The rise of the modern US environmental movement can be traced to the 1960s when researcher Rachel Carson courageously denounced the chemical industry for its harmful impacts on the environment. Environmentalism is the philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection, and there is nothing modern about it. However, the environmental movement is and encompasses diverse scientific, social, and political reasonings. The environmental movement (not yet considered a movement) gained public attention and was primarily endorsed by the children of the 60s, the hippies. Those tree-hugging, long-haired, peace-loving citizens began demanding attention to various social causes, like pollution and anti-war (Pruitt 2021). This social concern led to government involvement; as Rosenbaum states, "the government recognized the enormous political capital to be gained by riding the crest of the upwelling public concern for environmental protection." (2020, 7).
The 1970s government enacted regulations and policies to prioritize legal statutes for the productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment (Rosenbaum 2020). The evolution of modern environmentalism in a national agreement began with pollution policies, continuing with species protections.
Data, science, and reliability continue to be a challenge and limited despite the progress towards clean and safe environmental values. Quantifying nature and natural resources has been lax since considered free (Tarditi and Hodgson 2021); however, as Rosenbaum (2020) describes, the scope and scale of ecological degradation are gravely underestimated, and today's social and economic costs may be slim compared for future generations.
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