Environmental Studies in Credo: Movements and Environmentalists

A movement or theory that applies feminist principles and ideas to ecological issues. Feminist environmentalists argue that the domination of women by men reflects and reinforces the domination of the environment by society, and that the two are understood to be linked; patriarchal gender relations in society correspond to androcentric environmental ethics.

Movement to protect the quality and continuity of life through conservation of natural resources, prevention of pollution, and control of land use. Emerged out of concerns over pollution, global warming, soil erosion, deforestation, waste disposal, and resource depletion. To the extent that many of these environmental problems have been created by industrial production, economic growth and Western-style consumption, environmentalists often offer a critique of the model of economic growth on which they are based.

Any of the political parties established in various countries to oppose the destructive environmental effects of many modern technologies and the economic systems and institutions that drive them.

International protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that was agreed at Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997.

The process of recovering and reusing waste products—from household use, manufacturing, agriculture, and business—and thereby reducing their burden on the environment. Reusing a material not necessarily in its original form. The natural recycling of the substances required for life are the keystone of our existence on earth.

From Dictionary of Energy
Often associated with religious and agricultural views and practices, the ethical concept that the proper role for humans with respect to the natural environment is to act as a steward, or watchful caretaker.

Sustainable development is the promotion of developmental patterns that will enable current human generations to meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

From Environmental History and Global Change
The Clean Air Act of 1963 in the USA set higher standards and attempted to control emission of pollutants from industry, power plants and vehicles. The act was revised in 1970, 1977 and 1990. The 1990 amendment focused on problems of acid rain and ozone depletion.

From Dictionary of Energy
An amendment (1977) to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 that regulates discharges of pollutants to waters in the U.S., giving the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to establish effluent standards on an industry basis and continuing the requirements to set water quality standards for contaminants in surface waters. Known as the Clean Water Act (CWA).

From Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 is comprehensive federal legislation designed to protect all species in the United States designated as endangered by protecting habitats critical to their survival.

Agency established to safeguard the environment. Congress officially brought the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) into existence in 1970, but its roots go back as far as 1962. The impetus for the USEPA was a best-selling book by Rachel Carson, a bird watcher, titled Silent Spring.

From Dictionary of Energy
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); a U.S. federal law (1969) that requires all federal agencies to file statements for any action that might have a significant environmental impact; sometimes referred to as “the environmental Magna Carta”.

Author of 25 books of fiction and non-fiction mostly about the desert Southwest. Abbey disliked being called an environmentalist, a nature writer, or even a professional writer, insisting that he merely lived a life centered on writing and freedom. Called “the Thoreau of the West,” Abbey is the preeminent natural history writer of the Southwestern deserts. His works include novels, essay collections, travel books, and journal extracts that constantly reiterate a poetics of wilderness, one in which undeveloped land is America's best and most sacred resource.

American photographer, b. San Francisco. He began taking photographs in the High Sierra and Yosemite Valley, with which his name is permanently associated, becoming professional in 1930. He specialized in characteristic regional landscape, particularly of the Southwest, and worked to emphasize the conservation of nature.

Naturalist and broadcaster, born in London, UK, the brother of Richard Attenborough.

British botanist, writer, and broadcaster.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present
Wendell Berry has carefully tended a farm in north-central Kentucky that his family has tilled since 1803, while simultaneously conducting a formidable literary and academic career.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present
David Brower, proclaimed “archdruid” of conservation by his biographer, John McPhee, was perhaps the most famous environmentalist of the twentieth-century United States.

American environmentalist and writer whose best-known work, Silent Spring (1962), condemns the use of pesticides hazardous to wildlife. Considered the founder of the modern environmental movement, Carson shattered attitudes toward the natural environment by proving the negative consequences of long-term use of chemical pesticides such as DDT among many kinds of living things, including humans.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present
Dubos was disturbed by wanton environmental destruction and in the early 1960s became an outspoken advocate for the nascent environmental movement of that time.

US Democratic politician and environmentalist, vice-president 1993–2001. A member of the House of Representatives 1977–85 and senator for Tennessee 1985–93, he was on the conservative wing of the party, but held liberal views on such matters as women's rights, environmental issues, and abortion.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present
The director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York since 1981, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute since 1985, James Hansen is a climatologist known as the Paul Revere of global warming.

US conservationist and ecologist. In addition to his pioneering research in game management, he worked out a philosophical concept he called "the land ethic". The concept, he wrote, "simply enlarges the boundaries of the (human) community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively the land".

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present
Marsh was an avid student of the land, especially how human activity altered it.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Francisco ‘Chico’ Alves Mendes Filho; Brazilian environmentalist and labour leader. Born in the northwestern Amazonian state of Acre, Mendes became an outspoken opponent of the destruction of rainforests for cattle-ranching purposes. He organized itinerant rubber tappers into the Workers' Party (PT) before being assassinated by a cattle rancher's son.

Explorer, naturalist, and conservationist, born in Dunbar, East Lothian, E Scotland, UK.

US naturalist and author; leader of the Transcendentalist movement in America. His experiment in living in solitude was recorded in Walden (1854), while his thoughts on the individual in society in Civil Disobedience (1849). Born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817, Thoreau developed his attachment to words and ideas at an early age. At ten years old he composed his first known work, “The Seasons”; at eleven he attended Concord Academy with his beloved older brother John; by sixteen he had matriculated at Harvard College; and two years later he was already teaching school between college terms.

From American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present
Paul Watson is best known for his direct actions at sea in the defense of seals, dolphins, whales, and other marine wildlife. From the late 1960s, Watson actively campaigned to prevent nuclear testing, to disrupt Canadian seal hunts, and to damage or sink vessels engaged in illegal whaling activities.