Book ID: CBB001422331

A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (2014)

unapi

Allitt, Patrick (Author)


Penguin


Publication Date: 2014
Physical Details: xv + 384 pp.; ill.; notes; index
Language: English

In a real sense, Allitt shows us, collective anxiety about widespread environmental danger began with the atomic bomb, when the apocalyptic possibilities of human technology became terrifyingly real. Then, as the urbanization and industrialization of the postwar years transformed the American landscape, more research and better tools for measurement began to reveal the environmental consequences of economic success. Scientists shared their findings; convinced that their research was significant and their findings potentially ominous, they had an incentive to cultivate relationships with journalists and politicians to mobilize public interest. A climate of anxiety became a climate of alarm. In the early sixties works such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring catalyzed a growing awareness that chemical pollution was threatening the natural world. A series of environmental disasters in these years, including the massive Union Oil spill in California and a fire in Cleveland's Cuyahoga River, heightened the sense of panic and underlined the fact that industry was indeed producing high levels of pollution. These ideas resonated with and drew energy from the counterculture movement, which protested conspicuous waste and the falsehoods of consumer society. The sixties generation was largely responsible for the transformation of environmentalism from a set of special interests into a mass movement. By the end of the sixties, journalists and politicians alike were recognizing the connection between the many forms of pollution and the need for an effective response to the public's concerns. The work of the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency and a series of clean air and water acts in the 1970s from a responsive Congress inaugurated a sustained and largely successful cleanup. Political polarization around environmental questions after 1980 had consequences that we still feel today. Since then the general polarization of American politics has mirrored the polarization of environmental politics, as advocates of environmental concern and their critics for decades have attributed to each other the worst possible motives. Environmentalists see their critics as greedy special interest groups that show no signs of conscience as they plunder the earth, while counter-environmentalists see their adversaries as the enemies of economic growth, whose plans will stop social progress and stifle initiative under an avalanche of bureaucratic regulation.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Zelko, Frank (2015) Review of "A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism". Environmental History (pp. 160-163). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001422331/

Similar Citations

Article Hecht, David K.; (2012)
How to Make a Villain: Rachel Carson and the Politics of Anti-Environmentalism (/isis/citation/CBB001251549/)

Thesis Eardley-Pryor, Roger; (2014)
The Global Environmental Moment: Sovereignty and American Science on Spaceship Earth, 1945--1974 (/isis/citation/CBB001567572/)

Book Eric T. Freyfogle; (2017)
A Good That Transcends: How US Culture Undermines Environmental Reform (/isis/citation/CBB554745324/)

Book Vig, Norman J.; Faure, Michael G.; (2004)
Green Giants? Environmental Policies of the United States and the European Union (/isis/citation/CBB000830072/)

Book Bosso, Christopher J.; (2005)
Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway (/isis/citation/CBB000641554/)

Article Guston, David H.; (2014)
Understanding “Anticipatory Governance” (/isis/citation/CBB001421172/)

Book Teresa Sabol Spezio; (2018)
Slick Policy: Environmental and Science Policy in the Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill (/isis/citation/CBB947690121/)

Article Hay, Amy M.; (2012)
Dispelling the “Bitter Fog”: Fighting Chemical Defoliation in the American West (/isis/citation/CBB001251552/)

Article Davis, Frederick R.; (2012)
Silent Spring after 50 years (/isis/citation/CBB001251546/)

Book Murphy, Priscilla Coit; (2005)
What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring (/isis/citation/CBB000640534/)

Book Rees, Jonathan; (2013)
Industrialization and the Transformation of American Life: A Brief Introduction (/isis/citation/CBB001421332/)

Article Davis, Frederick R.; (2012)
“Like a Keen North Wind”: How Charles Elton Influenced Silent Spring (/isis/citation/CBB001251548/)

Article Barrow, Mark V., Jr.; (2012)
Carson in Cartoon: A New Window onto the Noisy Reception to Silent Spring (/isis/citation/CBB001251550/)

Article Kinkela, David; (2009)
The Ecological Landscapes of Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson (/isis/citation/CBB001030900/)

Book Musil, Robert K.; (2014)
Rachel Carson and Her Sisters: Extraordinary Women Who Have Shaped America's Environment (/isis/citation/CBB001422328/)

Thesis Dunsby, Joshua William; (2001)
Clarifying Smog: Expert Knowledge, Health, and the Politics of Air Pollution (/isis/citation/CBB001562429/)

Book Richard S. Newman; (2016)
Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present (/isis/citation/CBB272782783/)

Article Matthew P. Johnson; (October 2019)
Black Gold of Paradise: Negotiating Oil Pollution in the US Virgin Islands, 1966–2012 (/isis/citation/CBB282414761/)

Authors & Contributors
Davis, Frederick Rowe
Johnson, Matthew P.
Newman, Richard S.
Freyfogle, Eric T.
Musil, Robert K.
Spezio, Teresa Sabol
Concepts
Environmentalism
Science and politics
Pollution
Public policy
Political activists and activism
Environmental sciences
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
19th century
20th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Virgin Islands (U.S.)
Love Canal
European Union
New York (U.S.)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment