FINAL ESSAY- THE FOUNDATIONS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM
             John Muir was one of the first preservationists. He strongly believed that the land as a whole should not be touched by man and that the world's resources should not be greedily spent. He felt that it was his job to live the way that he felt god would. When he was a young man, he was blinded by an accident in the factory he was working in. After he made a miraculous recovery, he promised to himself that he would seek out the wilderness, and see the world as it should be. He founded the Sierra Club, an organization dedicated to preserving the wilderness. "No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable an obstacle in a way of a right understanding of the relations which culture sustains as to wilderness, as that which declares that the world was made especially for the uses of men. Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged."
             Gifford Pinchot was the only son of a rich New York family. His parents were regular guests at the White House, and his mother and father pushed him to be very successful. At the time, forestry as a career was unheard of, but his father pushed him to try new things, so he started studying forestry. He was the first to try selective logging, leaving the very young trees and the very old trees and taking the middle aged ones. He believed that one could still enjoy nature while using some of its resources, and that nature could be improved for the public good. "World-wide practice of Conservation and the fair and continued access by all nations to the resources they need are the two indispensable foundations of continuous plenty and of permanent peace."
             Aldo Leopold, an ecologist, naturalist, and conservationist, was born i...