Menu
Idea

Clean Water Act

21
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Purse in the style of the American flag.

The Power of the Purse

The first time a president withheld funds for something approved by Congress, it led to the Impoundment Control Act. We’ll soon find out if that law has teeth.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on February 12, 2025
Book cover of "Republican Reversal."

Conservative Ideology and the Environment

“Big money alone does not fully explain the Republican embrace of the gospel of more.”
by Jonathan H. Adler via Regulation on June 1, 2020

What U.S. Cities Looked Like Before the EPA

Whatever the Trump administration does with Environmental Protection Agency, its urban legacy is clear.
by Andrew Small via CityLab on March 2, 2017
Litterbug board game.

Playing Dirty

In the 1970s board games joined TV, film, books, and other media in exploring the state of the environment.
by Sherri Sheu via Science History Institute on April 25, 2023
Nixon outdoors making his famous double-v hand gesture.

Nixon Was the Weirdest Environmentalist

Richard Nixon helped establish Earth Day and poured millions of dollars into conservation, despite his own ambivalence about the environmental movement.
by Liza Featherstone via The New Republic on April 20, 2023
Emissions from Union Carbide’s Ferro-Alloy Plant, Charleston, West Virginia, May 1973

The Lost Promise of Environmental Rights

As environmental rights seem on the verge of a comeback, it’s worth remembering why they once seemed so promising, and why that promise remains unfulfilled.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via New York Review of Books on March 15, 2023
Photo of E.P.A Headquarters, shot through a bush

How Government Ends

Through an assault on administrative agencies, the Supreme Court is systematically eroding the legal basis of effective governance.
by Lisa Heinzerling via Boston Review on September 28, 2022
A hand holding a large oyster against the New York City skyline.

Aw Shucks: The Tragic History of New York City Oysters

Oysters are working tirelessly for the benefit of New York Harbor after years of over-harvesting and sewage-induced turmoil.
by Thomas Hynes via Untapped New York on August 4, 2022
Collage of the U.S. Capitol, a factory, and the earth, connected by coins and price tag stickers.

How the Oil Industry Cast Climate Policy as an Economic Burden

For 30 years, the debate has largely ignored the soaring costs of inaction.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on April 7, 2022
Illustration of Clarence Thomas in front of factory

The Radicalization of Clarence Thomas

His time working for Monsanto and other polluting industries helped make him the fierce conservative he is today.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on August 13, 2021

Wild Rice Waters

The resurgence of the wild rice harvest seeks to tells the story of settler colonialism, tribal kinship and ecological stewardship.
by Emily Hicks, Melody R. Stein via Places Journal on June 14, 2021
Water contaminated with arsenic, lead and zinc flows from a pipe out of the Lee Mountain mine and into a holding pond
partner

Spin Doctors Have Shaped the Environmentalism Debate for Decades

“Green” public relations work has flown below the radar but made a huge impact.
by Melissa Aronczyk via Made By History on February 21, 2021
Aerial view of a mining quarry

The Land Was Ours

Trump, Biden, and public lands.
by Nick Bowlin via The Drift on January 27, 2021

A Strange Blight: Rachel Carson’s Forebodings

Reading Silent Spring today, in the hazy reddish glow of climate catastrophe, is both an exhilarating and a melancholy pleasure.
by Meehan Crist via London Review of Books on June 6, 2019

Oral Histories of The 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire

The events of June 1969 have come to define both Cleveland and the river. Some Clevelanders have a different story.
by Rebekkah Rubin via Belt Magazine on June 3, 2019

How an Oil Spill 50 Years Ago Inspired the First Earth Day

Before Earth Day made a name for the environmental movement, a massive oil spill put a spotlight on the dangers of pollution.
by Lila Thulin via Smithsonian on April 22, 2019
Image of the front cover of "The Republican Reversal: Conservatives and the Environment from Nixon to Trump."

Conservatives Before and After Earth Day

As Republicans denounce climate change as a “hoax” and dismantle the environmental regulatory state they worked to build, we are left to wonder: What happened?
by James Morton Turner, Andrew C. Isenberg via Harvard University Press Blog on April 22, 2019

Two Hundred Years on the Erie Canal

A digital exhibit on the history and legacy of the canal.
by Heidi Zimmer, Dan Ward via Digital Public Library of America on January 1, 2018
A surfer carries his oil-coated board.

‘The Ocean Is Boiling’: The Complete Oral History of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill

How the disaster energized the nascent environmental movement and led to a slew of legislative changes.
by Kate Wheeling, Max Ufberg via Pacific Standard on April 18, 2017
Folk singer Tom Glazer performs in July 1965 for nearly 400 children enrolled in Head Start centers at Saratoga Square Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. (AP)

Evaluating the Success of the Great Society

Lyndon B. Johnson's visionary set of legislation turns 50 years old.
via Washington Post on May 17, 2014
Photograph of two of the original organizers preparing for the first Earth Day (1970). At left, a woman holds up two advertisements for the event. In front, a man stares into the camera (Denis Hayes) while holding a phone.

The Fate of Earth Day

What has gone wrong with the modern environmental movement and its political organizing.
by Nicholas Lemann via The New Yorker on April 8, 2013

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

brought to you by
© Bunk History