Primary Sources: Environmental Studies

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present

To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present

The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in my mind’s eye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves between.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present

Dear Mr. Pesonen:
I believe that you are working on the wilderness portion of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission’s report. If I may, I should like to urge some arguments for wilderness preservation that involve recreation, as it is ordinarily conceived, hardly at all.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present

Misuse of scientific and technical knowledge presents a major threat to the existence of mankind. Through its actions in Vietnam our government has shaken our confidence in its ability to make wise and humane decisions. There is also disquieting evidence of an intention to enlarge further our immense destructive capability.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008–2012.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present

My presentation today is exactly 20 years after my 23 June 1988 testimony to Congress, which alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook.
With this specific order, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Pelican Island Reservation, Volusia County, Florida, creating as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds, and boundaries described in the law.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook.
This legislation, excerpted below, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, as the first time that archaeology became a federal matter. It outlawed the theft of antiquities from federal lands without a permit obtained from a federal agency; otherwise, a fine of up to $500 would be imposed and imprisonment of up to 90 days would be enforced if such a permit was not obtained.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook.
Sponsored by Rep. William Kent, Independent of California, and Sen. Reed Smoot, Republican of Utah, the National Park Service Organic Act was established as an agency of the Department of the Interior. It was pushed for years by conservationist Stephen Tyng Mather (1867-1930), an industrialist who was one of the leading environmentalists of the period.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook.
This legislation, excerpted below, established the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission to set aside areas that had been recommended by the Secretary of the Interior to be protected for migratory birds; these lands would be purchased not with federal funds but with monies from the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, funded by the sale of so-called Federal Duck stamps and other stamps heralding migratory birds.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook
Under this landmark act, excerpted below, the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) was established - it created a system in which some 9.1 million acres of wilderness was now set aside as protected federal lands.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook
This major legislation, excerpted below, set specific environmental standards and policies and goals for the nation in the coming years, and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Most importantly, it created a program in which all federal agencies had to conduct environmental impact reports when conducting regular business.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook
In 1955, Congress enacted the Air Pollution Control Act to address the issue of air pollution in the nation as a whole. The APCA was the first such national legislation to address this issue. However, by 1963 the nation still could not clean the air properly, and Congress was forced to revisit the issue through the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1963...

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook
Enacted in 1972, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), commonly referred to as The Clean Water Act (CWA), was enacted specifically to address the pollution that was infesting America's waters in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Underground water supplies and drinking water appeared threatened nationwide by pollution and chemical contamination...

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook
According to The New Mexico Center for Wildlife Law, “This Act… governs most uses of the federal public lands, including grazing (and) Act requires the Bureau (of Land Management) to execute its management powers under a land use planning process that is based on multiple use and sustained yield principles. The Act also provides for public land sales, withdrawals, acquisitions and exchanges.”

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook
In 1980, Congress enacted the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, also known as ANILCA, which set aside some 100 million acres of lands in the 50th state as federally protected lands. The legislation, excerpted below, expanded the national park system in Alaska by more than 43 million acres, establishing 10 new national parks and expanding three existing parks.

From U.S. Land & Natural Resources Policy: A Public Issues Handbook
Congress enacted the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to establish a system of liabilities for the pollution of the environment by oil companies. Enacted following a series of horrific oil spills, including the Torrey Canyon spill off the coast of the United Kingdom in 1967 and the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989, this act was the latest in a series of congressional actions relating to oil pollution...

From The Environmental Debate: A Documentary History
"By the end of the nineteenth century, industrial wastes were beginning to have a deleterious effect on the water quality of rivers around the country. Tucked away in section 13 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899—which was primarily an appropriations bill allocating funds for dozens of river and harbor construction, repair, and preservation projects—was a prohibition against dumping refuse in navigable waters, making it the first federal antipollution law. It is interesting to note that the first colonial antipollution statute also concerned the dumping of garbage in harbors"

From The Environmental Debate: A Documentary History
"The first national effort to set aside forest lands was undertaken during the administration of James Madison. It was a pragmatic act to ensure the fledgling U.S. Navy of adequate timber supplies for shipbuilding. Madison's secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, who as president would later expand the nation's forest reserves, was undoubtedly a supporter of the act."

From The Environmental Debate: A Documentary History
"Three of the first four U.S. presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison—were Virginia planters who devoted a great deal of thought, study, and effort to the development of techniques for making their land more productive. While they carefully rotated crops and fields, they rejected the use of high-priced fertilizers until rising land prices made such expenditures practical. They were all active members of the American Philosophical Society, one of whose primary goals was the furtherance of scientific agriculture."