California

After WW 2 the nation began to realize that modern industry posed a health risk to both people and wildlife. There was an evolving understanding that man was a vulnerable part of the environment. In 1948 the worst air pollution disaster in U.S. history took place in the steel town of Donora, Pennsylvania. Intense smog caused snow to turn black and clothes to shift colors. Twenty deaths and 5,000 illnesses were blamed on the misty blanket of fumes and emissions that settled over the town for five days. Only later would it be discovered that snow was not the only thing that turned black from the smog. So did human lungs.

A few years later the sun went out in Los Angeles. In mid afternoon drivers had to switch on their lights because of smog, which caused more than 2,000 accidents in several hours. The citizens of LA crowded public meetings wearing gas masks to protest the smog. They would soon discover, to their dismay, that their own automobile emissions were the culprit. The west coast megacity then began its long struggle to have emission control devices installed on cars, which would take years to win over protests of the industry. But win they did.

On the Missouri River, downstream from Omaha, crows were rafting on chunks of grease! The locals complained of blood, hooves, hair, and manure from hundreds of thousands of slaughtered animals, mingled with human waste, along a stretch of river used for drinking water by two million people. In 1957 the Public Health Service opened hearings on waste from packing plants along the river. The outcry would finally lead to passage of the first Water Pollution Act by Congress, after 60 failed attempts, and over the protests of "free-enterprisers."

In 1944 Congress created Big Bend National Park in Texas, and a few years later the Everglades National Park, fulfilling a lifelong dream of many conservationists. And in 1949 A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold's classic of nature and conservation, was published, a year after his untimely death while fighting a brush fire near his home in Wisconsin. And out west enraged citizens doomed plans to build Echo Park Dam, which would have flooded part of Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado.

Elephant seals were nearly extinct in the early 1900s when they became protected and preserves were set aside for breeding and calving. Numbers have rebounded impressively.

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After WW 2 the nation began to realize that modern industry posed a health risk to both people and wildlife. There was an evolving understanding that man was a vulnerable part of the environment. In 1948 the worst air pollution disaster in U.S. history took place in the steel town of Donora, Pennsylvania. Intense smog caused snow to turn black and clothes to shift colors. Twenty deaths and 5,000 illnesses were blamed on the misty blanket of fumes and emissions that settled over the town for five days. Only later would it be discovered that snow was not the only thing that turned black from the smog. So did human lungs. A few years later the sun went out in Los Angeles. In mid afternoon drivers had to switch on their lights because of smog, which caused more than 2,000 accidents in several hours. The citizens of LA crowded public meetings wearing gas masks to protest the smog. They would soon discover, to their dismay, that their own automobile emissions were the culprit. The west coast megacity then began its long struggle to have emission control devices installed on cars, which would take years to win over protests of the industry. But win they did. On the Missouri River, downstream from Omaha, crows were rafting on chunks of grease! The locals complained of blood, hooves, hair, and manure from hundreds of thousands of slaughtered animals, mingled with human waste, along a stretch of river used for drinking water by two million people. In 1957 the Public Health Service opened hearings on waste from packing plants along the river. The outcry would finally lead to passage of the first Water Pollution Act by Congress, after 60 failed attempts, and over the protests of "free-enterprisers." In 1944 Congress created Big Bend National Park in Texas, and a few years later the Everglades National Park, fulfilling a lifelong dream of many conservationists. And in 1949 A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold's classic of nature and conservation, was published, a year after his untimely death while fighting a brush fire near his home in Wisconsin. And out west enraged citizens doomed plans to build Echo Park Dam, which would have flooded part of Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado. Elephant seals were nearly extinct in the early 1900s when they became protected and preserves were set aside for breeding and calving. Numbers have rebounded impressively.

© Danny Kimberlin 2015