The History of US Environmental Governance

3-0-9 units. HASS-H · Undergraduate

Explores environmental governance, or the systematic efforts to manage what is often simply called "nature" in the United States. Includes the ideas, rules, practices, and policies that shaped how humans interacted with nonhumans and material landscapes. Examines the shift from exploitation of nature to conservation and preservation, including through the national park system, before turning to New Deal policies that shaped modern conservation and international development politics. Foregrounds the emergence of environmental movements in the 1960s and 1970s that popularized "green" consciousness and helped institutionalize policies for clean air and water and healthful environments at national and international scales. Ends with debates about climate change, global environmental governance, and the distribution of ecological benefits or toxic harms across the world.