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The State of the Environment—An Overview - Historical Attitudes Toward The Environment, The Role Of Population In The Environmental Equation, The Impact Of Environmental Protection On The U.s. Economy
earth planet concern world
We have not inherited the Earth from our fathers. We are borrowing it from our children.
—Native American saying
Photographs from outer space impress on the world that humankind shares one planet, and a small one at that. (See Figure 1.1.) Earth is one ecosystem. There may be differences in race, nationality, religion, and language, but everyone resides on the same orbiting planet.
General concern about the environment is a relatively recent phenomenon. Two closely related factors explain the rising concern during the second half of the twentieth century: global industrialization following World War II and the worldwide population explosion. It was once thought that the life-sustaining resources of
planet Earth were infinite; now it is known that these resources are finite and limited.
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Humankind has always altered the environment around itself. For much of human history, however, these changes were fairly limited. The world was too vast and people too few to have more than a minor effect on the environment, especially as they had only primitive tools and technology to aid them. All of this began to change in
the 1800s. First in Europe and then in America, powerful new machines, …
Earth's population is believed to have grown more from 1950 through 2000 than it did during the previous 4 million years. For centuries, deaths largely offset births, resulting in a slow population growth. Beginning around 1950, high birth rates in developing countries, coupled with a reduction in mortality rates and reduced
infant mortality (which led to an overall lengthening of the life …
Since federal and state governments began actively protecting the environment in the 1970s, they have acted primarily by creating rules—called regulations—that say how Americans can affect the environment around them. In order to get people and organizations to comply with these regulations, the government fines, imprisons, or
otherwise punishes those who violate them. Most federal r…
Since the mid-1980s dissatisfaction with government regulation has grown. In 1994 the newly elected Republican-controlled Congress attempted to strike down a wide variety of federal regulations, including environmental regulations that they considered overly burdensome. Bills were introduced to relax regulations established
under the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, the Superfund toxic-was…
The courts have been an important forum for developing environmental policy because they allow citizens to challenge complex environmental laws and to affect the decision-making process. Both supporters and opponents of environmental protection have successfully used the courts to change environmental policy and law.
Successful challenges can force the legislature to change laws or even have the …
The so-called environmental justice issue stems from concerns that racial minorities are disproportionately subject to environmental hazards. The EPA defines environmental justice as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the
development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulat…
Table 1.2 lists the major environmental and wildlife protection acts of the federal government. As recently as the 1980s very few Americans understood that harming the environment could be considered a crime. Since that time, however, a substantial portion of the American public has begun to recognize the seriousness of
environmental offenses, believing that damaging the environment is a serious c…
In 1997 the Clinton administration and the EPA initiated the Sector Facility Indexing Project (SFIP), an effort FIGURE 1.4 Environmental Protection Agency criminal enforcement program (fiscal year 1999–fiscal year 2003) to keep the public informed about industries that pollute the environment. The latest in an ambitious
campaign to expand "right-to-know" initiatives, th…
Environmental issues have never been neatly bound by national borders. Activities taking place in one country often have an impact on the environment of other countries, if not that of the entire Earth. In fact, many of the most important aspects of environmental protection involve areas that are not located within any
particular country, such as the oceans, or belong to no one, such as the atmosp…
In March 2004 the Gallup Organization conducted its annual poll dealing with environmental issues. As shown in Figure 1.6, participants were asked to rate the overall quality of the U.S. environment as excellent, good, only fair, or poor. Only 4 percent of those asked gave the environment an excellent rating. Another 39
percent rated the environment in good condition, while 46 percent considered i…
In May 2001 the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, a private nonprofit organization, published the results of its latest annual study of American adults' knowledge of environmental issues. The study, conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide in 2000, found that Americans supported environmental protection but
were generally ignorant on the leading causes of pollution, energ…
Many states require schools to incorporate environmental concepts, such as ecology, conservation, and environmental law, into many subjects at all grade levels. Some even require special training in environmentalism for teachers. Since 1992 the EPA, with congressional FIGURE 1.9 Public perception of the U.S. government's role
in protecting the environment, 2004 authority to spend a t…
In the past three decades humans have changed the way they think about the planet Earth. Missions to other planets have found those planets interesting and diverse but also sterile. Earth is unique; as far as is known, it is the only planet capable of sustaining life. While environmental change is certain, many things remain
unknown. Among those things is how humans alter Earth. One way to study t…
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