Cold War Environmental Awareness

During the Cold War era from 1945-1980, the environment took priority in American society. Awareness about the need to preserve the planet culminated in a nationwide Earth Day which proved the growing worry about the lack of sustainability found on Earth. Other environmental factors required immediate action to be taken before the detrimental effects of humans and their role in society would be too much for this world to handle. Although there are a variety of factors that raised awareness about the dangerous environment on earth, it was ultimately the implementation of the first Earth Day, tempting climate in the Sun Belt, and the environmental movement by Rachel Carson that brought the awareness to harsh environmental factors in the late

In Rachel Carson’s book which was published in 1962, it made a powerful case for the idea that if humankind poisoned nature, nature would in turn poison humankind. Throughout the book, she went on about the detrimental affects that human’s bad habits would have on Mother Earth. Her main argument was that society as a whole would have to change their previous ways of living in order to maintain good health for the Earth and in return the Earth would continue taking care of us, providing land and good weather. One of the actions that was a result of her begging for change was the Clean Air act and the Clean Water act. The Clean Air Act was a law which was designed to control air pollution. It required the Environmental Protection Agency to develop and enforce regulations to protect the public potent air quality which could be hazardous to human health. The Clean Water act established a basic structure for regulating pollution which is discharged into the waters of states in the United States. This act also Gave EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs. As a result of the “Silent Spring,” federal legislations were passed as a call to action to change the habits of humans before we destroy the thing that gives us all