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ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT PROPAGANDA

Following the second world war, suburbanization increased which led to an increased middle class. This middle class had more leisure time, allowing them to involve themselves more in movements and become more educated on the environmental problems that surround them,             such as pollution and oil spills from factories. The second world war also resulted in an increased usage of modern technology, such as with the implementation of the Federal Highway System. The Federal Highway System, as well as various other technologies, further harmed the environment, causing the environmental movement to become even more active. This paper argues that the fear tactics used to promote the environmental movement have significantly evolved from the 1960s to present day as a result of technological developments and how they consequently changed society. 

The Rising Popularity of the Environmental Movement

By using literature brought about by technological innovations to invoke fear into the public for the sake of the environment, members of the environmentalist movement were able to successfully convince society to advocate for the environmental movement. Prior to the 1960s, DDT became popular in the United States to limit diseases from insects during the second world war, and had transitioned to farming later on because of its low price and its ability to last a long time in the environment. Despite these benefits, it had many consequences as well. For example, it can be toxic to birds when eaten and is very toxic to aquatic animals, affecting various systems such as with their hearts and brains. 

This led to Rachel Carson writing Silent Spring, in which Carson presents these facts and more to the public as a warning of the dangers of pesticides. Her book quickly became widespread amongst Americans after publication in 1962 and sparked controversy over the use of chemical pesticides. Carson clearly intended to prove her point by evoking fear in the public for the future of the environment and was successful in doing so as per the controversy sparked. Consequently, her book caused society to become more aware of the dangers to the environment, leading to greater advocating for safer pesticides as well as the environmental movement. Additionally, Carson would not have written her book in the first place if it was not for the technological innovation of DDT affecting the environment, shown by her “[concern] after reading government reports,” with those government reports being in regard to the lack of testing of DDT for civilian use. Thus, her book, a major catalyst for the environmental movement, came about as a direct result of technological innovation. 

In addition to this book, various incidents involving factories, such as the Santa Barbara Oil Spill, were utilized by environmentalists to evoke fear into the public for the future of the environment. In 1969, a pipe of an offshore oil rig, in Santa Barbara, California, had cracked after increasing pressure had been placed on it over time. This caused oil and natural gas to spill out into the ocean, affecting much of the wildlife. As a direct result of oil rigs being placed under the Pacific Ocean, this disaster was able to occur. This means that the disaster was a direct result of the technology placed in the ocean. This was of course revealed to the public eventually, resulting in articles intended to evoke fear into the public to take action. For example, the 1969 article from Life Magazine entitled, Iridescent Gift of Death, describes a newborn seal that was covered in oil and presented a photograph of the seal, as well as the seismic instability of the area that the oil rig was in. Articles such as these describe the state of the environment, including the poor state of the animals and the ocean, and in doing so, cause the public to fear for the future of the environment by educating them. This led to even more advocating for the environmental movement. 

More Government Involvement in the Environmental Movement

As a result of directly requesting assistance from civilians by scaring them into helping, the power of the environmental movement became strong enough to force government involvement. As a result of many prior events harming the environment and the attention that they were getting, President Nixon ultimately decided to establish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, which was allowed to set and enforce environmental standards, marking a significant victory for the environmental movement. 

Following the establishment of the EPA, the Love Canal incident became more and more known to the public. Love Canal was initially a canal project, branching off of Niagara Falls. It was intended to implement the usage of clean energy using hydropower. However, it was abandoned. The government then allowed the Hooker Chemical Company to dump chemicals into the canal. Consequently, the locals living near the canal began to experience diseases of which appeared to be for no reason and many miscarriages and birth defects. This was because the wet winters of the late 1970s caused the chemicals to leak into the backyards and basements of locals. Since this incident only came about because of an attempt to advance the means of producing energy, it was only able to come about because of technological development. Once this information was given to the public, the environmentalists released newspaper articles, which were intended to scare the public into taking action. For example, the Niagara Gazette released many newspaper articles pertaining to the Love Canal Incident and the well being of the locals there, such as with “Every Mother is Scared to Death.” This article describes how Love Canal is negatively impacting the health of the locals, specifically stating the case of one 4 year old girl with leukemia. It follows this with how the mothers of Love Canal are scared that their children will be next. This article was clearly intended to convince the audience to advocate for the people living near the Love Canal out of fear for what may happen to the people there and therefore the environment by extension, since the people can only be saved if they live in a healthier environment. Therefore, this article, as well as the others, were scaring people into wanting to help the environment. 

While the government was not as involved in the movement previously, now that the EPA has been established, it was able to do something about problems such as these. In response to the Love Canal Incident, the EPA implemented the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, giving the EPA the power to force whoever polluted the environment to fix it or at least pay the EPA to fix it. This represents a clear change from society previously, since the environmental movement had grown so much it was able to successfully convince the government to make changes to support their cause.

Online Propaganda

From the popularization of the Internet and online advertising, fear tactics used by environmentalists were able to become more widespread and were able to reach more people. Prior to the 1990s, the environmentalists were only able to promote through physical newspaper and magazine articles and through the occasional advertisement on the radio or later, on television. However, during the 1990s, the amount of people who owned computers that had Internet access increased. Additionally, the World Wide Web, introduced in 1990, allows users to navigate the Internet even easier, allows users to access even more information, and allows users to spread more information through websites. This was then followed by the creation and popularization of social media, with MySpace being the first platform to have one million active users around 2004. Since then, social media platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook, have become more and more prevalent in society. This gave way for the environmentalist movement to promote their causes. One instance of this is the viral TikTok video made by Paul Cuffaro that recorded the killing of fish as a result of a red tide that hit Florida’s coast. Despite news outlets not reporting on this incident, the TikTok video was able to spread awareness and resulted in more TikTok videos being made, resulting in even more people being aware of the red tide. These videos resulted in action being taken to clean the dead animals on the coast and spread the fact that human pollution caused this issue in the first place. Without these videos, people outside of Florida would have never known about this incident. This means that awareness was only able to be spread as a result of developing technology (in terms of the Internet and social media). Additionally, seeing as many videos featured the bodies of dead animals, they must have been fairly horrifying to look at, thus evoking fear into the viewer. Moreover, fear tactics in social media have clearly impacted society by bringing it closer together and by making it easier to access and come across. Thus, this technology helped promote the environmental movement through fear tactics in a new way.

Conclusion

The developing technology from the 1960s to present day have allowed the fear tactics used to promote the environmental movement to evolve greatly and therefore have changed society. From the very beginning of the environmental movement, fear tactics had been utilized to convince people to join. These fear tactics were used in literature, such as books and articles, and later transitioned to digital media once it was developed, allowing the movement to become more and more widespread. These developments to the movement also changed society over time, by causing the people to be more educated on environmental matters through various pieces of media, leading to them being more inclined to support the movement. Technology will only continue to develop more over time, allowing for more fear tactics and changes to society.




















Bibliography

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