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  3. Efforts to Protect the Environment Most scientis

Efforts to Protect the Environment Most scientis

游客2024-06-08  15
问题                             Efforts to Protect the Environment
    Most scientists agree that if pollution and other environmental deterrents (威慑) continue at their present rates, the result will be irreversible (不能倒转的) damage to the ecological cycles and balances in nature upon which all life depends. Scientists ware that fundamental, and perhaps drastic, changes in human behavior will be required to avert (转移) an ecological crisis.
    To safeguard the healthful environment that is essential to life, humans must learn that Earth does not have infinite resources. Earth’s limited resources must be conserved and, where possible, reused. Furthermore, humans must devise new strategies that mesh environmental progress with economic growth. The future growth of developing nations depends upon the development of sustainable conservation methods that protect the environment while also meeting the basic needs of citizens.
    Many nations have acted to control or reduce environmental problems. For example, Great Britain has largely succeeded in cleaning up the waters of the Thames and other rivers, and London no longer suffers the heavy smogs caused by industrial pollutants. Japan has some of the world’s strictest standards for the control of water and air pollution. In Canada, the Department of Commerce has developed comprehensive programs covering environmental contaminants.
   In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970 to protect the nation’s natural resources. In addition, the U.S. Congress has provided governmental agencies with legislation (立法) designed to protect the environment. Many U.S. states have also established environmental protection agencies. Citizen groups, such as the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society, educate the public, support environment-friendly legislation, and help assure that federal and state laws are enforced by pointing out violations.
A. Environmentalism in the United States
    In the United States the modern environmental movement is rooted in a 19th-century New England philosophical movement called transcendentalism (超验主义), whose leaders included the poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson and the naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau. In their writings, both men expressed a reverence for the natural world, believing that humans and nature shared a divine spirit. Emerson asserted that nature was eternal and capable of recovering from mistreatment at the hands of humans. Thoreau, more protective and pessimistic, has been quoted as saying, "Thank God, men cannot yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth."
    Although Emerson and Thoreau wrote eloquently about the value of nature and its spiritual importance to humans, neither of them undertook a systematic analysis of the effects that humans have on their environment. That task was left for 19th-century American diplomat George Perkins Marsh. In 1864 Marsh published Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, considered the first book to demonstrate that human activity could cause dramatic and irreversible damage to Earth. Marsh explained how some agricultural practices had led to deforestation (采伐森林), loss of wetlands, desertification (the process of land becoming desert), species extinction, and changes in weather patterns.
    In the early 20th century, U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt greatly expanded both the national forest and national park systems and created a system of national wildlife refuges. Roosevelt appointed forestry expert Gifford Pinchot as head of the U.S. Forest Service, and together they molded the foundation of the American conservation movement, developing methods for the sustainable use and protection of natural resources. Roosevelt and Pinchot recognized that even the vast natural resources of the United States were not limitless and thus had to be managed carefully, and they believed that those resources should be used for the betterment of the American people. Roosevelt, thinking broadly about resources, claimed that one of the most valuable natural assets was the American people themselves, and he argued that the protection of human health was a central and valid focus for the conservation movement.
    Roosevelt also was a friend of Scottish American naturalist and essayist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club. Muir’s philosophical approach to the environment was very different from Pinchot’s: Muir valued nature for its own sake and argued forcefully to protect species and preserve wilderness, whereas Pinchot was much more concerned with the use of natural resources to serve human needs. Their perspectives fully diverged in the debate over California’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, often considered a twin to the Yosemite Valley, also in California. Pinchot wanted to dam the Tuolumne River and flood the valley to provide water and electricity to San Francisco, while Muir thought the destruction of such a natural wonder an abomination. Eventually Pinchot’s view won and the dam was authorized in 1913.
    When Franklin D. Roosevelt assumed the U.S. presidency in 1933, he continued and expanded on the conservation efforts begun earlier in the century during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt expanded national parks and national forests. During the 1930s, he faced the twin challenges of massive unemployment in the Great Depression and environmental havoc (大破坏) wreaked by the Dust Bowl conditions in the Midwest. In response, Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps to replant forests and improve recreational opportunities on public land and the Soil Conservation Service to protect valuable topsoil.
    In 1962 in her book Silent Spring, American biologist Rachel Carson warned of the grave dangers posed by the indiscriminate use of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and related pesticides. The book’s title suggested a time when birds, their populations greatly reduced by pesticides, could no longer be heard singing in the spring. Carson, by arguing that humans as well as wildlife were at risk, issued a call to action. Silent Spring combined solid science, a reverence for nature as strong as that of the transcendentalists, and a wonderfully poetic style that moved people to a new level of environmental awareness and activism.
    By the late 1960s environmental awareness had become much more commonplace. Numerous grassroots environmental organizations were established to work for political change, including the Environmental Defense Fund in 1967, Friends of the Earth in 1968, the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970, and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund in 1971. On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, approximately 20 million Americans gathered at various sites across the country to protest corporate and governmental abuse of the environment.
B. U.S. Legislation
    The strong environmental sentiments that led to Earth Day yielded dramatic changes in American legislation and reflected an expanded set of priorities (需优先考虑的事). In 1964 the Congress of the United States passed the Wilderness Act in an attempt to set aside, in the words of the act, "an area where Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man"; the lands designated as wilderness areas were to be "affected primarily by nature." In 1968 Congress adopted the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to ensure that at least some of the scenic and recreational value of the country’s rivers was preserved in the face of a growing number of dams and riverside development.
    In 1970 the United States government established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and attention began to shift toward pollution control and the establishment of national environmental quality standards. The EPA is responsible for the environmental well-being of the country as defined through numerous specific pieces of legislation. One of these, the Clean Air Act of 1970, became the model for future measures. The act established national air-quality standards, gave states the responsibility for developing and enforcing plans to use these standards, and set up compliance schedules. Additionally, the act made federal funding available to states to assist in their efforts. The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), also enacted in 1970, required an environmental assessment of all federally funded projects.
    The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was formed in 1971, although it was placed under the control of the Department of Labor rather than the EPA. Reflecting Theodore Roosevelt’s belief that human health was a natural resource worthy of protection, OSHA’s mission was "to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions."
    In 1972 Congress passed the Clean Water Act, designed to do for the nation’s water supply what the Clean Air Act accomplished for the atmosphere. The Endangered Species Act was passed the following year and has been described by the Supreme Court of the United States as "the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act, lists over 1,200 plants and animals in the United States in danger of extinction. Organisms listed as endangered receive federal protection and funding to establish conservation programs. As a result of this act, the populations of some endangered species have recovered and have been removed from the endangered list. Others species, including the dusky seaside sparrow and the Maryland darter, received aid too late and these animals have become extinct. [br] The first book to demonstrate harmful human activity to Earth was written by ______.
选项
答案 George Perkins Marsh
解析 参见第1个小标题A. Environmentalism in the United States下面的第2段：In l864 Marsh published Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, considered the first book to demonstrate that human activity could cause dramatic and irreversible damage to Earth．由此可知，第一本证明人类活动对地球有害的书的作者是George Perkins Marsh。
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