How
to take action? film
(Tim
DeChristopher)
Will historians look back and see
last year's election as a turning point for
environmental issues?
- at least we don't have a president with huge ties to the oil industry
- generational change--different assumptions about the world
- environmentalists will have
a place at the table
Today,
how would you go about using the political system to address an
environmental issue?
So what you need to watch for in this chapter is the change in strategy and tactics and who was involved
Big federal government projects (not in wartime) are a new thing in the 1930s.
The key history leading into this was the New Deal: big projects run by federal government during the Great Depression
Big Ridge Dam, TVA
power farming displaces tenants, Texas 1938
As in the film "The River", dams were built with the idea that humans could control nature
The next step was political efforts to protect wilderness--this showed the power of passing new laws
How do you get a law passed?
- talk to or write to congressional representative--goes back to late 19th century
- local example
- Can Clemson sell off some of the experimental forest for development?
- pressure local
decisionmakers--President Barker
- in the case of the experimental forest the federal government gave the land to Clemson for research
- but congress has already made similar exceptions
- next step would be a letterwriting campaign to try an exception being granted
- lawsuit that exception
was illegal or didn't follow government rules
- town meetings--laws in 1970s requiring consulting the public--and even if not required it may be useful to find out and try to influence public opinion
- collect signatures to force
a referendum on the issue so the public will vote on it--became more
common in 1980s
- try to get news coverage
and get the public excited about the issue--goes back to late 19th
century
- lawsuits, often arguing the
existing regulations haven't been followed--resulted from new
environmental regulations around 1970
- protests
- get attention and news
coverage--grew strong in the Progressive era
- actually stop something
from happening, sometimes by breaking the law--copied in the 1970s from
the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements
So what you need to watch for in this chapter is the change in strategy and tactics and who was involved
Big federal government projects (not in wartime) are a new thing in the 1930s.
The key history leading into this was the New Deal: big projects run by federal government during the Great Depression
- dams had become more important as a source of electricity, particularly after the development of alternating current systems invented by Tesla
- The Great Depression and
the New Deal (video)
- Civilian Conservation Corps starting in 1933 put men to work on rural projects, particularly reforestation
- Tennessee Valley Authority
--bring development to rural areas (video).
Why did the federal
government get involved?
- control flooding on Tennessee river
- promote development by providing inexpensive electricity both to residents and for industry
- teach more modern methods of farming, homebuilding, etc.
Big Ridge Dam, TVA
- The Story of Hoover Dam and Hoover
Dam Construction
Hoover Dam- the 1930s and then WW2 led
people to increasingly believe we don't have to worry
about the limits of nature because we can overcome them with technology
- Rural Electrification Authority established in 1935 to organize locally owned co-ops to provide electric service in areas where the farms were too far apart to make it profitable for private companies to set up systems. In 1935 only 10% of farms had power from a network (some generated their own electricity).
- Part of the idea was to improve rural life so people would stay on farms instead of moving to cities to look for work
- they sometimes argued that people had a right to electricity
- the government was
promoting the spread of technology
- Farm Chemurgic Council established to find new uses for farm products (eg. making alcohol to be used as a substitute for gasoline).
- George
Washington Carver developed 325 products
from peanuts.
power farming displaces tenants, Texas 1938
As in the film "The River", dams were built with the idea that humans could control nature
- The Bureau of
Reclamation--federal agency whose job was to make land productive for
agriculture--dams and particularly water systems
- had selected 81 dam sites by the early 1950s
- that momentum for dam building is successfully challenged in the fight against Echo Park
- Conservanists/environmentalists successfully mobilized the public against Echo Park Dam
- note that success was based on public opinion
- get the public to write letters to their congressional representatives
- what exactly can you stop?
funding
- in the Echo Park case there was a bill in Congress to provide money for 10 dams
- Bureau of Reclamation offers a compromise: to take out Echo Park Dam
- the compromise was accepted
by the environmental activists
- 1880-1960--government protects some land in national parks and forests
- the primary way to fight projects harmful to the environment was to persuade Congress to not fund them
- 1960-1980--government regulation: new laws that limited harm to the environment, many of which applied to both private industry and government
- after 1980 fewer new laws,
more fights in Congress and the courts about how to interpret the laws
The next step was political efforts to protect wilderness--this showed the power of passing new laws
- Nash covered this story as
well, but pay attention in Rothman particularly to what is politically
effective and how political tactics change
- Wilderness Act of 1964
- this led to a whole series of new laws in late 1960s and early 1970s
- Clean Water Act, Clean Air
Act, Endangered Species Act, NEPA
How do you get a law passed?
- someone in Congress writes a law
- it gets debated and revised
- has to pass both Senate and House of Representatives
- the President has to sign it
- a government agency often carries it out or interprets it
- it get thrashed out in the
courts