James Oermann

James Oermann History of The Environmental Movement  Origins   Everything comes from what came before, while many people do not have any interest in knowing the past, and why it creates the present, in fact everything that is today exists only because of what happened in the past. I watched a documentary Covid’s Hidden Toll not too long ago about Covid 19 and agricultural workers in Salinas, California. They mentioned most people have no idea how produce is grown, processed and sourced to their local grocer, or how it arrives at their grocery store. Likewise many people are oblivious to the past and how it affects today. In the case of environmentalism, I think it’s important to see that what exists today came from centuries of things in the past. Those beginnings show that the moral, philosophical, and radical type of environmentalism we have today is often, but not always what existed in the past. In the past, often very practical, nuts and bolts type of thinking about environmental problems affected people locally. Environmentalism from the past has developed, changed, and shaped into what it is today. Many people assume that environmentalism is a new thing, based on information gleaned only from the news media. We have to realize that the environmental movement likewise, like so many things, comes from a long history. We have seen a long struggle in the past 100 years about environmentalism. While the true fragility of the earth has only been brought to light in the past fifty years or so with the work of those against modern agriculture, DDT, Agent Orange, and carbon pollution has come to be important in pointing out the destruction we are doing to the planet. Many people think this was the beginning, but in fact environmentalism goes back much further and if we had listened to the messages the earth was telling us back then, we would not see the destruction that we saw in the later half of the 20th to the days today with vast extinction, huge plastic islands in the Pacific ocean, and massive land loss.  Nothing simply appears from nothing. The environmental movement is not exempt from that fact. We might look at environmentalism as something that has just recently developed with “modern” technology such as crop rotation, “clean” burning power plants, energy efficient cars and appliances, but in fact environmentalism not as laws, or technology, but as attitude and understanding of the relationship of humans and nature is as old as humans themselves. The beginnings of the environmental movement are not so much a beginning as a hodgepodge of behaviours, approaches, philosophies, laws, decrees, and regulations. The slow evolution to what we think of as environmentalism was in the prehistoric and early ancient history periods not so much as people wanting to protect mother earth, even though surely some did think of this, but were either part of a religion or philosophy or simply very practical ways to preserve quality of life.  Why is there an environmental movement, policy, or philosophy at all is a good question. Some members of society would prefer to have no environmental laws, protocols, or any regulation at all. For these people life, and especially business, is a zero-sum game. While we might think of mining or logging, or petroleum industries as the only major extractive industries, in fact most business has been started on this zero-sum algorithm. For most business people any environmental regulation means money out of their pocket. While they might realize that environmental damage is being done, that is an issue for next year and next generation, better to only be concerned about today and today’s profits. Laws, regulation, and cleaner ways of doing business all mean extra trouble, difficulty, costs, or other inconveniences for them. Those involved in extractive industries, industries with waste, polluting industries, or simple household waste all incur some difficulty when faced with environmental regulation and laws. For them it is much easier to deal with their situations without having to comply with protocols and other aspects which add costs, time, and extra work into their enterprises. Even simple household waste used to be pitched out open windows, into alleys, or along the streets. With time regulations to make cities more sanitary became the rule of the land. These changes made life for some people more difficult. Certainly the requirements to recycle used engine oil, clean up waste caused by industrial manufacturing, and the like all mean that those that used to be free to simply throw these things into streams, rivers, or wherever they pleased now had more work to do. The industrial run off from metal fabrication, or exhaust from factories now means expensive protocols to limit the amount put into the environment or to mitigate it. Social outcry has meant that polluting industries and individuals slowly over time had to take action to limit the amount of pollution they made. . Overtime governments of various types imposed regulations, and industry players as well as decided to stop polluting so much. City planning was designed around environmental protection for a while. The origins of the environmental movement, and action to protect the environment mostly came from public desire to see a cleaner environment around them. Slowly more and more bits and pieces were added. The whys, hows, and what of environmental protective action changed over time.  So we see that the environmental movement is in fact not new at all. It is based on some fairly significant ancient examples. Far back, before the tree hugging hippies, or activist whale protectors, ancient Romans, English, Indian, and other civilisations had laws based sometimes on religious or philosophical views, but more often on practical ideas about preserving resources for the future, improving quality of life, and protecting the cleanliness of the natural environment. Species protection, and the interconnectedness of life would come later, and also be mixed into the soup of early environmentalism.  There are three different schools of early environmental policy. One, a religious or philosophical approach, two preservation of land, air, and water, three a desire to improve the quality of life for people. From this the many and varied parts of environmentalism in the respective locations of the places considered evolved. Only with the rise of nation states and international recognition of them did the modern movement come to be, however we can see from the many diverse approaches a consistent environmentalism which if followed would have preserved the earth to today.  The religious or philosophical approach would include the tree hugging Hindus, and the Muir and Thoreau writings. To them nature, natural resources, and the earth are sacred, holy, and religious in nature. To abuse, neglect, or damage these is a sin and not to be taken lightly.  The debate of what the specific whys, hows, and what is really the life of environmental policy and movement are all about. We have environmental policy today, but the debate is whether or not it makes any difference. Elon Musk is very serious about the need to leave earth in order for the human species to survive. This seems very relevant. As more and more data is presented by environmental scientists, it does indeed seem very likely that within a fairly short time period the earth will indeed no longer be habitable. Many species have gone extinct in the past hundred years, land is quickly sinking into the oceans, and the overall viability of the environment is waning rapidly, perhaps more rapidly than previously thought.  The answer of if there should be environmental regulation was answered by the twentieth century, the debate of how stringent rules and regulations should be is what would be the bread and butter of the environmental movement and struggle in the following decades. While certainly there are those who regardless of the century, would rather not bother with environmental protections at all, in the middle twentieth century it became clear there was enough societal pressure on government and business to make environmental protection law. The strength and enforcement of those laws would be on the firing line for generations to come through. There have been some positive improvements in some aspects of the environment since the twentieth century, but also there have been many fall backs as well.        The historical roots of the environmental movement are quite separate from the modern one. There is a vast developmental leap from the pre-Christian era of ancient civilizations and today. In fact civilization changed so much during this period that there is no direct link between what was done by Darro or Zeno, and today. The soil conservation of ancient Indians, Chinese, or Peruvians could be overall linked to farming practices today, being that the attitude is that preservation of the soil is the main goal of farming over anything else. Of course this is not always the case with modern farming, but this underlying theory if adhered to is ancient. A desire for clean air and water, along with preservation of species are clearly linked with today. However no continuous policy can be pointed at, or direct link with laws and policies of the ancient world and today. The modern movement is one of political action and debate on how much regulation there should be. The ancient systems were mostly based on desires to preserve and protect, and were not very politically charged. Today environmentalism is within the domain of the greens and the liberals. Big business battles those who want to preserve the earth. Scientists and politicians are caught in the crossfire between two extreme policies often and points of view.  In the areas of government, the Magna Carta, English Constitution, and many dynasties of China have weak links to what we have today, each political, military, and legal stepping stone leading from the ancient past to today. However in the environmental movement, efforts were to hodge podge in ancient times to link to today, and also a modern environmental movement must be international in nature because pollution and ecosystems do not value international borders.  We can see that there are many historical components that have developed into the future environmental movement. A deep concern about air and water quality, quality of life for humans and animals, and preservation as well as harmony with the natural world are all components we can see in early environmental action. As already discussed, environmentalism has been around for many centuries prior to the modern movement. While using a contemporary point of view, the actions of ancient civilizations to curb their trash, and of British leaders to clean their skies might not seem like environmentalism as we know it today, in retrospect we can see that in fact these origins, both more recent and ancient all contribute to the environmental movement we have today. These efforts have been in a hodge-podge, unorganized system by individuals, organisations, and governments which did not necessarily even know each other existed.These efforts were done by divergent groups and done on an ad hoc basis. However, what is clear is that even centuries ago, before we could measure particulates, or even knew about ozone or carbon monoxide, there was serious concern about and interest in making changes which would improve and protect the environment. The reason often was simple observation of damage which individuals, politicians, monarchs, societies, and other entities took offense to, or saw it important to try to stop or alleviate. It is well worth a look at what existed before Silent Spring or the Environmental Protection Agency to see what laid the groundwork in the movement, and just how comprehensive some of the old, even ancient policies and practices were, especially for their times.   Early environmentalism, while we might not think about it being environmentalism looking through contemporary eyes, it can be considered as going all the way back to the beginnings of civilization. We can find examples of environmentalism early in human history, suggesting that it is just a part of human civilisation just as the development of art, industry, and agriculture. Gilgamesh wrote of the damage of cutting sacred trees. Zeno in 450 BCE wrote ‘The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.’ Five thousand years ago Mohenjo Darro in ancient Pakistan made rules that pollution and waste management should be used. More recently in 1306 Edward the I limited the amount of coal that can be burned, later a law against burning sea coal was enacted in Britain, and in 1720 the tree hugger was born in India when Bishnoi Hindus embraced trees to keep them from being cut down to burn in making cement for one of the royal buildings being built. History since that time is littered with examples both narrow and broad of environmental policies and attempts to curb the damage of humans and industry.  People responsible for early environmentalism noted the environmental damage being made, as the major impetus for what they were doing. Rather than a moral or philosophical reason, they simply noticed how unpleasant environmental damage is; for example in the 17th century John Evelyn said London looked like the ‘suburbs of hell’ speaking of all the coal fires and smog. Also many other activists and environmentalists in the intersecting centuries noted the damage of cutting forests, burning coal, and loss of habitat. We see from this history that many individuals, civil leaders, and philosophers knew the dangers of human activity on the earth, and made efforts, wrote laws, and stated ideas about the importance of right action and how people can limit and should limit the damage they do through their day to day activities. These laws surely made some difference. While finding evidence of improvements is not as scientifically proven as the historic evidence that rules were enacted, we can believe that surely they must have made some difference. Early in history, when faced with issues of pollution and extinction there were those who felt that the best thing to do was to help our environment and in turn help ourselves. Just like today, the ancients had those individuals that for philosophical, religious, or simple common sense reasons, thought it was best to limit use, pollution, and the damage that humans made on their environment. The result was not a political or ideological movement as we saw in the later half of the twentieth century, but simply actions and stances taken for different individual reasons. All in total, these activities surely had some good effect on the individual places in which they were enforced, and in the historical record today’s environmentalists can look back and see what good can be done.  Back in these early beginnings, we saw long before any global effort or formal comprehensive scientific policy that on the local level civic leaders, communities, and writers saw the need to preserve the quality of air, land, and water. In time we would see more sophisticated government organizations in fact global ones doing the same activities on different scales. There was an organic response to environmental damage. It seemed that in the old days much of life took on more of an organic approach, or in progressively more contemporary eyes, more primitively, with less regulation, less science, less law, and ultimately more humanity. As time went on the environmental movement would be drawn into other movements and global governance as well. As history marched on, genocide, colonisation, and dangerous products and services slowly passed away through greater knowledge and greater science. However in environmentalism while we have better knowledge and science, the ability to enforce and make a difference becomes a major difficulty.    We see that early in human development many people did know that the environment was something that should be preserved, and that in fact there are those out there who unchecked will destroy the environment. In fact historically and even today there are few who really look at the environment and environmentalism as something that should be preserved. Still, there are clear examples of historical instances, individuals, and political entities which acted to preserve and protect the environment. The lasting effects of those early actions could be debated. We see today that environment lovers are called “tree huggers” , harkening back to those ancient Indians who were willing to put their own lives on the line. Today there are also some people who in fact would be willing to do the same. To what extent did the action of the Bishno Indians have on today’s tree huggers could be debated, as there is not any direct link between 18th century India, and today’s environmental activists, and protesters other than it seems they all share a love and passion, willing to put their lives in peril for the preservation of environment. Are today’s tree huggers influenced by those ancient Indians? My guess would be most likely not, directly, however their sentiments are the same.  Can we organize the ancient origins of environmentalism? I believe we can categorize them into government decrees, philosophy, and activism. While organizing all the particular events, actions, laws, policies, and individuals responsible for ancient and early environmentalism would be impossible, because they span such a broad time period and are so geographically wide, we can come to see that there are certain common sorts of things that can be categorized so we can see the evolution or the environmental movement. The tree huggers of India would fit into the category of early activism, London restrictions on coal, government decrees, and Zeno’s writing environmental philosophy. What we can see is already a theoretical, as well as philosophical framework which was a result of the people and their times, but also gave future generations a foundation on which they could build.   Bridging the gap between the ancient and the modern is difficult. The individual codes and laws designed to keep trash managed in the ancient world, or keep water and air clean around old cities have no direct connection to the laws of today. The ancient actions that were taken happened at times and places so distance from each other that there is no way to directly connect them. Particular laws surely did influence societies as a whole though, even though in the case of ancient laws, it is unlikely that more contemporary lawmakers were even familiar with what happened thousands of years ago. Clearly those who saw environmental damage and believed that it should be curtailed in old times are not that much different from those today, however there is no clear link between what happened in early times and today. It is simply that human nature is not that different from ancient times to today. The influence of ancient philosophers on modern environmentalists can be seen in some cursory way, and again like with particular laws and policies, ultimately human nature of those who wish to preserve the environment has not changed that much over the centuries. I do not believe we can clearly link Darro or Zeno to today, however there are those who have read them and would be influenced by them.   What would come in centuries after is what more clearly formed the environmental policy and what we have today. It is in the middle years, when modern nation states, and their laws and policies came into being that the visible foundation and lineage of what we have today was formed.