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In the Beginning. . . .

© Danita LaSage

Wow – here we are again, a brand new year, brand new century, and the real start of the new millennium. It seems like the perfect time to write about beginnings, so how about the beginnings of environmentalism and environmental science?

Technically, environmental science is a new field. As recently as 1971 textbook author Thomas Detwyler (Man’s Impact on Environment) wrote that “there is not yet an integrated science of the environment,” and argued that it was essential to develop a new field that would incorporate the processes of environmental interactions, interdisciplinary repercussions, and the importance of man’s actions. The present environmental movement is doing much to fill the void that he identified, and is producing the interdisciplinary environmental science that he outlined.

The roots of environmentalism and the resultant environmental science, however, go back as far as the fourth century B.C. when Plato complained that deforestation and subsequent soil erosion had left Greece a mere skeleton of her former self. Conservation, a precursor to environmentalism, was practiced by a few European policy-makers even in the eighteenth century.

In the United States, however, eighteenth century thinking was still very much along the lines of conquering the wilderness. Even Daniel Boone thought of his role as one who forged into new areas so that they could be colonized and subdued by the settlers who followed him. Wilderness, far from being appreciated and protected, was considered dangerous, something that needed to be controlled and domesticated. It wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that writers like Henry David Thoreau and George Perkins Marsh began to influence politicians to think of the new nation’s natural resources in terms of conservation, not conquest.

Most people agree that the modern environmental movement began in the early 1960s with Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. Her classic work described the effect of pesticides on songbirds, and awakened the American public to an impending environmental disaster. By the time the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, “ecology” was a prime topic for many Americans, and Barry Commoner was a household name. But ecology focuses generally on the relationships between plants and animals and their habitat. As environmental interest grew, so did the number of sub-topics, including water chemistry, economics, government policy, and regulatory mechanisms. A science broader and more encompassing than ecology was developing.

It was in the late 1980s that we really began to develop a global picture of the environment. Early environmental concerns focused on local concerns – pesticide use, for example, or surface water quality. Rivers so full of chemicals they could actually burn made national headlines. But in the 1980s we began to notice global atmospheric problems. Air samples in Alaska were found to have unique chemical signatures unique to the European regions that produced them. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl sent scattered radioactive particles over much of Europe. Air pollution produced in the American Northeast caused acid rain and the resultant fishkills in neighboring states. We began to see broader relationships and more far-reaching impacts. Scientists interested in studying these issues found more and more connections between previously isolated disciplines like microbiology, chemistry, and geology. Today biogeochemists and geomicrobiologists are specialized environmental scientists.

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