When President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Prize two months ago for his thoughts on the environmental crisis that scathes our world, he mentioned that there is an interest of all nations to ìsee others elevated.”† Why, I ask, is he getting the prize for something that was said 100 years ago?
Over winter break this year I was fortunate enough to meet with James Lewis, the resident historian at the Forest History Society located in Durham, N.C. He mentioned he was working on a piece about Obamaís policies being founded 100 years ago by Theodore Roosevelt and then Chief of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot. After looking further into this, I see it as necessary to inform my fellow Wooster students of this.
In February of 1909 Roosevelt was the main speaker at a North American Conservation conference. With Pinchot in attendance, the President told his audience of the ìconservation doctrine” that the two had been developing in the eight years prior to the conference. He warned fellow leaders of things such as the overuse of timber, mineral and water resources and assured them that he was willing to head a plan to conserve these natural assets. The other leaders at the conference were looking forward to the expansion of his message to the rest of the world that was scheduled for November 1909 in the Netherlands. The Presidentís successor, William Howard Taft, however, canceled it.
Pinchot continued to emphasize his plan for conservation to every president after Taft, mentioning that it may be the only way to ìpermanent world peace.”† The younger Roosevelt began to listen when Pinchot mentioned atomic energy as part of his conservation program. After Pinchotís death in 1946 there were few people to continue his plan. The conservation movement seemed to die with the birth of the Cold War.
Obamaís speech in Copenhagen paralleled Pinchotís ideals some 60 years later. Obama stated ìit is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action ó itís military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hands in the balance.” Hopefully we can see Obama continue to deliver on conservation plans to help the crisis that could have possibly been avoided had we all listened to Pinchot in the 1940s.