The Environmental Awakening

• Author: Franklin L. Kury
• Pages: 43-55

43

Chapter 6: The Environmental

Awakening

A

century after the Civil War started and a half century af ter eodore

Roosevelt left the presidency, the American public awoke to what had

been happening to its natural resources. ey acted to bring about

a new environmental order for the future. e movement that emerged far

exceeded anything before it in the number of people involved and the scope

of their conc erns.

For the rst six decades of the twentieth century, the exploitation of the

nation’s natural resources continued unabated with little, if any, governmen-

tal regulation.

e initial stirring c ame from Stewart Udal l (1920–2010), a former con-

gressman from Arizona, who served as secreta ry of the U.S. Department of

Interior for both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Udall led the creation of four national parks, six national monuments,

eight national seashores and lake shores, nine national recreation areas,

twenty historic sites, and ft y-six national wildlife refuges.1 ese actions

continued and greatly enhanced the work star ted by eodore Roosevelt and

Giord Pinchot .

In the 1960s, Congress became more responsive to the need for environ-

mental action. With Udall playing an important role, Congress enacted the

Wilderness Act (1964), the Water Quality Act (1965), the Land and Water

Conservation Fund Act (1965), the Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965), the

Clean Water Restoration Act (1966), the National Trail System Act (1968),

and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968).2

Clearly Congress was ta king a revolutionary new approach toward the

environment and natural resources. Udall was in the middle of it, but he did

something more. He wrote a book that articulated the environmental chal-

lenges facing the United States.

e Quiet Crisis3 published in 1963 is a history of conservation in the

United States that concludes with a call for a new land ethic.

1. Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, https://www.udall.gov/AboutUs/UdallArchives.aspx.

2. Id.

3. S L. U, T Q C (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963).