User:Enina24/Environmental movement

Lead
The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), Environmentalists advocate the just and sustainable management of resources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policy and individual behaviour. In its recognition of humanity as a participant in (not enemy of) ecosystems, the movement is centered on ecology, health, and human rights.

The environmental movement is an international movement, represented by a range of organizations, from enterprises to grassroots and varies from country to country. Due to its large membership, varying and strong beliefs, and occasionally speculative nature, the environmental movement is not always united in its goals. At its broadest, the movement includes private citizens, professionals, religious devotees, politicians, scientists, nonprofit organizations, and individual advocates.

My Edits/Thoughts (Lead)


 * Removed "The movement also encompasses some other movements with a more specific focus, such as the climate movement" Though this part is good information to know, its not a major part needed in the lead.
 * Added references "The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists advocate the just and sustainable management of resources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policy and individual behavior. " The lead didn't have any references. I added some to support facts in the lead.
 * Removed "also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. " Added "is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living.
 * Added information "like former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and Rachel Carson in the 20th century".
 * Added information "environmental".

Early awareness
The origins of the environmental movement lay in response to increasing levels of smoke pollution in the atmosphere during the Industrial Revolution. The emergence of great factories and the concomitant immense growth in coal consumption gave rise to an unprecedented level of air pollution in industrial centers; after 1900 the large volume of industrial chemical discharges added to the growing load of untreated human waste. Under increasing political pressure from the urban middle-class, the first large-scale, modern environmental laws came in the form of Britain's Alkali Acts, passed in 1863, to regulate the deleterious air pollution (gaseous hydrochloric acid) given off by the Leblanc process, used to produce soda ash.

 My Edits/Thoughts  (Early awareness)


 * Rearranged "Early interest in the environment was a feature of the Romantic movement in the early 19th century. The poet William Wordsworth had travelled extensively in England's Lake District and wrote that it is a "sort of national property in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy".  rearranged this part and started with the paragraph that starts with "The origins....makes the reader understand clearly about the early awareness and goes to the point.

Conservation movement
The modern conservation movement was first manifested in the forests of India, with the practical application of scientific conservation principles. The conservation ethic that began to evolve included three core principles: human activity damaged the environment, there was a civic duty to maintain the environment for future generations, and scientific, empirically based methods should be applied to ensure this duty was carried out. James Ranald Martin was prominent in promoting this ideology, publishing many medico-topographical reports that demonstrated the scale of damage wrought through large-scale deforestation and desiccation, and lobbying extensively for the institutionalization of forest conservation activities in British India through the establishment of Forest Departments.

The Madras Board of Revenue started local conservation efforts in 1842, headed by Alexander Gibson, a professional botanist who systematically adopted a forest conservation programme based on scientific principles. This was the first case of state management of forests in the world. Eventually, the government under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie introduced the first permanent and large-scale forest conservation programme in the world in 1855, a model that soon spread to other colonies, as well as the United States. In 1860, the Department banned the use of shifting cultivation. Hugh Cleghorn's 1861 manual, The forests and gardens of South India, became the definitive work on the subject and was widely used by forest assistants in the subcontinent.

Dietrich Brandis joined the British service in 1856 as superintendent of the teak forests of Pegu division in eastern Burma. During that time Burma's teak forests were controlled by militant Karen tribals. He introduced the "taungya" system, in which Karen villagers provided labour for clearing, planting, and weeding teak plantations. He formulated new forest legislation and helped establish research and training institutions. Brandis as well as founded the Imperial Forestry School at Dehradun.

 My Edits/Thoughts  (Conservation movement)


 * Removed "that the" from "that the human activity damaged the environment". makes it easier to read.
 * Removed "that" from "that there was a civic duty to maintain the environment for future generations".
 * Removed "that" from "that scientific, empirically based methods should be applied to ensure this duty was carried out".
 * Added "Also" to "He formulated new forest legislation and helped establish research and training institutions".
 * Changed "The Imperial Forestry School at Dehradun was founded by him. " to "Brandis as well as founded the Imperial Forestry School at Dehradun".

Formation of environmental protection societies
The late 19th century saw the formation of the first wildlife conservation societies. The zoologist Alfred Newton published a series of investigations into the Desirability of establishing a 'Close-time' for the preservation of indigenous animals between 1872 and 1903. His advocacy for legislation to protect animals from hunting during the mating season led to the formation of the Plumage League (later the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) in 1889. The society acted as a protest group campaigning against the use of great crested grebe and kittiwake skins and feathers in fur clothing. The Society attracted growing support from the suburban middle-classes, and influenced the passage of the Sea Birds Preservation Act in 1869 as the first nature protection law in the world.

For most of the century from 1850 to 1950, however, the primary environmental cause was the mitigation of air pollution. The Coal Smoke Abatement Society was formed in 1898 making it one of the oldest environmental NGOs. It was founded by artist Sir William Blake Richmond, frustrated with the pall cast by coal smoke. Although there were earlier pieces of legislation, the Public Health Act 1875 required all furnaces and fireplaces to consume their own smoke.

Systematic and general efforts on behalf of the environment only began in the late 19th century; it grew out of the amenity movement in Britain in the 1870s, which was a reaction to industrialization, the growth of cities, and worsening air and water pollution. Starting with the formation of the Commons Preservation Society in 1865, the movement championed rural preservation against the encroachments of industrialisation. Robert Hunter, solicitor for the society, worked with Hardwicke Rawnsley, Octavia Hill, and John Ruskin to lead a successful campaign to prevent the construction of railways to carry slate from the quarries, which would have ruined the unspoilt valleys of Newlands and Ennerdale. This success led to the formation of the Lake District Defence Society (later to become The Friends of the Lake District).

In 1893 Hill, Hunter and Rawnsley agreed to set up a national body to coordinate environmental conservation efforts across the country; the "National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty" was formally inaugurated in 1894. The organisation obtained secure footing through the 1907 National Trust Bill, which gave the trust the status of a statutory corporation. and the bill was passed in August 1907.

An early "Back-to-Nature" movement, which anticipated the romantic ideal of modern environmentalism, was advocated by intellectuals such as John Ruskin, William Morris, and Edward Carpenter, who were all against consumerism, pollution and other activities that were harmful to the natural world. The movement was a reaction to the urban conditions of the industrial towns, where sanitation was awful, pollution levels intolerable and housing terribly cramped. Idealists championed the rural life as a mythical Utopia and advocated a return to it. John Ruskin argued that people should return to a "small piece of English ground, beautiful, peaceful, and fruitful. We will have no steam engines upon it ... we will have plenty of flowers and vegetables ... we will have some music and poetry; the children will learn to dance to it and sing it."

Practical ventures in the establishment of small cooperative farms were even attempted and old rural traditions, without the "taint of manufacture or the canker of artificiality", were enthusiastically revived, including the Morris dance and the maypole.

The movement in the United States began in the late 19th century, out of concerns for protecting the natural resources of the West, with individuals such as John Muir and Henry David Thoreau making key philosophical contributions. Thoreau was interested in peoples' relationship with nature and studied this by living close to nature in a simple life. He published his experiences in the book Walden, which argues that people should become intimately close with nature. Muir came to believe in nature's inherent right, especially after spending time hiking in Yosemite Valley and studying both the ecology and geology. He successfully lobbied congress to form Yosemite National Park and went on to set up the Sierra Club in 1892. The conservationist principles as well as the belief in an inherent right of nature were to become the bedrock of modern environmentalism. However, the early movement in the U.S. developed with a contradiction; preservationists like John Muir wanted land and nature set aside for its own sake, and conservationists, such as Gifford Pinchot (appointed as the first Chief of the US Forest Service from 1905 to 1910), wanted to manage natural resources for human use.

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Replaced reference [14]- "Milestones" to "The Vera Causa of Endangered Species Legislation: Alfred Newton and the Wild Bird Preservation Acts, 1869–1894". Previous reference was not functioning.
 * Replaced reference [15]- "History of the RSPB" to " Conservation biology". Previous reference was not functioning.
 * Replaced reference [16]- "Milestones" to "The Retreat of the Upper and Middle Classes to Gated Communities in the Poststructural Adjustment Era: The Case of Trinidad". Previous reference was not functioning.
 * Added reference [19]- "Checking Nature's Desecration": Late-Victorian Environmental Organization" I think a reference was needed to support fact.
 * Replaced reference [20]- "Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley" to "William Wordsworth and Modern Travel: Railways, Motorcars and the Lake District, 1830-1940". Previous reference was not functioning.
 * Added reference [27]- " The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt's New World" I think a reference was needed to support fact.

21st century
In 2022, Global Witness reported that, in the preceding decade, more than 1,700 land and environmental defenders were killed, about one every two days. Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, and Mexico were the deadliest countries.

In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Jan 10. that the first $100 million in federal environmental justice will open up to community organizations, local governments and other qualified applicants in the coming weeks.

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Added information: "In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Jan 10. that the first $100 million in federal environmental justice will open up to community organizations, local governments and other qualified applicants in the coming weeks". Updated for current year.

United States
Beginning in the conservation movement at the beginning of the 20th century, the contemporary environmental movement's roots can be traced back to Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, Murray Bookchin's 1962 book Our Synthetic Environment, and Paul R. Ehrlich's 1968 The Population Bomb. American environmentalists have campaigned against nuclear weapons and nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s, acid rain in the 1980s, ozone depletion and deforestation in the 1990s, and most recently climate change and global warming.

The United States passed many pieces of environmental legislation in the 1970s, such as the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. These remain as the foundations for current environmental standards.

Timeline of US environmental history

 * 1832 – Hot Springs Reservation
 * 1864 – Yosemite Valley
 * 1872 – Yellowstone National Park
 * 1892 – Sierra Club
 * 1916 – National Park Service Organic Act
 * 1916 – National Audubon Society
 * 1949 – UN Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources
 * 1961 – World Wildlife Foundation
 * 1964 – Land and Water Conservation Act
 * 1964 – National Wilderness Preservation System
 * 1968 – National Trails System Act
 * 1968 – National Wild and Scenic Rivers System/Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
 * 1969 – National Environmental Policy Act
 * 1970 – First Earth Day- 22 April
 * 1970 – Clean Air Act
 * 1970 – Environmental Protection Agency
 * 1971 – Greenpeace
 * 1972 – Clean Water Act
 * 1973 – Endangered Species Act
 * 1980 – Earth First!
 * 1992 – UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
 * 1997 – Kyoto Protocol commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
 * 2017 – First National Clean Up Day
 * 2022 – Inflation Reduction Act

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Added reference [30]- "The Clean Water Act of 1977". I think a reference was needed to support fact.
 * Added "2022- Inflation Reduction Act"

Europe
In 1952 the Great London Smog episode killed thousands of people and led the UK to create the first Clean Air Act in 1956. In 1957 the first major nuclear accident occurred in Windscale in northern England. The supertanker Torrey Canyonran aground off the coast of Cornwall in 1967, causing the first major oil leak that killed marine life along the coast. In 1972, in Stockholm, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment created the UN Environment Programme. The EU's environmental policy was formally founded by a European Council declaration and the first five-year environment programme was adopted. The main idea of the declaration was that prevention is better than the cure and the polluter should pay.

In the 1980s the green parties that were created a decade before began to have some political success. In 1986, there was a nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine. A large-scale environmental campaign was staged in Ukraine in 1986. The end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s saw the fall of communism across central and Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Union of East and West Germany. In 1992 there was a UN summit held in Rio de Janeiro where Agenda 21 was adopted. The Kyoto Protocol was created in 1997, setting specific targets and deadlines to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol has 192 signatories, including the European Union, Cook Islands, Niue, and all UN member states except Andorra, Canada, South Sudan, and the United States. In the early 2000s, activists believed that environmental policy concerns were overshadowed by energy security, globalism, and terrorism.

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Added reference [30]- "Implementing Sustainable Development: Strategies and Initiatives in High Consumption Societies". I think a reference was needed to support fact.
 * Replaced reference [36]- "Celebrating Europe and its environment" to "The Environment Encyclopedia and Directory 2001". Previous reference was not functioning.

Bangladesh
Mithun Roy Chowdhury, President, Save Nature & Wildlife (SNW), Bangladesh, insisted that the people of Bangladesh raise their voice against Tipaimukh Dam, being constructed by the Government of India. He said the Tipaimukh Dam project will be another "death trap for Bangladesh like the Farakka Barrage," which would lead to an environmental disaster for 50 million people in the Meghna River basin. He said that this project will start desertification in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh was ranked the most polluted country in the world defective automobiles, particularly diesel-powered vehicles, and hazardous gases from industry. The air is a hazard to Bangladesh’s human health, ecology, and economic progress.

 My Edits/Thoughts 
 * Added "Bangladesh was ranked the most polluted country in the world defective automobiles, particularly diesel-powered vehicles, and hazardous gases from industry. The air is a hazard to Bangladesh’s human health, ecology, and economic progress."

South Africa
In 2022, a court in South Africa has confirmed the constitutional right of the country's citizens to an environment that isn't harmful to their health, which includes the right to clean air. The case is referred to "Deadly Air" case. The area includes one of South Africa’s largest cities, Ekurhuleni, and a large portion of the Mpumalanga province.

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Added "A court in South Africa has confirmed the constitutional right of the country's citizens to an environment that isn't harmful to their health, which includes the right to clean air.The case is referred to "Deadly Air" case. The area includes one of South Africa’s largest cities, Ekurhuleni, and a large portion of the Mpumalanga province." This section didn't have any text I included information.

Environmental reactivism
Numerous criticisms and ethical ambiguities have led to growing concerns about technology, including the use of potentially harmful pesticides, water additives like fluoride, and the extremely dangerous ethanol-processing plants.

When residents living near proposed developments organize opposition they are sometimes called "NIMBYS", short for "not in my back yard".

Just Stop Oil a environmentalist activist group and other activists are making clear about the issue of climate change and how its impacting the way of life humans.

King Charles used events to engage with business and community leaders about environmental issues.

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Added "Just Stop Oil a environmentalist activist group and other activists are making clear about the issue of climate change and how its impacting the way of life humans".
 * Added "King Charles used events to engage with business and community leaders about environmental issues."

Environmentalism today
Today, the sciences of ecology and environmental science, in addition to any aesthetic goals, provide the basis of unity to some of the serious environmentalists. As more information is gathered in scientific fields, more scientific issues like biodiversity, as opposed to mere aesthetics, are a concern to environmentalists. Conservation biology is a rapidly developing field.

In recent years, the environmental movement has increasingly focused on global warming as one of the top issues. As concerns about climate change moved more into the mainstream, from the connections drawn between global warming and Hurricane Katrina to Al Gore's 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, more and more environmental groups refocused their efforts. In the United States, 2007 witnessed the largest grassroots environmental demonstration in years, Step It Up 2007, with rallies in over 1,400 communities and all 50 states for real global warming solutions.

Publicity and widespread organising of school strike for the climate began after Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg staged a protest in August 2018 outside the Swedish Riksdag (parliament). The September 2019 climate strikes were likely the largest climate strikes in world history.

In 2019, a survey found that climate breakdown is viewed as the most important issue facing the world in seven out of the eight countries surveyed.

Many religious organizations and individual churches now have programs and activities dedicated to environmental issues. The religious movement is often supported by interpretation of scriptures. Most major religious groups are represented including Jewish, Islamic, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, Zoroastrian, Christian and Catholic.

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Replaced reference [52]- "List of (incomplete) religious environmental organizations" to " American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving". Previous reference was not functioning.

Criticisms
Conservative critics of the movement characterize it as radical and misguided. Especially critics of the United States Endangered Species Act, which has come under scrutiny lately, and the Clean Air Act, which they said conflict with private property rights, corporate profits and the nation's overall economic growth. Critics also challenge the scientific evidence for global warming. They argue that the environmental movement has diverted attention from more pressing issues. Western environmental activists have also been criticized for performative activism, eco-colonialism, and enacting white savior tropes, especially celebrities who promote conservation in developing countries.

Deforestation, air pollution, and endangered species have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years.

 My Edits/Thoughts 


 * Added "Deforestation, air pollution, and endangered species have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years."