From Cave Paintings to the Internet A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media Ecology / Conservation / Planning Timeline

"Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, the current ice age or simply the ice age, refers to the period of the last few million years (2.58 Ma to present) in which permanent ice sheets were established in Antarctica and perhaps Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets have occurred elsewhere (for example, the Laurentide ice sheet). The major effects of the ice age were erosion and deposition of material over large parts of the continents, modification of river systems, creation of millions of lakes, changes in sea level, development of pluvial lakes far from the ice margins, isostatic adjustment of the crust, and abnormal winds. It affected oceans, flooding, and biological communities. The ice sheets themselves, by raising the albedo, effected a major feedback on climate cooling.

"During the Quaternary Period, the total volume of land ice, sea level, and global temperature has fluctuated initially on 41,000- and more recently on 100,000-year time scales, as evidenced most clearly by ice cores for the past 800,000 years and marine sediment cores for the earlier period. Over the past 740,000 years there have been eight glacial cycles. The entire Quaternary Period (2.58 Ma) is referred to as an ice age because at least one permanent large ice sheet — Antarctica — has existed continuously. There is uncertainty over how much of Greenland was covered by ice during the previous and earlier interglacials. During the colder episodes — referred to as glacial periods — large ice sheets also existed in Europe, North America, and Siberia. The shorter and warmer intervals between glacials are referred to as interglacials.

"Currently, the earth is in an interglacial period, which marked the beginning of the Holocene epoch. The current interglacial began between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, which caused the ice sheets from the last glacial period to begin to disappear. Remnants of these last glaciers, now occupying about 10% of the world's land surface, still exist in Greenland and Antarctica. Global warming has exacerbated the retreat of these glaciers" (Wikipedia article on Quaternary Glaciation, accessed 07-10-2010).

The Holocene interglacial, a geological interval of warmer global average temperature that separates glacial periods within an ice age, begins.

"Human civilization, in its most widely used definition, dates entirely within the Holocene. The word anthropocene is sometimes used to describe the time period from when humans have had a significant impact on the Earth's climate and ecosystems to the present" (Wikipedia article on Holocene, accessed 07-10-2010).

English gardiner, diarist and environmentalist John Evelyn publishes Fumifugium: or the Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated.

Fumifugium was a pioneering attack on air polution caused by the "hellish and dismall cloud of sea-coal" which perpetually enveloped London at the time. Of course, the problem Evelyn wrote about did not dissipate, and the work continued to be reprinted, with at least four editions published in the 20th century, including one in 1961 by the National Society for Clean Air.

English writer, gardener, and diarist, John Evelyn publishes Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty's Dominions. .  . .To Which is Annexed Pomona, or an Appendix Concerning Fruit-Trees. . .also Kalendarium Hortense; or Gardeners' Almanac. . . .

Sylva was a protest against the destruction of England's forests being carried out by her glass factories and iron furnaces. The work was influential in establishing a much-needed program of reforestation in order to provide timber for Britain's burgeoning navy. This program had a lasting effect on the British economy.

Sylva also bears the distinction of being the first official publication of the Royal Society, which had been permitted to publish in 1662.  The first edition contained two appendixes, "Pomona" and "Kalendarium Hortense"; the second of these was often reprinted separately, and proved to be Evelyn's most popular work.

Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 745.

Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli, Habsburg general, military engineer, scientist and virtuoso, publishes Histoire physique de la mer in Amsterdam.

This work, illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and 52 engraved plates, and a glowing introduction by physician  Herman Boerhaave, was the first book devoted entirely to marine science, and the first oceanographic study of a single region. Marsigli conducted an intensive investigation of the Gulf of Lyon in the south of France, taking soundings to obtain a profile of the sea floor, analyzing the relationship of the lands under and above water, studying the water's physical properties (temperature, density, color) and its motions (waves, currents, tides), and describing the marine life of the region. Marsigli was the first to give an account of formation of the continental shelf and slope, and the first to class corals as living beings rather than as inorganic mineral formations. His belief that the land and the sea bed formed a continuous structure was confirmed when he discovered rock strata dipping below sea level at the coast. Marsigli's work prefigured the systematic oceanographic exploration that would begin fifty years later with Captain James Cook's voyage in the Endeavor.

Deacon, Scientists and the Sea 1650-1900 (1971) 170-185. Stoye, Marsigli's Europe 1680-1730 (1994) 295-96. Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 1445.

British theologian, dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator, and political theorist Joseph Priestley publishes "Observations on different kinds of air" in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

This was Priestley's first paper on the subject, reporting the results of his pneumatic researches since 1770. These included the isolation and identification of nitric oxide and anhydrous hydrochloric acid gases, the discovery that growing plants restored air vitiated by combustion or animal respiration, and the discovery of "nitrous air" (nitrous oxide).

Carter & Muir, Printing and the Mind of Man (1967) no. 217. Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 1749.

German Geographer and Zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmerman publishes Specimen zoologiae geographicae, quadrupedem domicilia et migrationes sistens.

This was the first textbook of zoogeography, containing the first world map showing the distribution of mammals.

Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 2280.

Physician Jan Ingen-Housz publishes Experiments upon Vegetables, Discovering their Great Power of Purifying the Common Air in the Sunshine, and of Injuring it in the Shade and at Night. 

While investigating Joseph Priestley's discovery made in 1771 that plants could "restore" air made unfit for respiration through combusion or putrefaction, Ingen-Housz became the first to observe and elucidate the processes of photosynthesis and plant respiration. In his Experiments upon Vegetables, Ingen-Housz established that only the green parts of a plant give off the "restoring" gas (oxygen), and only when exposed to visible sunlight. He also found that plants, "like animals, exhibit respiration, that respiration continues day and night, and that all parts of the plant—green as well as nongreen, flowers and fruit as well as roots—take part in the process.

Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 1141.

English papermaker Matthias Koops is granted English patent no. 2392 for Extracting Ink from Paper and Converting such Paper into Pulp.

Within the patent Koop described his process as "An invention made by me of extracting printing and writing ink from printed and written paper, and converting the paper from which the ink is extracted into pulp, and making thereof paper fit for writing, printing, and other purposes."

This was the first patented process for recycling paper, and it is also possibly the first patent received for a recycling process that was— much later— widely used.

Koops's patent was first published in print in London in 1856. Prior to this time English patents were recorded only on the Patent Rolls and were not published in print until the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1852 proposed that an Office of the Commissioners of Patents be set up, and under its first Superintendent of Specifications, Bennet Woodcroft,  the Office set about publishing newly deposited specifications and also all earlier patents beginning in 1617. 

Hunter, The Literature of Papermaking 1390-1800 (1925) 48. Hunter, Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (1947) 333; see also 332-35.

Pomeranian-English papermaker Matthias Koops publishes Historical Account of the Substances which Have Been Used to Describe Events, and to Convey Ideas from the Earliest Date to the Invention of Paper. Second edition. Printed on Paper Re-Made from Old Printed and Written Paper. 

In 1800 Koops, whose scholarly and inventive attributes seem to have excelled his business acumen, published the first edition of this serious account of the history of materials used for recording information. To promote his venture to produce paper from materials other than linen rags— The Straw Paper Manufactory— Koops had the first edition printed entirely on yellow paper made from straw. Part of the second edition, essentially identical to the first, he also had printed on straw, but he also had a portion of the second edition printed on recycled paper. with the exception of the frontiispiece image of the papyrus plant, which was printed on straw in both versions of the second edition. The copies printed on recycled paper were the first books ever printed on recycled paper, and may have remained the only books printed on recycled paper for a century or more; I have been unable to find any study of this topic.

The appendix of all copies of Koops's second edition (pp. 259-73) was printed on paper made from wood pulp. My copy of the 1801 edition shows that Koops's recycled paper was of excellent quality; his wood pulp paper somewhat less so, since that final gathering of my copy has browned but remains sound.

From the name of Koops's enterprise it is evident that he considered the production of paper from materials other than linen rags to be more commercial than the paper recycling process he invented:

". . . By 1800 Koops had experience of manufacturing from waste paper at Neckinger mill in Bermondsey, and in 1800–01 three patents were granted to him: one for extracting inks from printed and written paper before pulping, and the other two for making paper fit for printing from straw, hay, thistles, waste, and refuse of hemp and flax. In 1800 his Historical Account of the Substances which have been Used to Describe Events was printed on straw paper.

"Having proved the possibility of making good paper from such materials, Koops set up a company, the Straw Paper Manufactory, raised over £70,000 by issue of shares, and in 1801 erected a paper-making mill at Millbank in Westminster. Contractors for the machinery included John Rennie, the engineer, and the firm of Boulton and Watt. This paper mill was easily the largest in the country. The enterprise, however, was over-ambitious and under-capitalized. Koops himself was the principal shareholder in the venture and on the strength of this offered to satisfy his creditors. His failure to discharge his bankruptcy by 1802 compelled Koops's creditors to issue a writ, inter alia, for seizure of the Straw Paper Manufactory's assets, and in the end its proprietors could not keep the enterprise solvent. The Millbank paper mill and its equipment were eventually offered for sale by auction in October 1804, thereby ending the possibility of England challenging the European paper industry by using more easily available materials for making paper" (Oxford DNB).

French civil engineer François Antoine Rauch publishes a 2-volume work entitled Harmonie hydro-végétale et météorologique: ou recherches sur les moyens de recréer avec nos forêts la force des températures et la régularité des saisons par des plantations raisonnées.

Concerned with the disastrous effects of deforestration, which not only affected the agriculture and scenery of the countryside, but also the whole ecological balance of crops, flora and fauna, and human interaction with the ecological system, Rauch discussed the interrelationships between climate, terrain and vegetation, and suggested ways to establish a state of harmony between man and the the environment. He included topics such as the ecological balance found in mountain regions, and suggested in the final chapter, that a ministerial department "of the interior" be set up in order to monitor ecological issues and supervise relevant matters at a local level.

Rauch espoused many ideas to achieve such a 'harmony', including plans for monumental avenues flanked by grand trees and country roads edged by fruit trees. He was also particularly concerned with cemeteries and graves, believing that the dead would rest easier in a 'natural' environment and recommended burial in "natural" places.  

Over the following sixteen years Rauch made many further observations which resulted in a considerably revised, augmented and updated 2-volume work published in 1818 entitled Régénération de la nature végétale, ou recherches sur les moyens de recréer, dans tous les climats, les anciennes températures et l'ordre primitif des saisons, par des planations raisonnées, appuyées de quelques vues sur le ministère que la puissance végétale semble avoir a remplir dans l'harmonie des éléments. Writing from a viewpoint in agreement with the modern ecology movement,  Rauch argued that it is necessary to reverse the process of human destruction of the environment, particularly the world-wide destruction of forests, in order to return the planet to a state better supportive of life.

Rauch began with a consideration of the relationship of forests to weather conditions, surveyed the effects of deforestation world-wide on climate, and animal and human populations, and set out in several chapters steps to be taken: what sorts of vegetation should be planted where, renewal of water sources, and the establishment of governmental agencies in France and all over the globe to observe the environment and take action. He urged the agencies, for example, to consider changes over short periods of time ("to what extant animals and birds are scarcer in the last thirty years" in a particular area), and to attempt regulation of factory fuel sources. In his closing argument he urged the obligation "to conserve the noble economy," and "to conserve that from which we benefit."  

Chemist Nicholas-Théodore de Saussure publishes Recherches chimiques sur la végetation.

In this foundation work on phytochemistry, Saussure analyzed the chief active components of plants, their synthesis and decomposition. He specified the relationships between vegetation and the environment. He showed that plants grown in closed vessels took their entire carbon content from the enclosed gas, and thus demolished the old theory that plants derive carbon from the so-called "humus" of the soil. Conversely, he demonstrated that the carbon content of soil is produced by vegetation.

J. Norman (ed.) Morton's Medical Bibliography 5th ed. (1991) no. 145.54.

Naturalist, explorer and polymath Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt and botanist and explorer Aimé J. A. Bonpland publish Essai sur la géographie des plantes; accompagné d'un tableau physique des régions équinoxales [Vol. I of Voyage aux régions êquinoxales du nouveau continent].

In this contribution to ecology, Humboldt and Bonpland founded the study of the geographical distribution of plants. In 1799 Humboldt and Bonpland embarked on a six-year tour of research through South America and Mexico, a trip which would afterwards be called, justifiably, "the scientific discovery of America."  The two amassed exhaustive data in a wide array of fields from meteorology to ethnography, and gathered 60,000 plant specimens, 6,300 of which had been hitherto unknown in Europe.  Their American travel journals— issued under the general title Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent, fait en 1700, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804— were published in thirty-four volumes between 1807 and 1834; the sheets of the present work were reissued as Vol. I of the Voyage, with an extra half-title and general title and the plate colored. {We have also seen a copy with the plate uncolored.] Humboldt classified these volumes into six subject groups, of which this volume on plant geography constituted the whole of the fifth.  It contains some very interesting ideas on the relation between natural classification of plants and their geographical distribution, as well as one of the earliest attempts to describe the distribution of plants by characterizing geographical-ecological plant associations.

Hook & Norman , The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 1111.

Physician and physiologist William Frederic Edwards publishes De l'influence des agents physiques sur la vie,  a founding work of animal ecology.

Edwards's main idea was that vital processes depend on external physical and chemical forces but are not entirely controlled by them. Life is different from heat, light, or electricity, forces which, however, contribute to the production of vital phenomena. Edwards systematically examined all principal functions, mostly of vertebrate species; and by varying the external conditions, he de­termined the nature and degree of their modification. Among the phenomena he studied were the minimum and maximum tem­peratures compatible with life; heat production in young and adult animals; resistance of young animals to cold and to lack of oxygen.

French mathematician and physicist Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier publishes "Remarques générales sur les températures du globe terrestre et des espaces planétaires," Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 27, 136–67.  In this paper Fourier showed how gases in the atmosphere might increase the surface temperature of the earth. This was later called the greenhouse effect.

Although Swiss-American paleontologist-glaciologist-geologist Louis Agassiz is usually credited with originating the theory of the Ice Age, one of the primary progenitors of glacial geological theory was Swiss-German geologist Jean de Charpentier, who began studying glaciers after the Glacier de Gietroz disaster of 1818, in which a lake dammed by the glacier burst through the ice. By studying the Rhone Valley and the huge blocks of granite scattered mysteriously throughout it from the Alps to the Jura, Charpentier confirmed the theory proposed in 1821 by his friend Ignaz Venetz, that these so-called "erratic" (i.e., unconformable) blocks could only have been moved by the action of glaciers, which must have arisen after the formation of the Alps since many of the blocks were mineralogically identical to rocks found in some Alpine peaks.

Using the geological evidence he had gathered, Charpentier was able to refute other current hypotheses explaining the presence of the erratic blocks; nevertheless, when he introduced his glacier theory in a paper read before the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft in 1834, he was met with incredulity and scorn. In spite of the hostile reception of his ideas, Charpentier maintained his position, inviting others to come visit him and see the evidence for themselves. One of these visitors in 1836 was Agassiz.

"In the meantime, the German botanist Karl Friedrich Schimper (1803–1867) was studying mosses which were growing on erratic boulders in the alpine upland of Bavaria. He began to wonder where such masses of stone had come from. During the summer of 1835 he made some excursions to the Bavarian Alps. Schimper came to the conclusion that ice must have been the means of transport for the boulders in the alpine upland. In the winter of 1835 to 1836 he held some lectures in Munich. Schimper then assumed that there must have been global times of obliteration (“Verödungszeiten“) with a cold climate and frozen water. Schimper spent the summer months of 1836 at Devens, near Bex, in the Swiss Alps with his former university friend Louis Agassiz (1801–1873) and Jean de Charpentier. Schimper, de Charpentier and possibly Venetz convinced Agassiz that there had been a time of glaciation. During Winter 1836/7 Agassiz and Schimper developed the theory of a sequence of glaciations. They mainly drew upon the preceding works of Venetz, of de Charpentier and on their own fieldwork. . . . At the beginning of 1837 Schimper coined the term ice age (“Eiszeit“).  In July 1837 Agassiz presented their synthesis before the annual meeting of the Schweizerische Naturforschende Gesellschaft at Neuchâtel. The audience was very critical or even opposed the new theory because it contradicted the established opinions on climatic history. Most contemporary scientists thought that the earth had been gradually cooling down since its birth as a molten globe.

"In order to overcome this rejection, Agassiz embarked on geological fieldwork. He published his book Studies on Glaciers (Études sur les glaciers) in 1840. De Charpentier was put out by this as he had also been preparing a book about the glaciation of the Alps. De Charpentier felt that Agassiz should have given him precedence as it was he who had introduced Agassiz to in-depth glacial research. Besides that, Agassiz had, as a result of personal quarrels, omitted any mention of Schimper in his book. Altogether, it took several decades until the ice age theory was fully accepted. This happened on an international scale in the second half of the 1870’s" (Wikipedia article on Ice Age, accessed 11-04-2009).

In 1837 Agassiz may have been the first to propose in a formal scientific way that the Earth had been subject to a past ice age. Charpentier did not publish his Essai sur les glaciers et sur le terrain erratique du bassin du Rhone until a year after Agassiz published Etudes sur les glaciers. Agassiz's work, which appeared simultaneously in both French and German editions, consisting of a text volume and a splendid and visually impressive folio atlas of lithographs, undoubtedly received the lions' share of attention relative to Charpentier's more modest production.

Though Karl Schimper may also have originated the idea of glaciation, and proposed the radical idea that ice sheets had once covered much of Europe, Asia, and North America, Schimper never published his ideas. He discussed them with Louis Agassiz, who went on to appropriate the ideas as his own and, much to Schimper's and Charpentier's dismay, undeservedly received most of the credit for their origination.

Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) nos. 17 & 462.

Mathematician Pierre François Verhulst publishes "Notice sur la loi que la population suit dans son accrossement" in Correspondance mathématique et physique X, 113–121.

In this paper Verhulst constructed the simplest mathematical model of a continuously growing population with an upper limit to its size. "The concept of r/K selection theory derives its name from the competing dynamics of exponential growth and environmental limitation introduced here" (Wikipedia article on Pierre François Verhulst, accessed 01-13-2009).

American educator and president of the Boston Society of Natural History, George B. Emerson, publishes A Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts.

This non-technical guide to the state's principal trees, which grew out of a zoological and botanical survey of Massachusetts which Emerson headed, was one of the earliest pleas for "a wiser economy" in the use of forests and a pioneering treatise on conservation.

" 'The cunning foresight of the Yankee,' George Emerson complained,' seems to desert him when takes the axe in hand.' The wanton destruction of the state's woodlands was endangering not only wildlife and the ecological order, but the very basis of the human economy as well. It is not generally remembered today that until 1870 the United States took the vast part of its energy and materials from the forest. For 250 years, from the first settlement to the advent of steel fabrication, America lived in an age of wood. The people of Massachusetts, numbering almost 750,000 when Emerson wrote his book, had to take from the forests almost every product they made: houses furniture, ships, wagons. sleighs, bridges, brooms,whips, shovels, hoes. casks, boxes. baskets, bootjacks. From the maples they got sugar, from hickories and chestnuts a good supply of nuts. Most basic was their cordwood for winter fuel; according to Emerson, this fuel, costing an average of four dollars a cord, was annually worth five million dollars. The railroads required another 55,000 cords, chiefly pine, for their locomotives. Altogether, then, the state could not have survived without a steady, cheap supply of trees. Even the bark was needed for tanning leather, while sumac and barberry roots supplied valuable dyes to the cloth industry. Yet each year the forests were recklessly cut away, and no provision was made to replant and protect them. By the 1840s Massachusetts was already importing great quantities of both hard- and softwood from Maine and New York; and Emerson warned that 'even those foreign resources are fast failing us.'

"At best, then, the practical art of woodland management existed only at a primitive level in New England. In 1838 Emerson canvassed some of the more knowledgeable people of Massachusetts to gather a fund of folk wisdom for the future. Two chief principles emerged from his survey to guide the woodsman in cutting: for timber, select only the more mature trees, but for fuel, cut the entire woodland 'clean and close.' In the latter case the consensus of opinion was that the forest would renew itself enough to be profitably cut again every twenty-three years, though the average would vary widely from species to species. 'When the trees are principally oak, white, black, and scarlet, the forest may be clean cut three times in a century,' Emerson noted. After each cut, some of his correspondents maintained, the old stumps would sprout anew and thus perpetuate the oak woods. But in the experience of others, this seldom happened. Instead, the pines would spring up to replace the oak grove, or vice versa. It had long been a vexing problem for the state's farmers to explain why such a succession occurred, and when one's livelihood depended on whether it was oak or pine one had to sell, a reliable answer was vital. According to some countrymen, the cause lay in a magical spontaneous generation that no one could predict. Emerson, though, was sure that by some natural means the older woods must perpetually contain its successor species, either as sees lying domant in the soil or as small trees growing unobserved on the forest floor" (Worster, Nature's Economy. A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd ed. [1994] 68-69).

U.S. Congressman from Vermont, George Perkins Marsh, speaks to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, calling attention to the destructive impact of human activity on the land, especially through deforestation, and advocating a conservationist approach to the management of forested lands.

In 1848 Marsh's speech was published as Address Delivered Before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Sept. 30, 1847.

American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, abolitionist, surveyor, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Concord (Massachusetts) Lyceum declaring that "in Wildness is the preservation of the World."

In 1863, this address was published posthumously as the essay "Walking" in Thoreau's Excursions.

American astronomer, oceanographer, meteorologist and cartographer, Matthew Fontaine Maury, publishes The Physical Geography of the Sea.

Maury's book was most widely read study of the oceans published in the nineteenth century, and the first book to deal exclusively with marine science since Marsigli's Histoire physique de la mer (1725). The book grew out of Maury's work as superintendent of the Naval Observatiory and Hydrographic Office in compiling observations, mostly of wind and weather, for use in the navigation of sailing ships. Paying more attention to the atmosphere than to the waters of the sea, Maury presented the first attempt at forumulating a general system of circulation of the atmosphere, and derived from it many features of the climates of the earth.

However, Maury was not a professionally trained scientist, and his system was not acceptable to the professional scientists of his day, but by provoking refutations his book did bring about valuable advances toward understanding the mechanism of the atmosphere. From a "scientific" standpoint, the most worthwhile part of Maury's book was his account of observations of the temperature of the surface of the sea and of the relief and sedments of its bed, largely made under his direction on vessels of the U.S. Navy.

Deacon, Scientists and the Sea 1650-1900 (1971) 293-295.  Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 1463.

Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Middlesex (Massachusetts) Agricultural Society, entitled "The Succession of Forest Trees."

In this speech Thoreau analyzed aspects of what later came to be understood as forest ecology and urged farmers to plant trees in natural patterns of succession. The address was later published in (among other places) Excursions, becoming "perhaps his most influential ecological contribution to conservationist thought." 

Diplomat, philologist and environmentalist George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action. 

Called "the fountainhead of the conservation movement" (Mumford, The Brown Decades, 78), Marsh's pioneering work gave a comprehensive scientific account of man's enormous and often destructive impact on the physical world.  Marsh warned of the dangers of the reckless misuse of land then endemic in the United States, pointing to the ruined lands of the Mediterranean region as an example of America's probable future, and called for a program to restore and rebuild the land.  His work had a significant influence on conservation movements both in the United States and in Europe, in part because of his practical orientation: he recognized the role that science must play in any rational program of land management, and believed that natural resources could be used under proper limits to improve the lot of humankind. 

Hook & Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (1991) no. 1443.

American journalist, landscape architect and planner Frederick Law Olmsted submits a "Preliminary Report upon the Yosemite and Big Tree Grove" to the Commissioners of California's new Yosemite park. 

This was the first work to establish the philosophical justification for public preservation of great natural scenery on the basis of its unique capacity to enhance human psychological, physical, and social health.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/cnchron1.html

British naturalist, explorer, and evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace publishes The Malay Archipelago.

"The preface summarizes Wallace’s travels, the thousands of specimens he collected, and some of the results from their analysis after his return to England. The first chapter describes the physical geography and geology of the islands with particular attention to the role of volcanoes and earthquakes. It also discusses the overall pattern of the flora and fauna including the fact that the islands can be divided, by what would eventually become known as the Wallace line, into 2 parts, those whose animals are more closely related to those of Asia and those whose fauna is closer to that of Australia. The following chapters then describe in detail the places Wallace visited. Wallace includes numerous observations on the people, their languages, ways of living, and social organization, as well as on the plants and animals found in each location. He talks about the biogeographic patterns he observes and their implications for natural history, both in terms of biology (evolution ) and the geologic history of the region. He also narrates some of his personal experiences during his travels. The final chapter is an overview of the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural divisions among the people who live in the region and speculation about what such divisions might indicate about their history. The book is dedicated to Charles Darwin" (Wikipedia article on The Malay Archipelago, accessed 05-08-2009).

American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer George Bird Grinell becomes founding editor and publisher of Forest and Stream magazine. "It was dedicated to the conservation of wild life, induced the birth of the National Association of Audubon Societies, sponsored the National Park Movement, the U. S.- Canada treaty on migratory birds, lately the Migratory Bird Sanctuary Bill in Congress" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,739586,00.html, accessed 01-18-2009).

British naturalist, explorer, and evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace publishes The Geographical Distribution of Animals.

Wallace studied the fauna of the Malay peninsula and was struck both with its resemblances to and differences from that of South America. His research expanded into this world-wide study—the first comprehensive world-wide study of zoogeography, illustrated with numerous thematic maps.

German zoologist and environmentalist Karl August Möbius publishes Die Auster und de Austernwirschaft.

In this study of oyster culture precipitated by the impoverishment of natural oyster beds, Mobius provided the earliest description of a marine animal community maintained in a state of equilibrium by limitations of resources.  He was the

"first to describe in detail the interactions between the different organisms in the ecosystem of the oyster bank, coining the term 'biocenose'. This remains a key term in synecology (community ecology)" (Wikipedia article on Karl Möbius, accessed 01-13-2009).

J. Norman (ed.) Morton's Medical Bibliography, 5th ed. (1991) No. 145.61.

Forest and Stream magazine editor George Bird Grinnell, appalled by the negligent mass slaughter of birds that he saw taking place, urges the formation of the National Audubon Society for the protection of wild birds and their eggs.  "The public response to Grinnell's call for the protection of fowl was said to be instant and impressive: Within a year of its foundation, the early Audubon Society claimed 39,000 members, each of whom signed a pledge to 'not molest birds.' Prominent members included jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., abolitionist minister Henry Ward Beecher, and poet John Greenleaf Whittier" (Wikipedia article on National Audubon Society, accessed 01-18-2009).

The first Chief of the Illinois Natural History Survey, and founder of aquatic ecosystem science, Stephen Alfred Forbes publishes "The Lake as a Microcosm" in the Bulletin of the Scientific Association of Peoria, Illinois.

Forbes was the first to apply ecological principles to limnology. He emphasized population regulation and the dynamic nature of the community.

About 77 windmill factories scattered across the United States employ about 1,100 workers. They sell water-pumping windmills to railroads, who need water for their steam locomotives, and to farmers, to pump water for their animals.

John Muir and a group of professors from the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University found the Sierra Club in San Francisco. It is the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States.

"The Club's first goals included establishing Glacier and Mount Rainier national parks, convincing the California legislature to give Yosemite Valley to the US Federal government, and saving California's coastal redwoods. Muir escorted President Theodore Roosevelt through Yosemite in 1903, and two years later the California legislature ceded Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to the Federal government. The Sierra Club won its first lobbying victory with the creation of the country's second national park, after Yellowstone in 1872. In the first decade of the 1900s, the Sierra Club became embroiled in the famous Hetch Hetchy controversy that divided preservationists from "resource management" conservationists. For years the city of San Francisco had been having problems with a privately-owned water company that provided poor service at high prices. Mayor James D. Phelan’s reform administration wanted to set up a municipally-owned water utility and revived an earlier proposal to dam the Hetch Hetchy valley. The final straw was the water company's failure to provide adequate water to fight the fires that destroyed much of the city following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Gifford Pinchot, a progressive supporter of public utilities and head of the US Forest Service, which then had jurisdiction over the national parks, supported the creation Hetch Hetchy dam. Muir appealed to his friend US President Roosevelt, who would not commit himself against the dam, given its popularity with the people of San Francisco (a referendum in 1908 confirmed a seven-to-one majority in favor of the dam and municipal water). Muir and attorney William Colby began a national campaign against the dam, attracting the support of many eastern conservationists. With the 1912 election of US President Woodrow Wilson, who carried San Francisco, supporters of the dam had a friend in the White House. The bill to dam Hetch Hetchy passed Congress in 1913, and so the Sierra Club lost its first major battle. In retaliation, the Club supported creation of the National Park Service in 1916, to remove the parks from Forest Service oversight. Stephen Mather, a Club member from Chicago and an opponent of Hetch Hetchy dam, became the first National Park Service director" (Wikipedia article on Sierra Club)

Swedish physical chemist Svante Arrhenius publishes "Ueber den Einfluss der atmosphärischen Kohlensäregehalts auf die Temperatur der Erdoberfläche" Bihan til kungliga vetenskapaskademiens handlingar 22, no. 1 (1896) 102ff.  Excerpts of this paper were translated as "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground," Philosophical Magazine 41 (1896) 237-276.

This paper was "the first to quantify the impact of carbon dioxide on the Earth's greenhouse effect and to suggest that its variations have been an important influence on previous long-term changes in climate. His crude estimate that a doubling of carbon dioxide would result in a ~5 °C warming is larger but not greatly different from the 1.5-4.5 °C now estimated for such a doubling (IPCC 2001)" (http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Arrhenius_pdf, accessed 04-26-2009).

Urban planner Ebenezer Howard publishes To-Morrow: A peaceful path to real reform. This book is the origin of the garden city movement, which sought to remedy the evils caused by uncontrolled urban growth and rural depopulation by building planned communities of limited size combining the best features of both city and country, whose construction would be motivated not by private interest but by the best interests of the inhabitants. Howard's movement inspired the foundation of numerous garden cities throughout the world, embodying his principles either wholly or in part. It also had important effects on the more general problem of urban development, drawing people's attention to the necessity for controlling the growth of towns and cities-the modern city planning department can be said to owe its existence to Howard.

Howard believed wholly in the rightness of his ideas, and was very successful in inspiring others to do the same. Although he remained poor all his life, his powers of persuasion were such that he was able to obtain financing for the construction of two garden cities in England. Carter & Muir, Printing and the Mind of Man (1967) No. 387.

Swedish physical chemist Svante Arrhenius publishes Das Werden der Welten. In this work he was the first to predict the possibility of man-made global warming. His prediction that significant global warming would take ~3000 years to develop is now recognized as a substantial underestimate due in part to his failure to foresee the rapid increases in fossil fuel use during the twentieth century.

Industrial and environmental chemist Ellen Henrietta (Swallow) Richards publishes Conservation by Sanitation: Air and Water Supply; Disposal of Waste, a work which is particularly concerned with the management of water pollution and its effect on human health.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/cnchron5.html

American zoologist, realtor, conservationist, author, poet and songwriter William Temple Hornaday publishes Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation, "one of the first books wholly devoted to endangered wild animals" (in the words of historian Stephen Fox). http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amrvhtml/cnchron6.html, accessed 01-19-2009.

Hornaday "revolutionized museum exhibits by displaying wildlife in their natural settings, and is credited with discovering the American crocodile, saving the American bison and the Alaskan fur seal from extinction" (Wikipedia article on William Temple Hornaday, accessed 01-19-2009).

Plant ecologist Frederic E. Clements publishes Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation. It is a seminal work of ecological science, establishing a dynamic model of species succession toward an eventual "climax" equilibrium under the influence of climate and other factors in a given habitat.

"From his observations of the vegetation of Nebraska and the western United States, Clements developed one of the most influential theories of vegetation development. Vegetation cover does not represent a permanent condition but gradually changes over time. Clements suggested that the development of vegetation can be understood as a sequence of stages resembling the development of an individual organism. After a complete or partial disturbance, vegetation grows back (under ideal conditions) towards a mature "climax state," which describes the vegetation best suited to the local conditions. Though any actual instance of vegetation might follow the ideal sequence towards climax, it can be interpreted in relation to that sequence, as a deviation from it due to non-ideal conditions" (Wikipedia article on Frederick Clements, accessed 01-19-2009).

Mathematician and mathematical biologist Vito Volterra publishes "Varizioni e fluttuazioni del numero d'individui in specie animali conviventi" in Mem. R. Acad. Naz. dei Lincei (ser.6) II, 31-113.

This work was translated into English and published in the journal Nature the same year as "Fluctuations in the abundance of a species considered mathematically". In this paper Volterra created the basic equations for two species interactions.

English biologist and animal ecologist Charles Sutherland Elton publishes Animal Ecology.

In Animal Ecology Elton integrated the concepts of food chains, pyramids of numbers, and the "niche" into a useful framework for ecology.

"In the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds of thousands of electricity-producing wind turbines were built in the U.S. Just like wind turbines today, they had two or three thin blades, which rotated at high speeds to drive electrical generators. These wind turbines provided electricity to farms beyond the reach of power lines and were typically used to charge storage batteries, operate radios and power a few lights" (Michigan renewable energy, accessed 04-20-2009).

Robert Marshall, chief of recreation and lands for the Forest Service, Aldo Leopold, noted wildlife ecologist and later author of A Sand County Almanac, Robert Sterling Yard, publicist for the National Park Service, Benton MacKaye, the "Father of the Appalachian Trail", Ernest Oberholtzer, Harvey Broome, Bernard Frank, and Harold C. Anderson found The Wilderness Society.

"Since 1935, The Wilderness Society has led the conservation movement in wilderness protection, writing and passing the landmark Wilderness Act and winning lasting protection for 107 million acres of Wilderness, including 56 million acres of spectacular lands in Alaska, eight million acres of fragile desert lands in California and millions more throughout the nation" (The Wilderness Society website).

During World War II Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller of Geigy Pharmaceutical discovers the high efficiency of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) as a contact poison against several athropods.

During World War II DDT was used with great effect among both military and civilian populations to control mosquitoes spreading malaria and lice transmitting typhus, resulting in dramatic reductions in the incidence of both diseases.

In 1948 Müller received the Nobel Prize in Biology and Medicine for this discovery, which is thought to have saved the lives of over 21,000,000 people worldwide. After the war, DDT was made available for use as an agricultural insecticide, and its production and use skyrocketed with unexpected disastrous effects upon the environment. 

As a result of the 1962 book, Silent Spring, by American marine biologist and nature writer, Rachel Carson, noticed in this database, the disastrous consequences of DDT began to be understood by politicians and the public, and DDT was eventually banned in the United States in 1972.

Raymond L. Lindeman publishes "The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology" in the journal Ecology XXIII, 399-418.  This work was characterized by Robert McIntosh as the "birth of ecosytem ecology". Lindeman described energy flow in ecosystems in a form amenable to productive abstract analysis.

J. Norman (ed.) Morton's Medical Bibliography 5th ed. (1991) No. 145.67.

A Sand County Almanac by American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold is published one year after his death. A combination of natural history, philosophy, and poetic writing, it has informed the environmental movement. "It is perhaps best known for the following quote, which defines his land ethic: 'A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.' The concept of a trophic cascade is put forth in the chapter Thinking Like a Mountain, wherein Leopold realizes that killing a predator wolf carries serious implications for the rest of the ecosystem" (Wikipedia article on Aldo Leopold, accessed 01-18-2209).

Staff Members of the Institute of Meteorology, University of Stockholm publish "Results of Forecasting with the Barotropic Model on an Electronic Computer (BESK)," Tellus 6 (1954): 139-149.

"The Royal Swedish Air Force Weather Service in Stockholm was first in the world to begin routine real-time numerical weather forecasting (i.e., with broadcast of forecasts in advance of weather). The Institute of Meteorology at the University of Stockholm, associated with the eminent meteorologist Carl-Gustaf Rossby, developed the model. Forecasts for the North Atlantic region were made three times a week on the Swedish BESK computer using a barotropic model, starting in December, 1954" (P. N. Edwards, Atmospheric General Circulation Modeling: A Participatory History).

Theoretical meterologist Norman A. Phillips publishes "The General Circulation of the Atmosphere: A Numerical Experiment," Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 82, no. 352 (1956) 123-164.  By 1955 Phillips completed a 2-layer, hemispheric, quasi-geostrophic computer model. "Despite its primitive nature, Phillips's model is now often regarded as the first AGCM" (P. N. Edwards, Atmospheric General Circulation Modeling: A Participatory History, accessed 06-20-2009)

"Norman Phillips was the first to show, with a simple General Circulation model, that weather prediction with numerical models was even feasible. The advent of numerical weather predictions in the 1950s also signaled the transformation of weather forecasting from a highly individualistic effort to one in which teams of experts developed complex computer programs, eventually for high-speed computers" (Franklin Institute, Franklin Laureate database, accessed 06-20-2009).

Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring.

This very carefully documented book convincingly proved the disastrous effects of DDT in the environment, and generated a storm of controversy. It was later credited with founding the "environmental movement" in the United States.

American ecologist Robert McArthur and American biologist E. O. Wilson publish The Theory of Island Biogeography. In this work they showed that the species richness of an area could be predicted in terms of such factors as habitat area, immigration rate and extinction rate.

"Island biogeography is a field within biogeography that attempts to establish and explain the factors that affect the species richness of natural communities. The theory was developed to explain species richness of actual islands. It has since been extended to mountains surrounded by deserts, lakes surrounded by dry land, forest fragments surrounded by human-altered landscapes. Now it is used in reference to any ecosystem surrounded by unlike ecosystems. The field was started in the 1960s by the ecologists Robert MacArthur and E.O. Wilson, who coined the term theory of island biogeography, as this theory attempted to predict the number of species that would exist on a newly created island.

"For biogeographical purposes, an 'island' is any area of suitable habitat surrounded by an expanse of unsuitable habitat. While this may be a traditional island—a mass of land surrounded by water—the term may also be applied to many untraditional 'islands', such as the peaks of mountains, isolated springs in the desert, or expanses of grassland surrounded by highways or housing tracts. Additionally, what is an island for one organism may not be an island for another: some organisms located on mountaintops may also be found in the valleys, while others may be restricted to the peaks" (Wikipedia article on Island biogeography, accessed 05-08-2009).

President Richard Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act  of 1973, designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a:

"consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."

"The stated purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect species and also "the ecosystems upon which they depend." It encompasses plants and invertebrates as well as vertebrates. It does not expressly include fungi, which were widely considered to be plants in 1973, [but which are now considered more closely related to animals than plants.]

"ESA is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (which includes the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS). NOAA handles marine species, and the FWS has responsibility over freshwater fish and all other species. Species that occur in both habitats (e.g. sea turtles and Atlantic sturgeon) are jointly managed."

"Few species have become extinct while listed under the Endangered Species Act, and 93% in the northeastern US have had their population sizes increase or remain stable since being listed as threatened or endangered. As of August, 28, 2008, there are 1,327 species on the threatened and endangered lists. However, many species have become extinct while on the candidate list or otherwise under consideration for listing" (Wikipedia article on Endangered Species Act, accessed 06-13-2009).

"In 1993, Dr. Glen Barry invented blogging, defined as web based commentary, linking to other articles. The "Forest Protection Blog" (originally entitled "Gaia's Forest Conservation Archives") at http://forests.org/blog/ was also the first political blog, as Dr. Barry campaigned there for forest protection and documented these efforts as his Ph.D. project. The first blog initially used the gopher protocol, and has been on the web continuously since Jan. 1995, making it the web's first and longest continuously running blog. Prior to this, Dr. Barry provided forest conservation materials via email and bulletin board since 1989. The work has since evolved into the world's largest environmental portals at http://www.ecoearth.info/" (Wikipedia article on History of blogging timeline, accessed 04-21-2009).

Avatar, an American science fiction epic film written and directed by film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and inventor James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang, is first released in London.

"The film is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system. Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, while the Na'vi—a race of indigenous humanoids—resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandoran ecosystem. The film's title refers to the genetically engineered bodies used by the film's characters to interact with the Na'vi.

"Avatar had been in development since 1994 by Cameron, who wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Titanic, and the film would have been released in 1999, but according to Cameron, 'technology needed to catch up' with his vision of the film. In early 2006, Cameron developed the script, as well as the language and culture of the Na'vi. He said sequels would be possible if Avatar was successful, and in response to the film's success, confirmed that there will be another two.

"The film was released in traditional 2-D, as well as 3-D, RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, and IMAX 3D formats. Avatar is officially budgeted at $237 million; other estimates put the cost at $280–310 million to produce and $150 million for marketing. The film is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of filmmaking technology, for its development of 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking with cameras that were specially designed for the film's production.

"Avatar premiered in London, UK on December 10, 2009, and was released on December 18, 2009 in the US and Canada to critical acclaim and commercial success. It grossed $27 million on its opening day domestically (in the United States and Canada) and $77 million domestically on its opening weekend. It opened two days earlier internationally and grossed $232 million worldwide in its first five days of international release. Within three weeks of its release, with a worldwide gross of over $1 billion, Avatar became the second highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, exceeded only by Cameron's previous film, Titanic" (Wikipedia article on Avatar (2009 film), accessed 01-16-2010).

♦ From my perspective the most significant aspect of Avatar, apart from its breathtaking computer graphic animation, and the fascinating artificial culture and language of the Na'vi, was the convincing portrayal of a total virtual reality experience. The film presented a vision of a reality that I could not have imagined before viewing. In its presentation of a new view of reality it is reminiscent of the 1982 film, Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott.

Another aspect of the film that is highly timely is its depiction of the struggle between destructive exploitation of natural resources versus living in harmony with nature.