1968: The Global Revolutions

The early environmental movement achieved a stunning set of accomplishments, ranging from governmental reforms, to the creation of grassroots organizations, to the transformation of people’s daily habits. At the level of federal policy, the movement was key to the founding of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 1970, and the expansions in the early 1970s of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. For more quotidian changes, the ubiquity of recycling today is a product of the pioneering efforts of the early 1970s.