While the Progressive Era saw vast reform, conservationism was its most long-lasting and revolutionary improvement, without which our nation’s environment today would be overrun with harmful industries.
In the throes of the Gilded Age, an era in which factories and industries were the staple of American life, conservationist reforms sought to regulate industrialization in order to preserve the nation’s natural resources. President Teddy Roosevelt, famous for his affinity for hunting and farming, was the first president to make conservationism a governmental concern. With massive industries destroying the nation’s environment, Roosevelt, and Chief of the Forestry Service Gifford Pinchot, established “five new national parks, protected 172 million …show more content…
The Sierra Club, a grassroots organization founded during the Progressive era, is at the forefront of many environmental battles, perhaps the most pressing one being protests against Arctic oil drilling. Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, is enraged at President Obama’s support of Shell, asking how the president “can reconcile this moves with his goals on climate change.” (CITATION) Brune and Sierra Club officials are worried about excessive carbon emissions, especially in pristine regions like the Arctic, that could compromise the land, water, and atmosphere. But perhaps equally as troubling is the rapid growth of multi-billion dollar companies like Shell. Similar to James J Hill’s sentiments in the 1900s, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders argues that clean energy will not only help clean the environment but it will take “on the fossil fuel billionaires” such as Shell, and put “people before the profits of polluters” (CITATION) Thus, conservation goes hand in hand with preventing massive corporations from exploiting honest, middle-class