Environmental Actions

During the 20th century people became more aware of their own environmental impact. They also became more concerned about how the government should be involved in protecting it. There were many movements that came about including the National Park, environmental, and conservation movement. All of which started to show the necessary concern toward the environment. The article "Environment" talks about how initially, Americans thought that natural resources within America were inexhaustible and when told that they were disappearing with the frontier of America, they were shocked. This demonstrates how ignorant Americans were and that the government should inform their people better. At least they started to care more about the environment-which was good, until they became carless again. But on the contrary, as history progressed, more environmental programs were created such as the U.S. Forest Service Act, Soil Conservation Act, Endangered Species Act,Clean Water Act, and Earth Day. The difference these programs made was tremendous because it helped helped the environment as well as remind Americans of the issues they lived with. The problem is that it took disasters to occur for these programs to be created. It took an oil spill, a nuclear plant explosion, many species to be threatened of extinction, and the dust bowl for any of these acts to be thought of -which is just careless. Once the enviornmental issue was brought about, it should have been thought of with every action we made. When urbanization occured we should have been less carless with the land instead of causing permnanent damage to it. Generally speaking, as much progress that Americans have made to eliminate their environmental impact, there is still the history of land abuse that cannot be taken back. There needs to be more steps taken in the direction of restoration, so we do not have to make any more prevention acts for a problem we have made.

"environment." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010. .