When did the modern environmental movement begin? Did one event mark its beginning? Earlier this year we commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which is often identified as bringing about the environmental movement. While this book’s importance is without question, focusing on it as the birth of environmentalism ignores the importance of urban environmental problems, from unsafe drinking water to severe air pollution, in raising people’s environmental awareness.
Ten years before Carson’s book, a great smog blanketed Greater London. From Friday December 5th through to the following Tuesday (Dec 9) 1952, the thick air pollution disrupted daily life and killed thousands of people. In the aftermath of the Great Smog, the British passed the Clean Air Act (1956). This event, along with other deadly smogs in the United States (Donora), lifeless or burning rivers (Don, Cuyahoga, Thames), and the threat of nuclear radiation (CND), all combined with the ecological knowledge Carson made accessible to a wide public audience, to help make the environment a growing political concern in the post-war era. The process was different between regions and nations, but not completely independent, as the media and publishing industries helped to spread stories about both environmental crises and the ideas within Silent Spring. Continue reading
