The environmental movement at Higher Level: At HL, trace each influence to what it actually changed: a law, a treaty, a shift in public opinion.
Practise this as you read
- Name the influence and its category.
- Follow it to the change it caused.
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The environmental movement was not planned. It grew from moments that changed what people believed and demanded.
A problem
- A reactor melts down
Awareness
- Images reach every home
Action
- A country changes its energy plan
Seven kinds of influence
- Individuals: an activist
- Literature: an author
- Media: a film or documentary
- Disasters
- International agreements
- New technologies
- Scientific discoveries
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An activist who planted a movement, and an author who started one.
Wangari Maathai
1940–2011, activist
Founded Kenya's Green Belt Movement (1977), which paid women to plant trees on eroded land.
What followed
- Tens of millions of trees planted.
- Nobel Peace Prize (2004), linking environment and rights.
Rachel Carson
1907–1964, author
Silent Spring (1962) traced how DDT accumulated through food chains and harmed birds of prey.
What followed
- The US Environmental Protection Agency (1970).
- DDT banned on US farms (1972).
Media: Breaking Boundaries (2021)
- A documentary with David Attenborough and Johan Rockström.
- Explained the planetary boundaries to a global audience.
Disaster: Fukushima, Japan (2011)
- A tsunami caused a nuclear meltdown.
- If it could happen in Japan, many asked, was nuclear power safe?
- Germany decided to close all its nuclear plants.
Different routes to the same end: A documentary persuades slowly; a disaster shocks at once. Both change what the public will accept.
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Agreement
- Montreal Protocol (1987).
- Phased out chemicals that destroy ozone.
Technology
- The Green Revolution (1960s).
- Raised yields, but fertiliser runoff fed new concerns.
Science
- Pesticide toxicity.
- DDT was found to build up in food chains.
Influences cut both ways: A technology can solve one problem and start a movement against its side effects, as the Green Revolution did.
How this comes up: Paper 2 part (a) [4]: four areas of influence, each named with an example.
With reference to named examples, identify four areas of influence that have shaped the environmental movement.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Set it out for the marker: Four marks, four short paragraphs, four different areas.