Читать книгу The New Environmental Economics - Eloi Laurent - Страница 26

In the contemporary period, the environmental preoccupation went through a mystical age, from the publication of Nature in 1836 by Ralph Waldo Emerson to the fight of John Muir, eventually supported by Theodore Roosevelt, for the creation of the first national parks in the United States. Muir (1838–1914) is certainly the most famous figure of the preservation movement. An ardent defender of the Yosemite Valley in the United States and founder of the environmental NGO Sierra Club (1892), his advocacy of Nature as a healing place for humans overwhelmed by the industrial world finds strong echoes today (see Box 3.1). It should not, however, be forgotten or overlooked that he held racist views over Native Americans living in Yosemite and supported their removal and even extermination.