Francisco, Jeremy, Development of the Environmental Movement

  • Early Thoughts and Foundations

    In 1835, Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his renowned book, “Nature”, encouraging respect for the natural world and inspiring environmentalism In the 1850s and 1860s George Perkins Marsh writes “Man and Nature”, warning of human-induced environmental damage
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    Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

    Exposed dangers of pesticides (especially DDT); widely credited with helping launch or galvanize the modern environmental movement (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/a-fierce-green-fire-timeline-of-environmental-movement/2988/)
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    Santa Barbara oil spill

    A pollution disaster that helped push for stronger environmental regulation in the U.S.
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    First Earth Day

    An event that raised environmental issues into the mainstream media
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    Un Conference on the Human Environment

    First major UN conference that focused on global environmental issues. This conference produced the Stockholm Declaration Action Plan
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    Montreal Protocol

    An international treaty to remove the usage of ozone-destroying chemicals
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    Earth Summit

    Big moment for sustainable development which produced Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration (https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/rio1992)
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    An Inconvenient Truth

    Helped bring climate change to a broader public audience
  • People’s Climate March

    One of the largest global climate events that showed strong public outrage for climate action
  • COP21

    A major international treaty incentivizing the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to aim to reduce global warming