Throwback Thursdays
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The Love Canal Disaster
Love Canal was originally meant to be the perfect community. William T. Love felt that by digging a short canal between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers, power could be generated to fuel the industry and homes of this city. Despite considerable support, the idea failed due to fluctuations in the economy and Nikola Tesla’s discovery of how to economically transmit electricity over great distances by means of an alternating current. To put it simply, the story of the Love Canal tragedy is one of the most terrible environmental tragedies in American history. In the 1920s, the canal was turned into a municipal and industrial chemical dumpsite. From 1942 to…
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The History of Earth Day
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The History of Earth Day
Welcome to my new category of posts, Throwback Thursdays! Here I will be looking back on notable moments in the history of environmentalism. With Earth Day approaching, I thought I would discuss how this wonderful day came to be. Earth Day, April 22nd, is the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. At the time, Americans were burning through leaded gas like it was their job. Large corporations expelled smoke and sludge without any consideration of the environmental consequences. In fact, the word “environment” was hardly seen or talked about anywhere. The idea for Earth Day came to be when founder Gaylord Nelson, a senator from…
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The Love Canal Disaster
