Urban and Environmental Policy Program
ENVIRONMENTALISM:
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Politics 204
(Also listed in the catalogue as History 271)
Instructor:
Robert Gottlieb
Spring 2003
Monday-Wednesday 3:30-4:55
The history of environmentalism provides important insight into how social movements have responded to the powerful changes that have transformed (and continue to transform) the world around us. Despite its enormous influence as one of the most significant social movements of the 20th century, the environmentalism of the 21st century is going through a difficult period of transition and possible reinvention. It is a movement that needs to understand the multiple roots of its past, have a vision about its future, and decide what kind of movement it wants to be. Is it a scientific or professional movement, consisting of experts who focus on laws, regulations, and policies, and on questions of science? Or is it a grassroots justice movement, most concerned with where we live, work, and play? How do we define environmental issues? Are such issues as war, immigration, and globalization appropriate arenas for environmental action? Whom do we consider to be an environmental group?
This is a course on the past, present, and future of environmentalism. It situates the political and social forces that helped give birth to this new social movement of the 20th century and influence its directions in the 21st century. This is a History course about the roots of environmentalism and its current directions. It is also a Politics course about social movements, including issues of class, race, gender and ethnicity. And it is an Environmental Studies course that situates the history, present day circumstances, and future direction of the environmental movement within the broader study of environmental topics and methods. And for other students not in those areas but with environmental concerns or interests, it provides the background to better understand the significance of this crucial social movement and how it has addressed the complex relationships between urban, industrial, and natural environments.
The structure of the class will include the following: lectures and class discussions in a seminar format; a midterm focused on the readings; presentation sessions; and a research paper. There will also be speakers, films, and participation in activities, organizing, and/or special events on the environment such as during Earth Day week. The participant/activity component will serve as a kind of mini-internship and can also help provide background information for a research paper topic. Grades will be based on participation in the discussions, presentations, and mini-internships (40%), midterm (20%), and research paper (40%). My office hours will be 10:30-12 Monday and 1-3 Wednesday, although I’ll be available for appointments on other days. You can reach me via e mail (gottlieb@oxy.edu) or phone ext. 2712.
READING REQUIREMENTS
The readings for the course are presented below. Most of the reading material is available in the course reader while Forcing the Spring, Silent Spring, and Environmental Inequalities are available in the bookstore. Individual sessions, including the presentations, will reference the readings.
READINGS
AND TOPICS
Section I: PAST: The Roots of Environmentalism
January 22-January 29
Robert Gottlieb: Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement, Chapter 1
H. Wayne Morgan: “America’s First Environmental Challenge, 1865-1920”, in Essays on the Gilded Age, Carter E. Boren et al (editors), pp. 87-108
Stephen Fox: John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement, pp. 103-147
February 3-5
Gifford Pinchot: Breaking New Ground, pp. 344-355
Samuel Hays: Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, Introduction and Chapter 13, "The Conservation Movement and the Progressive Tradition", pp. 1-4; 261-276
Lynn White, Jr. “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis,” Science, March 10, 1967, Vol. 155, pp. 1203-1207
February 10-12
Forcing the Spring, Chapter 2
Martin Melosi: "Environmental Reform in the Industrial Cities: The Civic Response to Pollution in the Progressive Era,” in Martin Melosi, Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment, pp. 211-224
David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, “Safety and Health as a Class Issue: The Worker’s Health Bureau of America during the 1920s,”in Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in Twentieth Century America, edited by Rosner and Markowitz, pp. 53-64
Ramachandra Guha, “Lewis Mumford, the Forgotten American Environmentalist: An Essay in Rehabilitation”, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 2, no. 3 (October 1991): pp.67-91
Aldo Leopold: "The Land Ethic," in A Sand County Almanac, pp. 217-269
Bob Pepperman Taylor, “Aldo Leopold’s Civic Education,” in Democracy and the Claims of Nature, edited by Ben A. Minteer and Bob Pepperman Taylor, pp. 173-187
Section II: THE 1960s: A Time of Transition, Ferment and Change
February
17-26
Forcing the Spring, Chapter 3
Rachel Carson: Silent
Spring
Linda Lear, Chapter 18, “Rumblings of an Avalanche,” in Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, pp. 429-441
Section III: PRESENT: From Earth Day to the Present Day
March 3-12
Forcing the Spring, Chapters 4-5
Mark Dowie, “The Fourth Wave”, in Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century, pp. 205-257
Allen Hershkowitz, “Clearing the Social Market,” Chapter 5, pp. 171-195; and “What Environmentalists Can Do,” pp. 257-261 in Bronx Ecology: Blueprint for a New Environmentalism.
Brian Tokar, Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in the Age of Corporate Greenwash, Chapter 9, “Unifying Movements: Theory and Practice, pp. 175-189
Midterm
– March 5 (Due March 12)
Research
Paper Topics and Mini-Internships Selected – March 12
March
17-21: Spring Break
Section IV: CLASS, ETHNICITY, AND GENDER: Speaking Truth to Power in Environmentalism
March 24-April 2
Forcing the Spring, Chapters 6-8
Andrew Hurley, Environmental
Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana,
1945-1980
Robert Gottlieb, “Livable
Regions and Cleaner Production: Linking Environmental Justice and Pollution
Prevention,” in Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring New Pathways for Change,
pp. 47-97
Robert Bullard: "Overcoming Racism in Environmental Decision-Making", Environment, May 1994, pp. 10-20+
“Principles of Environmental Justice,” Statement adopted by the People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991
Luke Cole and Sheila Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement, Chapter 2, “The Political Economy of Environmental Racism,” pp. 34-53; Chapter 3, “Environmental Racism: Beyond the Distributive Paradigm,” pp. 54-79
Barbara Epstein: "Ecofeminism and Grass-Roots Environmentalism in the United States", in Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice, Edited by Richard Hofrichter, 1993, pp. 144-152
Katherine Davies “What is Ecofeminism?” and Susan Prentice: “Taking Sides: What’s Wrong with Eco-Feminism?” in Women and Environments, Spring 1988
Section
V:
FUTURE: New Battlegrounds --
War, Immigration, Population, Globalization
April 7-16
Forcing the Spring, Chapter 9
Hilary French, Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization, pp. 3-12 (“One World?) and pp. 163-176 (“Partnerships for the Planet”)
Robert Gottlieb and Peter Dreier, “Sierra Club Wrestles with the Nativism in Environmentalism,” Los Angeles Times, March 1, 1998
“A Looming Threat We Won’t Face,” Paul Ehrlich and Katherine Ellison, Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2002
Darcy Frey, “How Green is BP?”, New York Times, December 8, 2002
Lois Gibbs, “Building the Base in Tough Political Times,” in People, Power, and Pollution: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement, edited by David Pellow and Robert Brulle (forthcoming).
Miguel Bustillo, “Sierra Club Rift Opens Over Stance on Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 2002
EARTH DAY WEEK: April 20-22
Summary
Sessions and Presentations: April 27-29
Research Papers Due: May 5
Possible
Groups for Mini-interns/volunteers/Activity Work
1. PPERC
2.
Coalition for Clean Air
3.
Environmental Defense
4.
NRDC
5.
Physicians for Social Responsibility
6.
CBE
7.
ArroyoFest
8.
Arroyo Seco Foundation
9.
Cal PIRG
10.
Heal the Bay
11.
FoLAR
12.
Sierra Club
13.
Audubon Society
14.
Blazers Youth Foundation
15.
CFJ
16.
North East Trees