Gaylord Nelson, Father of Earth Day - MINDS@UW Home

Democrat, he developed an active interest in national politics which also had a
significant impact on his future.
Silent Spring and the Rise of Environmentalism
The land ethic…enlarges the boundaries of the community to
include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the
land…A land ethic of course cannot prevent the alteration,
management, and use of these „resources,‟ but it does affirm their
right to continued existence, and, at least in spots, their continued
existence in a natural state.
Aldo Leopold
There were four books written in the 1960s that had a direct and profound
impact on the evolution of the conservation and environmental movements. In
some way, all four argued that “…there is a connection between societal
progress and environmental degradation.” 52 In 1962, Rachel Carson published
Silent Spring and Murray Bookchin published Our Synthetic Environment.
Bookchin‟s book, which preceeded Carson‟s, “…warned that the use of
technology and technological innovations could have unanticipated effects and
create new and unexpected environmental problems.” 53 Later, in 1968, Paul
Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, wherein he offered neo-Malthusian
arguments about the rate of population growth and thus questioned the ability of
the earth to feed its people, claiming that “…the only curtailment of population
52 Peninah Neimark and Peter Rhodes Mott, eds. The Environmental Debate: A
Documentary History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 180.
53 Peninah Neimark and Peter Rhodes Mott, 180.
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