![Fumifugium 1661
• 1661 -- John Evelyn writes "Fumifugium, or the
Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London
Dissipated" to propose remedies for London's air
pollution problem. These include large public parks and
lots of flowers.
• "The immoderate use of, and indulgence to, sea-coale in
the city of London exposes it to one of the fowlest
inconveniences and reproaches that can possibly befall
so noble and otherwise incomparable City...
• Whilst they are belching it forth their sooty jaws, the
City of London resembles the face rather of Mount
Aetna, the Court of Vulcan... or the suburbs of Hell
[rather] than an assembly of rational creatures..."](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/history-ej-parti-kovarik-130316121223-phpapp01/75/History-ej-part-i-kovarik-10-2048.jpg)
![Occupational
Diseases
Recognized
1712
• Bernardo Ramazzini (1633 - 1714), the father of occupational
medicine, publishes De Morbis Artificum Diatriba
• Ramazzini also noticed that nuns tended to have a higher incidence of
breast cancer and that lead miners and workers often had skin the
same color as the metal. “Demons and ghosts are often found to
disturb the [lead] miners,” he said.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/history-ej-parti-kovarik-130316121223-phpapp01/75/History-ej-part-i-kovarik-11-2048.jpg)
![Reform & Reaction
Frances Trollope, Michael Armstrong: Factory Boy, 1840
"My eye caught the little figures of a multitude of children,
made … visible, even by that dim light, by the strong relief
in which their dark garments showed themselves against
the snow. A few steps farther brought me in full view of
the factory gates, and then I perceived considerably
above two hundred of these miserable little victims to
avarice all huddled together on the ground … I knew full
well what, and how great, was the terror [of beating by mill
foremen] which had brought them there too soon, and in
my heart of hearts I cursed the boasted manufacturing
wealth of England, which … gives power, lawless and
irresistible, to overwhelm and crush the land it pretends to](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/history-ej-parti-kovarik-130316121223-phpapp01/75/History-ej-part-i-kovarik-28-2048.jpg)
Uploaded byBill Kovarik
History.ej.part i.kovarik
1) Before the 1970s, environmental journalism existed but was not a defined genre. Writers covered topics like human impacts on nature, nature writing, urban environment/public health issues, and technology regulation over centuries. 2) In the 19th century, industrialization and its effects on workers, cities, and public health spurred social reform movements and environmental advocacy. Writers like Dickens, Browning, and Thoreau brought attention to these issues. 3) By the mid-19th century, science journalism was emerging as a way to inform the public on topics including nature, technology, and public health crises like cholera outbreaks. Publications advocated for sanitation and public health
History.ej.part i.kovarik
- 1. History of Environmental Journalism Part 1: Before Earth Day by Prof. Bill Kovarik
- 2. Intended for classroomlectures This slide presentation is intended for use in university classrooms. Nearly all illustrations are taken from the public domain, but a few of critical importance are included under the “fair use” copyright exemption for classroom teaching, Title 17: 107, “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research...” Please direct comments or questions to Prof. Bill Kovarik, bill.kovarik at gmail dot com. Thank you.
- 3. HISTORY of EJ •It’s not new -- These issues and conflicts have engaged writers and observers for millennia. • Climate science deniers like Nigel Calder often say that environmental journalism just popped up to advance the climate hoax. This is simply not true, as we will see. • Past controversies are similar – Centuries ago, people worried about air and water pollution, preventing disease, conserving land forests and animals, declining resources, undue influence by business, just as they do today. • The issues were often covered by the media of their era, as would be expected.
- 4. EJ main themes •Human impacts on nature over millennia – Covering the sciences such as geography, forestry, ecology, dendrology, glaciology, etc. • Nature writing and conservation advocacy – Romantic writers: Thoreau, Emerson, John Muir, Grey Owl – Wise use versus preservation: T. Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot – Science writers: Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, many others • Urban environment and public health – Vitruvius, Agricola, Ramazzini, Rudolf Carl Virchow, Jane Addams, Alice Hamilton, Clair Patterson, Joseph Needleman, Ellen Silbergeld, etc. – Disease, sanitation, smoke, drinking water, parks, chemical pollution etc. • Technology regulation – Examples: Steamboats 1850, smoke abatement from 1890s, Leaded gas and radium 1920s-30s, chemicals and air pollution from the 1940s, pesticides 1960s, water pollution 1970s, nuclear power 1980s, climate change 1990s, endocrine disruptors 2000s…
- 5. Science & democracylinked The democratic process and the applications of science … are intimately intertwined, for science does not operate in a vacuum… Discussions on the air or at the corner store revolve about these two central Vannevar subjects… (which are always) in Bush, 1949 the background. They determine our destiny, and well we know it.”
- 6. “The world todayis … powered by science… To abdicate an interest in science is to walk with eyes open toward slavery.” “If we are anything we must be a democracy of the intellect. We must not perish by the distance between people and power, by which Babylon and Egypt and Rome failed. And that distance can only be closed if knowledge sits in the homes and heads of people with no ambition to control others, and not in isolated seats of power.” -- Jacob Bronowski, 1956 and 1973
- 7. "I have aforeboding of ... a (future) service and information economy ... when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority ... The dumbing-down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media … ” -- Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World, Random House, 1995
- 8. Science communication • Plinythe Elder – – Historia Naturalis 1st C. • Marcus Vitruvius Polli, Architect 80 – 15 BCE – Noted occupational diseases of miners • Galen, Greek Physician 129 – 217 CE • Marco Polo – Exploration 1254 – 1324 • Columbus – Exploration 1490s – printing press magnified impact of explorations
- 9. De Re Mettalica– 1556 An environmentally conscious textbook on mining Agricola’s book concerns assaying, mining and smelting metals, and contains strong warnings about occupational hazards. "The critics say further that mining is a perilous occupation to pursue because the miners are sometimes killed by the pestilential air which they breathe; sometimes their lungs rot away...” Agricola also noted that some Italian city- states passed laws against mining because of its effects on woodlands, fields, vineyards and olive groves
- 10. Fumifugium 1661 • 1661-- John Evelyn writes "Fumifugium, or the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated" to propose remedies for London's air pollution problem. These include large public parks and lots of flowers. • "The immoderate use of, and indulgence to, sea-coale in the city of London exposes it to one of the fowlest inconveniences and reproaches that can possibly befall so noble and otherwise incomparable City... • Whilst they are belching it forth their sooty jaws, the City of London resembles the face rather of Mount Aetna, the Court of Vulcan... or the suburbs of Hell [rather] than an assembly of rational creatures..."
- 11. Occupational Diseases Recognized 1712 • Bernardo Ramazzini (1633 - 1714), the father of occupational medicine, publishes De Morbis Artificum Diatriba • Ramazzini also noticed that nuns tended to have a higher incidence of breast cancer and that lead miners and workers often had skin the same color as the metal. “Demons and ghosts are often found to disturb the [lead] miners,” he said.
- 12. Philadelphia 1739 Dock Creed conflict One of first reported environmental conflicts in US • May 15 -- Benjamin Franklin, editor of the Gazette, and his neighbors petition Pennsylvania Assembly to stop dumping in Dock Creek and remove the slaughterhouses and tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial district. • William Bradford, editor of the Mercury, responds in alarm: “A Daring Attempt (attack) on the Liberties of the Tradesmen of Philadelphia."
- 13. Franklin writes "A Petitionfrom a great Number of the Inhabitants of the City of Philadelphia, was presented to the House, and read; setting forth the great Annoyance arising from Slaughter-Houses, Tan-Yards, Skinner Lime-Pits, & c. erected on the publick Dock, and Streets, adjacent.”
- 14. (continued) Franklin argued for"public rights," and said the restraints on the liberty of the tanners would be "but a trifle" compared to the "damage done to others, and the city, by remaining where they are."
- 15. Benjamin Franklin • 1739 -- Benjamin Franklin and neighbors petition Pennsylvania Assembly to stop waste dumping and remove tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial district. Foul smell, lower property values, disease and interference with fire fighting are cited. The industries complain that their rights are being violated, but Franklin argues for "public rights." Franklin and the environmentalists win a symbolic battle but the dumping goes on.
- 16. • The tannerswin the argument in 1739 and stage a parade through city. Andrew Bradford of the Mercury says: – “They must be fine nos’d (nosed) that can distinguish the smell of Tannyards from that of the Common sink of near half Philadelphia…” • Franklin responds in the Gazette: It wasn't an attack on the liberties of the tanners but rather "only a modest Attempt to deliver a great Number of Tradesmen from being poisoned by a few, and restore to them the Liberty of Breathing freely in their own Houses."
- 17. The industrial revolution The Luddites were skilled textile workers who originally worked at home. They were replaced by low-skilled workers at steam powered looms in the early 1800s. Between 1811 and 1814, riots of starving workers occurred inside and outside the factories. Frame-breaking (sabotage) was the main goal. A show trial in York in 1813 led to executions. Press reaction was not sympathetic. “London, and many places in the interior of England, appear to be in a most dreadful state, from murders, assassinations, Ned Ludd, the leader, was robberies and riots, caused, no doubt, by a mythical figure of the the pressure of the times.” times like Robin Hood Niles Register (Baltimore, MD) 2:70, March 28, 1812.
- 18. Byron defends theLuddites “During the short time I recently passed in Nottingham, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence… Whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress… “As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last… Feb. 27, 1812 House of Lords
- 19. Reporting the violence LondonTimes covered the violence and the trials but not the workers problems or Byron’s plea for justice. May 23, 1812 Jan. 12, 1813.
- 20. Audubon’s 1827 Birds ofAmerica John James Audubon’s book was an enormous success when it was printed in Britain in various editions beginning in 1827. It was a monumental work with large page sizes featuring 435 hand-colored, life-size prints of 497 bird species. The book’s success signaled a new interest in nature and in the environment.
- 21. The moon hoaxof 1835 Few standards existed for science and environmental reporting in the new Penny Press papers of the 1830s … “We could perceive that their wings possessed great expansion and were similar in structure of those of the bat, being a semitransparent membrane expanded in curvilinear divisions by means of straight radii, united at the back by dorsal integuments…” New York Sun, August 1835.
- 22. Science was takenfar more seriously in the new publica- tions emerging in the mid-19th century. Some (like Scientific American) were originally for non-scientists and featured technology advances (like the Brush 1887 wind generator).
- 23. Environmental Photography • Bisson brotherswere French photographers and alpine enthusiasts whose mid-19th century photos illuminated nature. • "La crevasse,” taken in 1862, during the ascent of Mont Blanc. • Ansel Adams will use some of the same techniques a century later.
- 24. Social reform movements •Reformers awaken in the late 1700s – mid- 1800s. • The emerging press is there to cover the controversies. Gin Lane – engraving by William Hogarth 1750
- 26. Dickensian London • "Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow flakes -- gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun." -- Bleak House, 1852 • Other authors -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Francis Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskill -- inundate Victorian England with grave tales about child workers and diseased towns … • Reform spirit is sparked Fleet Street, c. 1850
- 27. Reform & Reaction Alexisde Tocqueville, Journey to England, 1835 "Thirty or forty factories rise on the tops of the hills...six stories (high). The wretched dwellings of the poor are scattered haphazard around them. Round them stretches land uncultivated but without the charm of rustic nature.,, the fetid, muddy waters stained with a thousand colours by the factories ... Look up and all around this place and you will see the huge palaces of industry. You will hear the noise of furnaces, the whistle of steam. These vast structures keep air and light out of the human habitations which they dominate; they envelope them in perpetual fog; here is the slave, there the master; there is the wealth of some, here the poverty of most."
- 28. Reform & Reaction FrancesTrollope, Michael Armstrong: Factory Boy, 1840 "My eye caught the little figures of a multitude of children, made … visible, even by that dim light, by the strong relief in which their dark garments showed themselves against the snow. A few steps farther brought me in full view of the factory gates, and then I perceived considerably above two hundred of these miserable little victims to avarice all huddled together on the ground … I knew full well what, and how great, was the terror [of beating by mill foremen] which had brought them there too soon, and in my heart of hearts I cursed the boasted manufacturing wealth of England, which … gives power, lawless and irresistible, to overwhelm and crush the land it pretends to
- 29. Reform & Reaction •1820 -- Child labor reforms proposed by Jeremy Bentham • 1830 -- Thomas Southwood Smith publishes his Treatise on Fever, arguing that the poor are impoverished by fever, which was preventable. • 1831 – House of Commons Factory Commission begins investigating abuses of workers; •1833 -- Poor laws commission begins inquiry. •1842 – Royal Commission on Employment of children in the mines issues report about “cruel slaving revolting to humanity.”
- 30. Reform & Reaction •1848 -- Public Health Act -- National Board of Health is formed and leads local boards to regulate water supply, sewerage, offensive trades and smoke. Illustrated London News, October 1849. Meeting of the General Board of Health, Gwydyr House, Whitehall Chadwick on right.
- 31. Despite the obviousneed for reform, the board is a catastrophic political failure … Aug 1, 1854 London Times
- 32. UK Sanitary reformmovement • Political cycles driven by press • Overwhelming evidence frequently denied – “We prefer to take our chance of cholera than be bullied into public health…” Times of London, Aug. 1, 1854 • Reform agencies empowered 1848, then disbanded 1854, then reorganized 1862 • Dramatic, symbolic action (John Snow) catalyzed commitments to reform
- 33.
- 34. Cholera comes back- 1854
- 35. Sept. 7, 1854– John Snow breaks the Broad Street pump handle. (Library of Congress)
- 36. Michael Faraday handing his “card” to FatherThames Punch magazine, 1858 (This was an early version of a Secchi disk test for water turbidity)
- 37. Punch July 3,1858 - Diptheria, scrufula, cholera Subtitle: A design for a fresci in the new Houses of Parliament
- 39. Meanwhile …. Romantic writers rejoice in nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson: The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit...
- 40. Romantic writers rejoicein nature • HD Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived…”
- 41. Horace Greeley The NewYork Tribune publisher and editor, well-known for his love of the North American wilderness, visited Yosemite in the summer of 1859. "I know of no single wonder of nature on earth which can claim superiority over Yosemite." He called on the state of California to protect "the most beautiful trees on earth." The mountains "surpass any other mountains I saw."
- 42. George Grinnell • Editorof Forest and Stream 1876 – 1911 • Prominent in Western conservation movement, backing exploration, national parks, conservation of wildlife • Wrote about wildlife preservation and hunting with Teddy Roosevelt
- 43. “Sport” hunting inWisconsin
- 44. John Muir • Preservationversus “wise use” • Muir was well-known as a writer, philosopher and naturalist and an expert in publicity. Greeley hired him to write on the Yosemite Glaciers in the New York Tribune in 1871, the first of 65 newspaper and magazine articles he wrote over the next 20 years. Muir fought the Roosevelt and Taft administrations over the Hetch- Hetchy dam – a water reservoir for San Francisco that Muir said wasn’t needed. But Roosevelt had the highest respect for him.
- 45. Environmental controversy and Progressive era journalism • Animal conservation – “Teddy bear” symbol – Bird depletion for hats: “millinery murder” – Bison extinction: “crime of the century” – “Church” of animal rights • Smoke nuisance • Water pollution
- 46. Air pollution – aconstant issue in the press Washington DC, USDA, 1920
- 47. Graphic & researchby Prof. Bill Kovarik
- 48. Graphic & researchby Prof. Bill Kovarik
- 49. Graphic & researchby Prof. Bill Kovarik
- 50. Reform spirit NewYork City 1878
- 51. Muckraking and monopoly •History of Standard Oil -- Ida Tarbell • Railroads on Trial -- Ray Stannard Baker • The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
- 52. Urban environmental issues • Slum housing / Pulitzer, Jacob Riis • Child labor / Lewis Hine • Air and water pollution
- 53. Why muckrakers neededmagazines • The newspaper is the mouthpiece of an older stock. It lags behind the thought of its times. . . . To us of this younger generation, our daily press is speaking, for the most part, with a dead voice, because … power resides in … that older generation. Will Irwin, 1911
- 54.
- 55. Progressive fight for public health Samuel Hopkins Adams 1871 - 1958 • Started in 1891 as a reporter for the New York Sun • McClure's Magazine, wrote about public health • Famous for Collier's Weekly series in 1905, "The Great American Fraud” – Led to the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and 1914 Federal Trade Act
- 56. "Criminal' abortions arisefrom a perverted sex relationship under the stress of economic necessity, and their greatest frequency is among married women.” -- The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3. "I cannot refrain from saying that women must come to recognize there is some function of womanhood other than being a child-bearing machine.”-- What Every Girl Should Know, by Margaret Sanger (Max Maisel, Publisher, 1915)
- 57. The traditional paradigm: Science writing was Yellow journalism • “Magic or miracles, if not mere ridicule.” – David J. Rhees, historian • “It was standard practice to assign the staff humorist to cover local scientific conventions.” • Favorite topics included the length of beards and the papers with the longest and least familiar words. • Pulitzer’s New York World ran a column called “Wonders of Science.” Favored topic - cures for cancer, especially by mysterious radiation or colored lights.
- 58. Science writing asyellow journalism William Randolph Hearst’s Journal – American editors headlined lab tests showing that oysters, ice and milk sold throughout New York city were contaminated. – Legitimate public health issues but hysterical framing was typical – The hunt for Typhoid Mary took place from about 1911 to 1915.
- 59. Sewage in oystersand ice – 1906 – 1916
- 60. AP dominance resented Newscoverage of coal controversies has always been contested, but when the Associated Press printed only anti-labor views from newspapers owned by the coal industry, a socialist magazine called the Masses protested in 1914 with this cartoon showing AP dripping lies into the water reservoir of the news. AP sued The Masses for libel, but later dropped the suit.
- 61. Fun with science •If science was even mentioned in a newspaper in the early 1900s, “it was in terms of magic or miracles, if not mere ridicule,” said historian David J. Rhees. • “It was standard practice to assign the staff humorist to cover local scientific conventions.” The humorists would typically comment either on the length and luxuriousness of the beards worn by the assembled scientists or on the titles of papers which contained the longest and least familiar words, Rhees observed.
- 62. “Suppose it’s Halley’sComet. Well first you have a half-page of decoration showing the comet, with historical pictures of previous appearances. If you can work a pretty girl into the decoration, so much the better. If not, get some good nightmare idea like the inhabitants of Mars watching it pass. Then… a two column boxed ‘freak’ containing a scientific opinion which nobody will understand, just to give it class…” 1985 Time Magazine -- Unnamed NY World editor, around 1912 (Emery, 1972).
- 63. Carr Van Anda Worked for a new and more serious approach to science news • Well versed in math (said to have once corrected a poor transcription of one of Albert Einstein’s equations). New York Times • Positivistic, pro-industry approach to editor 1906 - 1932 science coverage • Relied mostly on industry sources, not university professors or public health advocates, in environmental controversies
- 64. E.W. Scripps Founder ofScripps newspaper chain • Founded United Press wire service to counter AP monopoly • Fascinated by science • Founded Scripps Oceanographic Institute • Founded Scripps Science Service 1922
- 65. Walter Lippmann NY World (Pulitzer) • Relied on university and public health scientists more than industry • Championed the cause of the “radium girls” in 1928 • Scientific controversy exemplified the difficulties of informed democracy; • Science also represented a powerful institution that could stem the tide of totalitarianism
- 67. Scripps Science Service founded 1922 • Detailed science news • Tended to celebrate science • Popularization not debate
- 69. Ethyl leaded gasconflict 1924-26 • Media reported “mystery gas” killing workers at Standard Oil refinery in Oct. 1924 • Standard asked that “nothing be said about this in the public interest.” • Standard claimed there were no alternatives, blamed the press for biased and sensational news coverage
- 70. Nat’l Coast Anti-PollutionLeague 1921 Mayors and hotel owners from East Coast beach towns organized to fight oil pollution, which was ruining their beaches. By the end of the decade, sewage and garbage was closing beaches from Coney Island to Atlantic City. Extensive press coverage due to celebrity leaders, eg Gifford Pinchot
- 72. Ethyl conflict sourcereliance
- 73. Pulitzer’s World • Environmental issues are clearly part of the news agenda in 1928 •
- 74. Dust Bowl Margaret Bourke-White writes in The Nation: By coincidence I was in the same parts of the country where last year I photographed the drought, As short a time as eight months ago there was an attitude of false optimism. “Things will get better,” the farmers would say. “We’re not as hard hit as other states. The government will help out. This can’t go on.” But this year there is an atmosphere of utter, hopelessness. Nothing to do. No use digging out your chicken coops and pigpens after the last “duster” because the next one will be coming along soon. No use trying to keep the house clean. No use fighting off that foreclosure any longer. No use even hoping to give your cattle anything to chew on when their food crops have literally blown out of the ground. ( “Dust Changes America” The Nation May 22 1935 )
- 75. Dorothea Lange The story behind the famous “Migrant Mother” photo of 1936 is that something impossible to ignore – a feeling -- drew Lange to the “pea pickers camp” where Dust Bowl refugees, like Florence Thompson, hoped to find work. As Lange took the photos, Thompson told her that she had just sold the tires from her car to feed the children. Lange published the photos but also ensured that relief authorities sent help to the camp.
- 76. Science news goesmainstream • NASW founded 1934 • 1937 Science pulitzers – Gobind Lal (Hearst) – William L. Laurence (NY Times) – David Dietz (Scripps-Howard) – Howard W. Blakeslee (AP) – John J. O’Neill (Herald Tribune) “We must make science accessible to the people. Otherwise it is dangerous.” -- Gobind Lal
- 79.
- 81.
- 82. Wm. Laurence &the atom bomb • In 2004, journalists Amy Goodman and David Goodman called for the Pulitzer Board to strip William L. Laurence and The New York Times of the 1946 Pulitzer Prize. Laurence “had a front-page story in the Times disputing the notion that radiation sickness was killing people.” They concluded that "his faithful parroting of the government line was crucial in launching a half-century of silence about the deadly lingering effects of the bomb.” Others have disputed this assessment. William L. Laurence (left) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (right), talking at the Trinity Site in September 1945.
- 83. Air pollution 1939 • St Louis Post Dispatch crusades against “smoke nuisance,” wins 1941 Pulitzer
- 84. Air Pollution 1940s– 50s Donora, Pennsylvania Oct. 30 -- 31 1948 smog incident. Twenty people died, 600 hospitalized and thousands suffering in this nationally publicized environmental disaster.
- 85. London 1952 -- Dec.4-8 -- Four thousand people die in the worst of the London "killer fogs." Vehicles use lamps in broad daylight, but smog is so thick that busses run only with a guide walking ahead. By Dec. 8 all transportation except the subway had come to a halt.
- 86. • 1953 --New York smog incident kills between 170 and 260 in November.
- 87. Los Angeles 1954 •Heavy smog conditions shut down industry and schools in Los Angeles for most of October.
- 90. New York, StLouis 1950s
- 91. Life Magazine info-graphicon Air pollution, 1963
- 92. Conservation: The “blisterbrigade” • Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas leads the "blister brigade" of Washington Post staffers and families down the old Chesapeake and Ohio canal from Cumberland, Md. to Washington D.C. in one of his spring hikes. In March, 1954, Douglas challenged their support of a highway to replace the C&O Canal. The area became a 12,000 acre national park in 1971 thanks largely to these efforts. (National Park Service Photo)
- 93. Rachel Carson • May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964 • Biologist and writer, author of award winning books • Silent Spring published in the New Yorker in the noisy summer of 1963 • Said DDT and other pesticides are killing birds in large numbers • Widely reported in press along with chemical industry counter- attacks.
- 94. Robert F. Kennedy67-68 campaign
- 95. Earthrise photo: NASA,Apollo 8, Christmas eve, 1968
- 96.
- 97. Photography as environmental journalism W. Eugene Smith, Minamata, Japan 1971 Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath -- This photo had an enormous impact when published June 2, 1972 as the centerpiece of a short Minamata photo essay in Life Magazine. Smith was severely beaten by thugs hired by the Chisso Corp., whose Minamata plant discharged the mercury that caused “Minamata disease.” At the wishes of Tomoko Uemura's family, and the Smith family, reproduction of the photo has been discouraged since 1997. However, as an important artifact of the history of environmental journalism, it has been reproduced in small low-resolution format here.
- 98. The Tragedy ofthe Commons • 1968 -- Garrett Hardin publishes his article in Science • "Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody's personal liberty... cries of "rights" and "freedom" fill the air. But what does "freedom" mean? When men mutually agreed to pass laws against robbing, mankind became more free, not less so. Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on universal ruin …”
- 99. Two Pulitzers 1967for EJ Milwaukee Journal “For its successful campaign to stiffen the law against water pollution in Wisconsin, a notable advance in the national effort for the conservation of natural resources.” Louisville Courier-Journal “For its successful campaign to control the Kentucky strip mining industry, a notable advance in the national effort for the conservation of natural resources.”
- 100. Press begins regularcoverage • 1969 - 2013 New York Times has formal environment beat. • Time and Saturday Review began regular environment sections • Look Magazine devotes issue to the ecology crisis • National Geographic begins regular articles on environmental problems.
- 101. Broadcasting & environmental journalism CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite had an occasional feature called: "Can the World Be Saved? AP article left AP, Dec. 9, 1970.
- 102. River on Fire Cuyahoga River June 22,1969 News reporters meet with Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes and utilities director Ben Stefanski the day after the river caught fire. Stokes was angry that extensive local efforts to clean up the river had been stymied by state regulators who were more interested in protecting businesses. (Photos by Cleveland Plain Dealer)
- 103. Earth Day 1970 Earth Day 1970 was a symbolic, social, media event that marked a turning point in public attitudes toward the environment. Carter was a Washington Post reporter. From the WP, Earth Day, April 22, 1970
- 104.
Editor's Notes
- #4 Today we talk about "environmental" issues but these are really longstanding concerns about public health, conservation of nature and regulation of technology. Evidence of this has been available all along -- It's in newspapers, manuscripts and historical archives, but it is often found under labels like public health, conservation, preservation of nature, smoke abatement, municipal housekeeping, occupational disease, air pollution and water pollution. Just as individuals are lost without their memories, civilization needs its collective memory in the form we call history. But history does not simply accumulate. Historians must take an interest in recovering facts and interpretations that may be important or useful. A broad lack of historical perspective about environmental history has its origins in both neglect and misinformation. This lack of perspective is becoming more obvious as environmental protection becomes an increasingly important part of the global social fabric. Issues often emerge in the mass media without context and then disappear with little more than symbolic resolution. Political conservatives seem not to recognize the reflection of their own values in conservation movements. Political liberals lack a sense of the traditions of social reform. Dangerous myths emerge in the vacuum of history. For example: • That Rachel Carson's Silent Spring started all the uproar; • That environmentalism is just an hysterical reaction to science and technology; • That environmentalism is a passing fad with no serious ideas to offer. * That environmentalism is a substitute for religion and is dangerous. The myths call us like sirens, telling us that environmental issues can be safely ignored. Nothing could be further from the truth. The forgotten history of the environment comes as a surprise to many people. It is not found in every history textbook, although it is becoming better known. This shows that history is not a static collection of well known facts any more than science is an unchanging description of the physical world. History represents views of the past that may change, grow and coalesce around facts that may only become available decades after events in question. It is now clear that long before Silent Spring was written or Greenpeace activists defied whalers' harpoons, many thousands of "green crusaders" tried to stop pollution, promote public health and preserve wilderness. Their struggles deserve to be remembered. In doing so, we may develop a more mature view of the challenges confronting us all. Forms, names, shapes and approaches may change, but the basic issues have long been known. It is not unusual for news coverage in the past to be broader in scope and more accurate than today. What seems to have changed most is the sense of the urgency and significance of environmental journalism
- #8 Science news is often “dreary, inaccurate, ponderous, grossly caricatured or … hostile to science.” -- Carl Sagan, Boca’s Brain, 1981
- #12 (English title, printed in 1764 was The Diseases of Artificers, which by their particular callings they are most liable to, with the Method of avoiding them, and their Cure). The book describes the hazards of 52 occupations, including leather tanning, wrestling, and gravedigging. Ramazzini says that with a general improvement in diet and less arduous work, people would be better able to resist attacks on their health.
- #14 (Franklin argued for) "public rights," and said the restraints on the liberty of the tanners would be "but a trifle" compared to the "damage done to others, and the city, by remaining where they are."
- #15 (Franklin argued for) "public rights," and said the restraints on the liberty of the tanners would be "but a trifle" compared to the "damage done to others, and the city, by remaining where they are."
- #16 History of Dock Creek brochure from American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia PA
- #25 Many public health reform efforts noteworthy in late 18 th century Britain – James Lind (scurvy), John Howard (prison reform), Percival Potts (cancer linked to occupation)
- #26 Surprisingly early date of 1828 for this cartoon --
- #42 One newspaperman who legitimized the idea of Yosemite Valley as a paradise worthy of protection by the state was Horace Greeley. The New York Tribune publisher and editor, well-known for extolling the virtues of the American West, visited the area in a highly publicized trip in the summer of 1859. Many historians mention Greeley's trip as a key event in the protection of the area, but an examination of the popular editor's notes shows a somewhat less glamorous experience than the myth that grew out of it. Starting out from Sacramento, Greeley and his companions took the stage to Stockton, where they rested before a 75-mile carriage ride to Bear Valley in heavy August heat. As they bumped their way into the mountains, the group crossed the waters of the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers, all rendered a churlish brown by the mining operations in the hills. Over the objections of the natives, Greeley left Bear Valley for Yosemite at 6 a.m. on an arduous horseback trip (in a saddle with a Mexican stirrup that was too small for his left foot) "not having spent five hours on horseback... within the last 30 years." His guide was Hank Monk, whom Mark Twain later highlighted in his book, Roughing It , for his hell-bent and hurried pace. The middle-aged editor made the entire trip in a single day, but did not arrive in the valley until long after dark "riding the hardest trotting horse in America." The bad stirrup caused his foot to swell, making walking impossible, so he had to remain on horseback in the roughest terrain while other members of the party led their horses. The descent into the valley on the three-mile-long, steep, single-file trail took two hours under moonlight. Reaching a cabin after 1 a.m., Greeley went to bed without food or drink. Covered with boils from the trip, he estimated he had ridden 60 miles and climbed and descended 20,000 feet. Greeley, stiff with age and travel, arose "early," rode in the valley, dined at 2 o'clock and left. Despite the brevity and hardship of his visit, the journalist was unsparing in his praise of the region: "I know of no single wonder of nature on earth which can claim superiority over Yosemite." He called on the state of California to protect the big trees, "the most beautiful trees on earth." The mountains "surpass any other mountains I saw in the wealth and grace of their trees." From Mass Media and Environmental Conflict, 1997 (Sage) Neuzil & Kovarik
- #44 Exploitation by “sportsmen” was rife.
- #45 Photo from camping trip taken by then-President Teddy Roosevelt with John Muir in May, 1903, at Yosemite Park in California.
- #46 Not always editored for janitors and clerks, but all kinds p 62 Yellow Journalism W. Joseph Campbell
- #47 In the days when soft coal was the primary fuel for heating and power plants, both smoke and smokestacks marred the views from the Mall. This photograph shows the effect on the wings of the new Agriculture Building, before the center section was erected and the old buildings demolished. The Commission of Fine Arts, during the January 1916 meeting, objected strongly to the proposed construction of a central heating plant at 14th Street and the Washington Channel, roughly the area in the left background of this photograph. It was to have had four stacks, each 16 feet in diameter and 188 feet high. The commission noted the effect of both the smoke and the stacks from the Mall, the Lincoln Memorial and other new Mall buildings, the Washington Monument, and the White House. The heating plant was not built. Undated photograph, ca. 1920. Commission of Fine Arts http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ncr/designing-capital/sec6.html
- #48 Bill Kovarik, The confluence of newspapers and the environment in the early 20th century Paper to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, Science Writers Education Group, Baltimore, MD, August, 1998
- #49 Bill Kovarik, The confluence of newspapers and the environment in the early 20th century Paper to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, Science Writers Education Group, Baltimore, MD, August, 1998
- #50 Bill Kovarik, The confluence of newspapers and the environment in the early 20th century Paper to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, Science Writers Education Group, Baltimore, MD, August, 1998
- #54 Then we can circumvent this problem
- #60 By Emile Gauvreau / Probably from the New Haven Journal-Courrier, about 1916
- #65 Two unlikely friends
- #66 In leaded gas controversy, World quoted 2x as many university scientists, half as many industry sources, as Van Anda’s New York Times
- #73 Bill Kovarik, The Ethyl Conflict, PhD Dissertation, University of Maryland, 1993.
- #77 1937 was same year as Margaret Mitchell for novel, Frost for poetry, Nevins for history
- #80 The same can be said of Kaempffer’s science-grounded crystal gazing in 1950. His accuracy was an astounding 80 percent. Among other technological developments, he foresaw the Concorde (supersonic jet), the fax machine, the Savannah (nuclear-powered ocean liner), the microwave oven, videoconferencing, computerized factories, seven-day weather forecasts, ethanol-fueled cars, the departure of telegrams and the arrival of frozen/processed foods. Only five of his forecasts missed the mark. First, there are no present-day cities illuminated by electric “suns” suspended from arms on steel towers 200 feet high. Second, Kaempffert’s prophesy that cars “would be used chiefly for shopping and for journeys of not more than 20 miles” while huge aerial buses, holding more than 200 passengers, would haul commuters to and from places of employment has not been realized. Third, although he got it right when he envisioned “furniture (upholstery included), rugs, draperies, and unscratchable floors…made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic,” he got it wrong---much to the consternation of housewives these days---when he envisioned cleaning one’s home sweet home via a high pressure hose, allowing the water to run down a drain in the middle of the floor, and utilizing a blast of hot air to render one’s domestic trappings dry once again. Fourth, while Kaempffert seemed most enamored of the notion that storms could be diverted or controlled, the method he recommends, however, seems more than environmentally reckless and irresponsible: “It is easy enough to spot a budding hurricane in the doldrums off the coast of Africa before it has a chance to gather much strength and speed as it travels westward toward Florida, oil is spread over the sea and ignited. There is an updraft. Air from the surrounding region, which includes the developing hurricane, rushes in to fill the void. The rising air condenses so that some of the water in the whirling mass falls as rain.” Fifth, although he was correct in contending that lightweight alloys, plastics and other synthetic materials could reduce the cost of the American Dream (especially if folks don’t mind that their brick-less, stone-less and wood-less abode isn’t built to last) Kaempffert’s “House of the Future”---with its $5,000 price tag---might as well be a castle in Cloudland, given inflation. Kaempffert had no way of knowing that $5,000 in 1950 would balloon to $36,000 in 2000. So what will the future be like? Jeremy Rifkin warns, “We are entering a new phase in human history.” Naisbitt advises: “The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present.” Toffler contends, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” It’s Kaempffert, however, who says it best: “You can read the answer in your home, in the streets, in the trains and cars that carry you to your work, in the bargain basement of every department store. You don’t realize what is happening because it is a piecemeal process. The jet-propelled plane is one piece; the latest insect killer is another. Thousands of such pieces are automatically dropping into their places to form the pattern of tomorrow’s world.” http://beverlykelley.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/01/the-shape-of-things-to-come-50-years-later-thanks-to-waldemar-kaempffert.html http://io9.com/361412/if-mail-can-be-shot-through-a-tube-why-not-meals http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/05/miracles-youll-see-in-the-next-fifty-years/?Qwd=./PopularMechanics/2-1950/next_fifty_years&Qif=next_fifty_years_01.jpg&Qiv=thumbs&Qis=XL#qdig
- #82 The same can be said of Kaempffer’s science-grounded crystal gazing in 1950. His accuracy was an astounding 80 percent. Among other technological developments, he foresaw the Concorde (supersonic jet), the fax machine, the Savannah (nuclear-powered ocean liner), the microwave oven, videoconferencing, computerized factories, seven-day weather forecasts, ethanol-fueled cars, the departure of telegrams and the arrival of frozen/processed foods. Only five of his forecasts missed the mark. First, there are no present-day cities illuminated by electric “suns” suspended from arms on steel towers 200 feet high. Second, Kaempffert’s prophesy that cars “would be used chiefly for shopping and for journeys of not more than 20 miles” while huge aerial buses, holding more than 200 passengers, would haul commuters to and from places of employment has not been realized. Third, although he got it right when he envisioned “furniture (upholstery included), rugs, draperies, and unscratchable floors…made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic,” he got it wrong---much to the consternation of housewives these days---when he envisioned cleaning one’s home sweet home via a high pressure hose, allowing the water to run down a drain in the middle of the floor, and utilizing a blast of hot air to render one’s domestic trappings dry once again. Fourth, while Kaempffert seemed most enamored of the notion that storms could be diverted or controlled, the method he recommends, however, seems more than environmentally reckless and irresponsible: “It is easy enough to spot a budding hurricane in the doldrums off the coast of Africa before it has a chance to gather much strength and speed as it travels westward toward Florida, oil is spread over the sea and ignited. There is an updraft. Air from the surrounding region, which includes the developing hurricane, rushes in to fill the void. The rising air condenses so that some of the water in the whirling mass falls as rain.” Fifth, although he was correct in contending that lightweight alloys, plastics and other synthetic materials could reduce the cost of the American Dream (especially if folks don’t mind that their brick-less, stone-less and wood-less abode isn’t built to last) Kaempffert’s “House of the Future”---with its $5,000 price tag---might as well be a castle in Cloudland, given inflation. Kaempffert had no way of knowing that $5,000 in 1950 would balloon to $36,000 in 2000. So what will the future be like? Jeremy Rifkin warns, “We are entering a new phase in human history.” Naisbitt advises: “The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present.” Toffler contends, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” It’s Kaempffert, however, who says it best: “You can read the answer in your home, in the streets, in the trains and cars that carry you to your work, in the bargain basement of every department store. You don’t realize what is happening because it is a piecemeal process. The jet-propelled plane is one piece; the latest insect killer is another. Thousands of such pieces are automatically dropping into their places to form the pattern of tomorrow’s world.” http://beverlykelley.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/01/the-shape-of-things-to-come-50-years-later-thanks-to-waldemar-kaempffert.html http://io9.com/361412/if-mail-can-be-shot-through-a-tube-why-not-meals http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/05/miracles-youll-see-in-the-next-fifty-years/?Qwd=./PopularMechanics/2-1950/next_fifty_years&Qif=next_fifty_years_01.jpg&Qiv=thumbs&Qis=XL#qdig
- #88 Bobby Fisher in suit / Liz Taylor’s husband
- #91 US Dept Health Photo ? National Archives / used in MMEC
- #93 Supreme Court Associate Justice William Douglas leads a group of hikers along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath beside the Maryland bank of the Potomac River in a March 1954 effort to protect what eventually became the C&O Canal National Historical Park. The private C&O Canal Association is recreating the event, beginning April 18, 1999 in a two-week hike along the 184.5-mile trail from Cumberland, Md., to Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Courtesy of the National Park Service) http://www.nps.gov/choh/forkids/justicedouglasonemancanmakeadifference.htm
- #94 “ This was something I had not expected to do, but facts that came to my attention … disturbed me so deeply that I made the decision to postpone al other commitments and devote myself to what I consider a tremendously important problem.” photo by Stuart Eisenstadt Life magazine
- #103 http://www.epa.gov/region5/news/features/cuyahoga40th.html