A Select Environmental Chronology

1864 — Publication of George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action.

Often considered America’s first environmentalist. His Man and Nature drew a link between deforestation and desertification, and played a role in the creation of the Adirondack Park in upstate New York.

1872 — Yellowstone National Park founded.

Became the world’s first “national park” on March 1, 1872 (signed into law by President Grant).

1886 — Audubon Society founded.

Founded by George Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream, with the purpose of bird protection. Membership grew to 39,000 within its first year, each member signing a pledge to “not molest birds.”

1892 — Sierra Club founded.

Founded by John Muir and others (Muir had moved to Yosemite Valley in 1869). The focus was on wilderness preservation.

1916 — Creation of the National Park Service.

The purpose of the NPS is to “...conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” It is under the Department of Interior.

1935 — Wilderness Society founded.

Founded by eight outdoorsmen, including Aldo Leopold and several influential government officials (in the Forest Service and the NPS). Focus is on preservation.

1949 — Posthumous publication of Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac.

Aldo Leopold worked for the forest service.

1962 — Publication of Rachel Carson, Silent Spring.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was a marine biologist and noted author. This was her first polemical work and publicized the effects of pesticides on songbirds. It was instrumental in the banning of DDT ten years later. She was widely vilified by the chemical industry as a dilettante, and threatened with lawsuits.

1963 — Manchester College graduate Gene Likens begins his study of acid rain.

1964 — Passage of the Wilderness Act.

This act formalized the process for protecting parcels land from development.

1965 — Publication of Harvey Cox, The Secular City.

Cox wrote that the Hebrew view of creation was a marked departure from earlier world-views. “It separates nature from God and distinguishes man from nature.” Nature becomes “disenchanted,” which “allows man to perceive nature itself in a matter-of-fact way” and was “an absolute precondition for the development of natural science.”

1967 — Publication of Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis.”

Lynn White (1907-1987) was a professor of medieval history at Princeton, Stanford, and UCLA. This article began as a speech to the AAAS.

1967 — Photograph of Planet Earth from the Apollo 4 spacecraft.

1968 (Christmas Eve) — Photograph of the earthrise above the moon, from the Apollo 8 spacecraft.

This was not the first image from space of earth, but it appears to have been the image to have so captured our imagination, and is one of the most famous of such images. Dubos [1969] wrote that the Apollo 8 crew “had been overwhelmed by the beauty of the earth as compared with the bleakness of space and the grayness of the moon.” The phrase ‘theology of the earth’ had come to Dubos after reading the astronauts’ account of what they had seen.

1969 — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formed (as part of the National Environmental Policy Act).

1970 — Passage of the Clean Air Act (expanded the Clean Air Act of 1963).

1970 — Publication of Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth.

End-Time “non-fiction” work.

1970 April 22 — The first “Earth Day” is celebrated.

1972 — Publication of The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome.

The Club of Rome was founded in 1968. The 1972 book sold some 30 million copies.

1972 — DDT banned in the U.S.

1972 — The Water Pollution Control Act passed (over Nixon’s veto).

1972 (Dec. 28) — Endangered Species Act passed.

1977 — Tellico Dam temporarily stopped to protect the Snail Darter.

The basis of the lawsuit was the Endangered Species Act. The Tellico Dam was to be built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on the lIttle Tennessee River. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the snail darter in 1978, leading to the Endangered Species Committee (or “God Squad”) to exempt the snail darter; Congress approved this, and the dam was built.

1978 (August) — Love Canal.

Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY. Originally, it was built as a canal, then abandoned, and used as a chemical dumpsite. Purchased by Hooker Plastics, it was eventually filled in the early 1950s, covered over with a few feet of dirt, and eventually became a neighborhood and site of a public school. Lois Gibbs noticed the leaking chemicals, the high numbers of birth defects, stillbirths, and cancers, and led the citizens action against Hooker Plastics and others. This toxic waste site led to the “Superfund Act” (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or CERCLA).

1979 — An international conference of the World Council of Churches at MIT (“Faith, Science, and the Future”) focuses on ecological matters.

1979 (March 28) — Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident.

Partial meltdown of the core of one of the two reactors.

1986 (April 26) — Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident.

The explosion (from over-pressurized steam) and escape of nuclear material caused the direct death (from radiation poisoning) of 56 people, and perhaps 4,000 later deaths from increased cancer rates.

1981-83 — James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan.

Watt held the record for fewest protected species under the ESA (surpassed only by George W. Bush’s current appointee, Dirk Kempthorne). In an essay published in the Saturday Evening Post, Watt wrote that the earth is “merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life … The earth was put here by the Lord for His people to subdue and use for profitable purposes on their way to the hereafter.” (James Watt, “Ours is the Earth,” Saturday Evening Post, January/February 1982, pp. 74-75).

1981 (January 1) — Montreal Protocol takes effect.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer limits the production of choro-fluoro-carbons and other substances that destroy the ozone layer. The adverse effects of these substances on the ozone were first studied in 1973 (these initial researchers were awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry).

1987 — Publication of the “Brundtland Report” (Our Common Future).

This was written by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian Prime Minister. This report argued for environmentally sustainable practices, and led to the convening of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

1989 (March 24) — Exxon Valdez oil spill.

1992 — Rio Earth Summit (from which came the “Earth Charter”).

1993 — Founding of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE).

Founded by Paul Gorman (spokesperson for NYC’s Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine).

2005 (February 16) — Kyoto Protocol takes effect limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

2006 (February 8) — Evangelical Climate Initiative (signed by 86 evangelical leaders).

In a letter sent only a week or two earlier to the National Association of Evangelicals, twenty-two evangelical leaders (incl. Charles Colson, James Dobson, and Richard Land) argued against issuing a statement on global warming.

Last updated: 30 Jan 2018