT 66: Theodore Roosevelt on the Conservation and Use of Natural Resources (1907)

DOCUMENT 67: Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., on the Smoke Nuisance (1908)

DOCUMENT 68: John Muir, James Phelan, and the Battle over the Flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley (1908-1913)

DOCUMENT 69: Richard Ballinger on the Development of the West (1909)

DOCUMENT 70: Report of the National Conservation Commission (1909)

DOCUMENT 71: WJ McGee on Conservation (1909)

DOCUMENT 72: Jane Addams on Garbage (1910)

DOCUMENT 73: Gifford Pinchot on Conservation and the National Interest (1911)

Part V: Rethinking Our Relationship to Nature, 1920–1959

DOCUMENT 74: Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon et al. (1922)

DOCUMENT 75: Village of Euclid et al. v. Ambler Realty Company (1926)

DOCUMENT 76: Henry Beston on the Human Relationship with Nature (1928)

DOCUMENT 77: Franklin D. Roosevelt on the Destruction of America’s Forests (1930)

DOCUMENT 78: Stuart Chase on Waste in the Machine Age (1931)

DOCUMENT 79: Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink on the Dangers of Manufactured Products (1932)

DOCUMENT 80: Luther Standing Bear on Native Americans and the Rights of Other Living Things (1933)

DOCUMENT 81: Arthur Tansley on the Concept of the Ecosystem (1935)

DOCUMENT 82: H. V. Harlan and M. L. Martini on the Loss of Genetic Diversity (1936)

DOCUMENT 83: Lewis Mumford on Regional Planning (1938)

DOCUMENT 84: John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

DOCUMENT 85: Marjory Stoneman Douglas on the Everglades (1947)

DOCUMENT 86: Roger Tory Peterson on Bird Population (1948)

DOCUMENT 87: Fairfield Osborn on the Interrelatedness of All Living Things (1948)

DOCUMENT 88: Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic (1949)

DOCUMENT 89: Harry Truman’s Materials Policy Commission on Economic Growth and Resource Policy (1952)

DOCUMENT 90: Samuel H. Ordway, Jr., on Limits to Growth (1953)

DOCUMENT 91: J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Use of Science (1953)

DOCUMENT 92: Bernard Frank on Land Development and Water Availability (1955)

DOCUMENT 93: Clean Air Act (1955)

DOCUMENT 94: M. King Hubbert on Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Energy (1956)

DOCUMENT 95: John Kenneth Galbraith Asks, “How Much Should a Country Consume?” (1958)

DOCUMENT 96: David Brower Demands Support for the Wilderness Act (1959)

Part VI: The Heyday of the Environmental Movement, 1960–1979

DOCUMENT 97: The Surgeon General’s Report on Environmental Health (1960)

DOCUMENT 98: Lorus J. Milne and Margery Milne on the Balance of Nature (1961)

DOCUMENT 99: Murray Bookchin on the Synthetic Environment (1962)

DOCUMENT 100: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)

DOCUMENT 101: Stewart L. Udall on the Land Ethic (1963)

DOCUMENT 102: John F. Kennedy on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963)

DOCUMENT 103: Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission (1965)

DOCUMENT 104: California Land Conservation Act (1966) and Article XXVIII of the California Constitution (1967)

DOCUMENT 105: Kenneth E. Boulding on the Spaceship Economy (1966)

DOCUMENT 106: Lynn White, Jr., on Western Religions and the Environmental Crisis (1967)

DOCUMENT 107: Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968)

DOCUMENT 108: Garrett Hardin on Controlling Access to the Commons (1968)

DOCUMENT 109: John Teal and Mildred Teal on the Productivity of the Salt Marsh (1969)

DOCUMENT 110: Ian McHarg on the Fitness of Ecosystems (1969)

DOCUMENT 111: National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (1970)

DOCUMENT 112: Richard Nixon on the Need for Environmental Regulation (1970)

DOCUMENT 113: Clean Air Act Amendments (1970)

DOCUMENT 114: Dennis Puleston on the Founding of the Environmental Defense Fund (1971)

DOCUMENT 115: Barry Commoner on the Ecosphere (1971)

DOCUMENT 116: Clean Water Act (1972)

DOCUMENT 117: Christopher Stone Proposes Legal Rights for Natural Objects (1972)

DOCUMENT 118: Sierra Club v. Morton (1972)

DOCUMENT 119: Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment (1972)

DOCUMENT 120: Endangered Species Act (1973)

DOCUMENT 121: Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975)

DOCUMENT 122: Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

DOCUMENT 123: Greenpeace’s Declaration of Interdependence (1976)

Part VII: Confronting Economic and Social Realities, 1980–1999

DOCUMENT 124: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (1980)

DOCUMENT 125: Mark Sagoff on the Public Interest (1981)

DOCUMENT 126: Lester R. Brown on Building a Sustainable Society (1981)

DOCUMENT 127: Julian L. Simon on Population Growth (1981)

DOCUMENT 128: Coastal Barrier Resources Act (1981)

DOCUMENT 129: Arne Naess on Deep Ecology (1982, 1984)

DOCUMENT 130: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1983)

DOCUMENT 131: Bernard Cohen on Nuclear Energy and Risk Assessment (1983)

DOCUMENT 132: Bob Graham on Restoring the Kissimmee River—Lake Okeechobee—Everglades Ecosystem (1983)

DOCUMENT 133: Edward O. Wilson on the Need for a Conservation Ethic (1984, 1998)

DOCUMENT 134: Jurgen Schmandt, Hilliard Roderick and Andrew Morriss on Acid Rain and Friendly Neighbors (1985)

DOCUMENT 135: Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987)

DOCUMENT 136: United Church of Christ Commission forRacial Justice’s Report on Toxic Waste and Race (1987)

DOCUMENT 137: James Hansen Makes the Case for Climate Change (1988)

DOCUMENT 138: Dixy Lee Ray Asks, “Who Speaks for Science?” (1990)

DOCUMENT 139: Clean Air Act Amendments Create a Cap-and-Trade Mechanism to Reduce Acid Rain (1990)

DOCUMENT 140: Roger Smith on Industry and the Environment (1990)

DOCUMENT 141: California Air Resources Board Lowers its Vehicle Emissions Standards (1990, 1996)

DOCUMENT 142: John P. Holdren on Energy and Human Well-Being (1990)

DOCUMENT 143: Barry Lopez on a Sense of Place (1990)

DOCUMENT 144: Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992)

DOCUMENT 145: United Nations Convention (1992) and Protocol (1997) on Climate Change

DOCUMENT 146: Donella Meadows on the Complexity of the Malthusian Debate (1993)

DOCUMENT 147: Carl Safina on the Decline of Fishes (1995)

DOCUMENT 148: Edward Tenner on Shifting Liability (1996)

DOCUMENT 149: The Business Roundtable Objects to the Kyoto Protocol (1998)

DOCUMENT 150: Jeremy Rifkin on Biotechnology and the Environment (1998)

Part VIII: Environmental Politics in a New Millennium, 2000–2010

DOCUMENT 151: Paul B. Thompson on Genetically Engineered Foods (2000)

DOCUMENT 152: Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers et al. (2001)

DOCUMENT 153: Bjorn Lomborg Questions the Prioritization of Environmental Issues (2001)

DOCUMENT 154: Charles W. Schmidt on Electronic Waste (2002)

DOCUMENT 155: Mendocino County Ordinance Prohibiting the Propagation, Cultivation, Raising, and Growing of Genetically Modified Organisms (2004)

DOCUMENT 156: Michael Schallenberger and Ted Nordhaus Proclaim the Death of Environmentalism (2004)

DOCUMENT 157: Bruce Babbitt Proposes a New Approach to Federal Land-Use Planning (2005)

DOCUMENT 158: Myron Ebell on the Endangered Species Act and Private Property Rights (2005)

DOCUMENT 159: Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement (2005)

DOCUMENT 160: Al Gore on the Politicization of Global Warming (2006)

DOCUMENT 161: Oakland’s Zero Waste Resolution (2006)

DOCUMENT 162: New York City’s PlaNYC 2030 (2007)

DOCUMENT 163: Massachusetts et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency et al. (2007)

DOCUMENT 164: Jared Diamond on Consumption, Population, and Sustainability (2008)

DOCUMENT 165: Christine MacDonald on Sustainable Development and Corporate Policy (2008)

DOCUMENT 166: LEED and the Green Building Revolution (2008, 2010)

DOCUMENT 167: Exploring the Myth of “Clean Coal” (2008)

DOCUMENT 168: Mark Bittman on the Environmental Impact of the American Diet (2009)

DOCUMENT 169: Obama’s Clean Energy Executive Orders (2009)

DOCUMENT 170: John Wargo on Our Chemical Environment (2009)

DOCUMENT 171: NOAA on Ecofriendly Coastal Planning (2010)

DOCUMENT 172: Donald Gilliland Reviews Josh Fox’s “Gasland” (2010)

DOCUMENT 173: Barack Obama Recommends a National Policy for Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes (2010)

Part IX: Environmentalism in the Climate Crisis, 2010–2023

DOCUMENT 174: The National Congress of American Indians and Bill McKibben et al. Oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline (2011)

DOCUMENT 175: Daniel Yergin on Global Energy Demand (2013)

DOCUMENT 176: Naomi Klein on Capitalism Versus the Climate (2014)

DOCUMENT 177: Gil Gullickson on Agriculture and Climate Change (2014)

DOCUMENT 178: The Global Sand Crisis (2015)

DOCUMENT 179: James Dyke on the “Sixth Great Extinction” (2015)

DOCUMENT 180: An Ecomodernist Manifesto (2015)

DOCUMENT 181: The Union of Concerned Scientists Exposes Climate Deception (2015)

DOCUMENT 182: The EPA’S Clean Power Plan (2015)

DOCUMENT 183: Mother Jones on Trump’s Agricultural Pandering (2016)

DOCUMENT 184: The G20 Responds to the U.S. Withdrawal from the Paris Accords (2017)

DOCUMENT 185: Trump Issues Executive Order on the Border Wall (2017)

DOCUMENT 186: Why Coal Should Not Be Revived (2017)

DOCUMENT 187: Pew Research Reports Americans Want Sustainable Fuels More than Fossil Fuels (2017)

DOCUMENT 188: U.S. Scientists Defy Trump Administration to Report that Climate Change is Caused by Human Activity (2017)

DOCUMENT 189: Eric Schneiderman and State Attorneys General Sue Trump’s EPA over Failing to Uphold Methane Emissions Standards (2018)

DOCUMENT 190: NASA’s James Hansen’s Predictions About Climate Change, 30 Years Later (2018)

DOCUMENT 191: Los Angeles Times Reports on the Devastation of the Camp Wildfire (2018)

DOCUMENT 192: Zacharia Mutai on the Death of the Last Male Northern White Rhino (2018)

DOCUMENT 193: Nobel Prize Committee Honors Effort to Integrate Economics into Climate Change (2018)

DOCUMENT 194: Donald Trump Claims Commitment to Environmentalism (2019)

DOCUMENT 195: Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Criticizes the World’s Leaders for Failing to Address the Environmental Crisis (2019)

DOCUMENT 196: Frank Luntz on Climate Partisanship (2019)

DOCUMENT 197: Aylin Woodward Explains Ecological Concern Over the Border Wall (2019)

DOCUMENT 198: Politico Challenges Donald Trump’s Environmental Record (2019)

DOCUMENT 199: EIA Says that Renewable Energy Consumption Surpasses Coal for the First Time in History (2019)

DOCUMENT 200: Donald Trump Claims Environmental Success (2020)

DOCUMENT 201: Kevin Trenberth on the Connection Between Climate Change and Wildfires (2020)

DOCUMENT 202: President Biden Terminates the Trump Border Wall “Emergency” (2021)

DOCUMENT 203: NASA on the Impact of COVID-19 on Carbon Dioxide Emissions (2021)

DOCUMENT 204: Kristen A. Baum on the Loss of Butterflies (2022)

DOCUMENT 205: Harvard Climatologists Explain the Connection Between Coronavirus and the Environment (2023)

DOCUMENT 206: Gavin Newsom Signs Executive Order to Ban Sales of Gas-Powered Cars in California (2023)

DOCUMENT 207: Environmental Ethicists Discuss the Possibilities and Pitfalls of “De-Extinction” (2023)

Appendix I: Significant Dates in American Environmental History

Appendix II: Major Conservation and Environmental Organizations

Glossary

Notes

Further Readings

Copyright Acknowledgments