"In a NYT op-ed, historian Christopher Sellers says that today’s environmental movement “should reframe climate change as a local issue” for suburban America..." [then read what he thinks about this]
"Historian Christopher Sellers reminds us that environmental causes were “extraordinarily popular” in the 1960s and 1970s. Inspired by Rachel Carson’s landmark book Silent Spring, environmentalists rallied suburbanites around excessive pesticides and other direct threats to their personal well-being. Sellers argues that for the environmental movement to regain widespread acceptance, it must return to its suburban roots and refocus on local concerns. According to Sellers, even climate change can be placed in a local context." [then read more to see what he thinks]
"The first Earth Day, by contrast, was the culmination of more than a decade of rising alarm and activism about environmental damage or “pollution” that had already occurred. As described in two fine new books, by historians Adam Rome and Christopher Sellers, these outrages included fallout from nuclear testing in Nevada and overseas, DDT in the growing suburbs, an oil spill just off the coast from gorgeous Santa Barbara, choking smog in the Los Angeles basin, and a massive oil slick burning on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland.." [Read more]
"...Are we missing something? Are there initiatives to lower greenhouse gas emissions from government, business and residential sectors in any cities lead by Republican mayors, or benefiting from conservative leaders? Areas on the metropolitan fringe tend historically to be conservative or moderately so. Is there a suburban region somewhere in the country with an active climate initiative?
In his NYT Op Ed How Green was My Lawn (Sept 20 2012) celebrating Rachel Carson, Stony Brook University Professor Christopher Sellers reminds us that the environmental movement and civic engagement on the environment was born in the suburbs.
Sellers states that “today’s environmental leaders have steered their imaginations and energies away from where their own movement was born.”
According to Sellers, the environmental movement’s early success started with activists picking up on local issues like drinking-water safety and smog, concerns that directly affected suburban dwellers but had been largely overlooked by civic leaders, from health and planning experts to homeowner associations to conservation groups. I’ll be at the National Adaptation Forum in Denver this week where I’ll be looking for examples of activists and civic leaders picking up on the new local issues: frequent coastal flooding, deer ticks and drought and place-based preparedness in the face of more frequent and severe storms. Adapting to a changing climate, being prepared, doing what we’ve always done (land use planning for instance), but doing so with the best information available … sounds conservative..."