Nevada's Environmental Legacy: Progress Or Plunder (shepperson Series In Nevada History)
by James W. Hulse /
2009 / English / PDF
3 MB Download
Nevada's history as a state has been largely a story of the
exploitation of its natural resources. Mining has torn down
mountains and poisoned streams and groundwater. Uncontrolled
grazing by vast herds of sheep and cattle has denuded grasslands
and left them prey to the invasion of noxious plant species and
vulnerable to wildfire. Clear-cut logging has changed the
composition of forests and induced serious soil erosion. More
recently, military testing, including hundreds of atomic blasts to
test the efficacy of nuclear weapons, has irreversibly polluted
vast expanses of fragile desert land. And rampant development
throughout the state over the past four decades, along with the
public's growing demand for recreational facilities, has placed
intolerable demands on the arid state's limited water resources and
threatened the survival of numerous rare plant and animal
species.
Nevada's history as a state has been largely a story of the
exploitation of its natural resources. Mining has torn down
mountains and poisoned streams and groundwater. Uncontrolled
grazing by vast herds of sheep and cattle has denuded grasslands
and left them prey to the invasion of noxious plant species and
vulnerable to wildfire. Clear-cut logging has changed the
composition of forests and induced serious soil erosion. More
recently, military testing, including hundreds of atomic blasts to
test the efficacy of nuclear weapons, has irreversibly polluted
vast expanses of fragile desert land. And rampant development
throughout the state over the past four decades, along with the
public's growing demand for recreational facilities, has placed
intolerable demands on the arid state's limited water resources and
threatened the survival of numerous rare plant and animal
species.
Nevada's Environmental Legacy is an informed and readable survey of
environmental policies and problems in the Silver State since the
beginning of Euro-American settlement. Historian James W. Hulse
links events in Nevada to broader national economic and political
trends and to changing perceptions of the value of the austere
ecology of the desert West. He also addresses the consequences of
new threats to environmental stability, such as overdevelopment,
and discusses recent efforts to prevent further deterioration and
reverse the damage done by decades of greed and heedless
exploitation.
Nevada's Environmental Legacy is an informed and readable survey of
environmental policies and problems in the Silver State since the
beginning of Euro-American settlement. Historian James W. Hulse
links events in Nevada to broader national economic and political
trends and to changing perceptions of the value of the austere
ecology of the desert West. He also addresses the consequences of
new threats to environmental stability, such as overdevelopment,
and discusses recent efforts to prevent further deterioration and
reverse the damage done by decades of greed and heedless
exploitation.
