9781422274057

A memorial to John Muir near the visitors’ center at Yosemite National Park, California. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Muir was the foremost advocate for preserving unspoiled wildlife. He helped to create the Sierra Club, which today remains an important organization dedicated to preserving the environment.

Theodore Roosevelt became the president of the United States. Roosevelt was a well known advocate of conserva- tion. At one time he wrote, “We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished

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Contemporary Issues: The Environment