Environmentalism

In his collection of essays and poems published in 1920 titled “Darkwater,” W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about his poignant encounter with the beauty of the Grand Canyon, the stupendous chasm in Arizona. As he stood at the canyon’s rim, the towering intellectual and civil rights activist described the sight that spread before his eyes. The Grand Canyon’s “grandeur is too serene – its beauty too divine!” Du Bois wrote. “Behold this mauve and purple mocking of time and space! See yonder peak! No human foot has trod it. Into that blue shadow, only the eye of God has looked.” But Du Bois’ experience undermined a widely held assumption that was reinforced by early conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt – that only white people could appreciate the landscapes of national parks. For Roosevelt and his progressive allies, saving nature was connected to saving the white race. My research on the history of national parks shows...

Summer and fall are prime times for getting outdoors across the U.S. According to an annual survey produced by the outdoor industry, 55% of Americans age 6 and up participated in some kind of outdoor recreation in 2022, and that number is on the rise. However, the activities they choose are shifting. Over the past century, participation has declined in some activities, such as hunting, and increased in others, like bird-watching. These shifts reflect many factors, including demographic trends and urbanization. But outdoor activities also have their own cultures, which can powerfully affect how participants think about nature. As scholars who think about organizational theory, management and entrepreneurship, we are interested in understanding effective ways to promote social change. In a recent study, we analyzed the work of the nonprofit group Trout Unlimited, which centers on protecting rivers and streams across the U.S. that harbor wild and native trout and salmon. We f...

Musical performances usually happen in concert halls or clubs, but famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is exploring a new venue: U.S. national parks. In a project called Our Common Nature, Ma is performing in settings such as the Great Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. By making music and bringing people together in scenic places, Ma aims to help humans understand where they fit in the natural world. “What if there’s a way that we can end up thinking and feeling and knowing that we are coming from nature, that we’re a part of nature, instead of just thinking: What can we use it for?” Ma mused in a recent New York Times article. There’s a buzzword for this outlook: nature-positive. And it’s cropping up at high-level meetings, including the 2021 G-7 summit in Cornwall, England and the COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal that adopted an ambitious framework for protecting nature in December 2022. As a group of environmental leaders wrote in 2021: &...

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, his wife and their two adult children have irrevocably transferred their ownership of the outdoor apparel company to a set of trusts and nonprofit organizations. From now on, the corporation’s profits will fund efforts to deal with climate change, as well as protect wilderness areas. It will, however, remain a privately held enterprise. According to initial reports about this unusual approach to philanthropy that ran on Sept. 14, 2022, Patagonia is worth about US$3 billion and its profits that will be donated in perpetuity could total $100 million every year. The Conversation U.S. asked Indiana University’s Ash Enrici – a scholar who studies how philanthropy affects the environment – to explain why this arrangement is so significant. 1. Is this move part of a trend? The biggest donors, those giving away billions of dollars, are increasingly making climate change a priority. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for example, announ...