Rome 7
Write an essay of 3-4 double spaced pages on the
following topic. You must cite your sources and quote
and paraphrase correctly but you can use informal references.
Make sure to organize your argument into paragraphs with topic
sentences and use specific evidence.
Take-home final exam topic: How and why did the
thinking of Americans shift from seeing the natural world as
an unlimited resource for human use to seeing it as a limited
and irreplaceable resource that should be protected? Use
one detailed example from each book to support your
argument. Make sure your argument includes some set of
historical steps and some explanation(s) of why.
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (signed by Nixon
Jan. 1, 1970)
- required federal projects to prepare
environmental impact statements
- established a Council on Environmental
Quality
- helped establish a more integrative and
pro-active approach
- it turned out to be effective to require
something to be studied, not define how to regulate it
Land Ethic:
- idea comes from forester, philosopher and writer Aldo
Leopold
- our ethics should not just consider how we treat human
beings
- but also how we treat soils, water, plants, and animals:
collectively the land
- Leopold: "we abuse land because we regard it
as a commodity belonging to us. When we see the land as a
community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love
and respect."
So to what extent was there the bigger picture of a land
ethic, not just solving problems one at a time as they became
unbearable?
- the bigger picture was state land use regulation
- different states regulated to protect different things:
wetlands, waterfront housing, agriculture
- generally required permits for large developments and
considered the different kinds of impacts of those
developments
In South Carolina land use regulation is on a county by
county basis, based on the Local
Government Comprehensive Planning Enabling Act of 1994
- must be based on comprehensive surveys
- includes regulations for subdivision and development
- covers both zoning and capital improvements such as parks
and sewer systems
Legal question: if new regulations reduce the value of a
property, should the government have to compensate the landowner
(should it be defined as a "taking" of property)
- in the early 1970s court rulings generally supported land
use regulation
- land is a community resource, not just private property
- people often choose regulated environments
- property does not exist in isolation but is part of
larger systems
- does the owner of land have the right to change its
natural character (such as filling in a wetland)
- limit the use of property to its natural use
- a
later taking case that went the other way
This became a national debate in the early 1970s
- National Land Use Policy Act debated for years in
Congress but never passed
- by 1975 there was some backlash but still support for
other environmental legislation, such as pollution regulation
- it wasn't clear what environmentally sound development
should look like