Environment – Page 2 – Kristen Baumlier

Category: Environment

Earth Day: Where Are We Now?

Posted on April 22, 2012April 22, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Today is Earth Day – the day that marks what is considered by many to be the birth of the modern environmental movement. In 1970 cars were big, factories pumped out smoke and sludge, and air pollution was visible in many cities. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, who was a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, witnessed the ravages of the massive 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the rising student anti-war movement going on at the time, he realized that a similar type of energy could be applied to developing public consciousness about air and water pollution. Nelson told the national media that there was going to be a national teach-in on the environment worked to assemble a national staff of 85 people to promote Earth Day events across the country.

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans went outside to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for the health of our natural environment. There were thousands of colleges and universities that organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Other groups rallied around issues such as oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness areas, and the extinction of wildlife.

Out of the first Earth Day, the United States Environmental Protection was created. The Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts were created.

Since 1970, there has been some years when there were campaigns for Earth day which included 1910 when Earth Day went global and mobilized 200 million people in 141 countries to rally around the environment. Earth Day 1990 helped promote recycling efforts worldwide. In 2000, Earth day focused on global warming and used the Internet to organize activists, but also featured a talking drum chain that traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa while hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

The environmental moved has shifted from protests and conflict to legislation. I am a member of several environmental groups, and I get a few emails each week that ask me to sign a petition or send a message to my senator or representative.

My students seem to have a “take it or leave it” view about the environment. I have some students that say that they “hate recycling” and that global warming is a made up issue. They have grown up with a barrage of messages about being green, recycling, and the environment and for many of them this has made many of them feel apathetic about these issues.

Where are we now? Fracking is coming to Ohio, one of my students made a anti-recyling video, and I got 2 emails to sign petitions in my inbox.

Image Source:

csudigitalhumanities.org (Image of Cleveland in 1970 and 2012)

No-Idling Laws Lowers Air-Alert Days

Posted on April 14, 2012April 16, 2012 by Kbaumlier

During the summer months, it is not uncommon to see a haze in the sky due to ground-level ozone pollution. This lower ozone pollution is created when emissions from factories, trucks, buses, and construction equipment are exposed to strong sunlight and long hot days. The emissions are linked with increased asthma attacks and shortness of breath which affect children, the elderly and individuals with respiratory illnesses most frequently.

Many cities across the U.S. have enacted No-idling Rules in order to reduce ozone pollution. More than 31 states including Arizona, California, Colorado, and now Ohio have enacted a 5 minute idling regulation. In July of 2012, the EPA released the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, or transport rule, which will work to reduce smog-causing pollution generated by fossil-fuel-burning power plants. Last year The Diesel Emission Reduction Act was created as a competitive grant program for public and private groups to apply for clean-diesel technology.

At the local level, some cities in Northeast Ohio have taken steps to reduce ozone-forming pollution. They have done this by switching their fleets to cleaner fuels, installing diesel-emission reduction equipment and encouraging public transportation.

In Ohio, cities such as Cleveland, South Euclid, North Olmsted, Highland Hills, Maple Heights and Lakewood have all adopted fuel-conservation ordinances, and a 5-minute idling policy, to help improve air quality. Fuel-conservation ordinances require that vehicles idle no more than five minutes during a 60-minute time period.

In Cleveland, there is a “hazecam” that was installed in 2010 where a new image of the Cleveland skyline is posted on a website every 15 minutes. Is your city on the no-idling list? Check out the list of states and cities that have idling policies in this .pdf file.

If your city is not on the list, you can visit cleanairzone.org for bumper stickers, window decals, and brochures to support running a idle reduction campaign in your community.

Image Source:
www.clevelandhazecam.net

Links:

Make a LEaP. Turn it off Video

cleanairzone.org

www.clevelandhazecam.net

Idling Laws – List of Cities and States .pdf file

Environmentalism History: Rachel Carson’s Book Silent Spring 50 Years Later Podcast

Posted on February 12, 2012February 12, 2012 by Kbaumlier

2012 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. This book which was first published in 1962 is credited with sparking the beginning of the modern environmental movement, especially in the United States. Silent Spring addressed the effects of pesticides on the environment, focusing primarily on birds. Carson critiqued the chemical industry of spreading incorrect information, and government officials of accepting industry reports that were inaccurate. The book supported the development of environmental consciousness and led to the regulation of pesticide use in North America and Europe.

Rachel Carson was a scientist, writer, and ecologist. She worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and wrote radio scripts during the Depression. She also wrote feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. She was a scientist and eventually became Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She did a variety of writing, which included pamphlets on conservation and natural resources, scientific articles, and also nonfiction articles in popular publications such as the Atlantic Monthly.

Carson was attacked by some individuals in government and in the chemical industry as being an alarmist, but her voice served to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural world subject, and that we can experience the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem.

In order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring Mark Wilson, a PhD candidate at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, England recorded a podcast that explores the significance of the book. Wilson has written a study which compares the response to Silent Spring in the US and Britain. The Podcast is on the Environmental History Resource Website and can be streamed from the site.

Image Source:
Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

Links:

Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

Silent Spring

Silent Spring at 50: a Comparison Perspective Podcast

Getting Over Environmentalism : Has “Sustainablity” eliminated environmentalism?

Posted on January 22, 2012January 22, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Today I dialed in to Orion Magazine’s online/phone conference meeting called Getting Over Environmentalism: Live Discussion with Paul Kingsnorth and Friends on January 18. The discussion focused on whether “environmentalism” gone off course and questioned what sustainability has to do with a healthy planet.

The session started with the Paul Kingsnorth speaking, author of “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist” an article in in the current issue of Orion. In his article he writes about how environmentalism has effectively died. On the one hand it has been absorbed by the political left, which has diluted its ecocentric message; on the other, it has been taken over by the vision of a new “sustainable economy” which amounts to business-as-usual without the carbon.

Kingsnorth talked about how he became an “environmentalist” due to his strong emotional connection to issues about the land, water, mountains, and animals and these are not common values of “environmentalists” today. Today’s environmentalism focuses on promoting “sustainability,” which focuses on a completely different idea: sustaining human civilization at the comfort level that we feel is our right, without continuing to destroy the “natural capital” or the “resource base” that is needed to do so. Sustainabilty is currently primarily carbon-centric, and is about sustaining what Kingsnorth called our “empire” of humans.

Eco-centric narratives have disappeared from the word “green,” which used to mean preserving nature: mountains, seas, animals, etc. Kingsworth mentioned that today the word often means putting wind turbines and solar panels into the natural environment.

What are the next steps that need to be taken? He talked about how we must go back to the original green values, we can’t pretend that our system is not going to collapse, and we must begin to believe that we are destroying our environment in order to work to save it.

The next speaker was Lierre Keith who is writer, small farmer, and radical feminist activist. She started her talk by saying that 200 species will go extinct today, 98% of forests are gone, and 99% of prairies are gone. We have greatly impacted the environment.

She also talked about how the environmental movement today is focused on saving civilization from destruction of its own action and that our current infrastructure is not sustainable. She mentioned Manhattan as an example, which is – under all the city – an island. This island is not able to sustain itself on its own water, land, and resources – so other places around the country use resources to sustain the way of life in New York. It is an example of how we take more than the land can give.

Keith talked about our current culture and said, “Our way of life has been a one time blowout and its over.” She went on to say that we are in a culture of entitlement and that a radical shift is needed. The solution? It’s a big one. We will have to eliminate our systems – dams, coal, oil, pipelines, etc – and work to non-violently shut down the system.

One example she gave of people effectively shutting down the system was in France in 2010, when citizens used non-violence actions to shut down the economy for 3 weeks, by “blocking oil.” She said that movements like Occupy, and 350.org are examples of group action– but more needs to be done on a larger scale. “It’s a war and it is time to fight back,” she said.

The effects of our way of life are not always visible, but we are changing the natural environment. Today in China, there are places that do not have flowering plants due to the elimination of pollinators. This is in places that for thousands of years had this kind of wildlife – and is an indicator of how we affect the natural world.

During the phone conference, there were other speakers, a question and answer section where individuals could email questions for the speakers, and concluding remarks.

All the speakers closed by saying that in order for change to happen we will have to lose faith in our current system. Currently we are comfortable, and those that are not believe in the promise that they could be comfortable and join in. There are individuals who want change – but don’t know what to do. The system is breaking down – and it is not going to get better. What can be done to change this? All the speakers talked about joining together in solidarity for change is our future for change.

Since I heard this session, this has really gotten me thinking about the term “green” and sustainability, and the shift that the speakers talked about in terms of environmentalism. I plan to do some research, and write another post about the history of the word “green.”

The session will be posted in the multimedia area of the Orion Magazine website, and I recommend streaming it – to get a new (even radical) perspective on the environment and sustainability.

Image Source:
Kristen Baumlier

Links:

Paul Kingsnorth, author of “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist” an article in in the current issue of Orion (January 2011)

Listen to the Getting Over Environmentalism: Live Discussion with Paul Kingsnorth and Friends podcast: http://www.orionmagazine.com/multimedia

Lierre Keith’s Deep Green Resistance Book

DOCUMERICA: Images of America in Crisis in the 1970s

Posted on December 10, 2011December 10, 2011 by Kbaumlier

At the end of the 1960’s, the rapid development of industry and the unchecked land development began to take a noticeable toll on the environment. Air, noise, and water pollution seemed to be on the rise, and people began to call for action.

In November 1971, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched a massive photo documentary project to record these changes. Called DOCUMERICA, more than 100 photographers were hired to document specific environmental issues, to capture images of everyday life, and to show that moment in history. By 1974, more than 80,000 photographs had been produced. The images framed environmental problems such as noise, water and air pollution, but also health problems and social decay.
The project also collected images of American making changes and creating positive change in their surroundings.

The project was the United States first serious examination of the decay of the natural environment Gifford Hampshire was the EPA Project director for DOCUMERICA and described the inspiration of the project as, “It was an exciting time. The public was expecting results.” Hampshire wrote in his memoir that the EPA had worked to close down the big offenders of industrial pollution, but that it became clear that ordinary people were responsible for many pollution issues.

The project was geographic in nature, with photographers working in one area of the U.S. usually where they lived and worked as professional photographers. Exhibits of the images were shown at EPA facilities and other small venues until the early 1980s.

The images are really eye-opening today. Images of cities with smog, subways with graffiti, a town with 4 nuclear reactors in the background – paint a picture of the environment as it was in the 1970s. Looking at them today also shows that we have made some progress in terms of protecting the environment, and in dealing with pollution.

The images can be seen on the Documerica Catalogue website, and there is also a great selection of 46 images on the Atlantic’s website.

Image Source:
DOCUMERICA Project

Links:

DOCUMERICA Images of Crisis and Cure in the 1970s

Archival Research Catalogue – Documerica

46 selected pictures on The Atlantic DOCUMERICA: Images of America in Crisis in the 1970s