Care for the environment is essential to economic progress; that the natural resources of our planet are the base of all agriculture and
industry; and that only by sustaining that base can we sustain human development.  Gifford Pinchot a U.S. leader of the conservation
movement spoke of Sustainable development in the early 1900's. He fought for the development of resources and prevention of
waste for the benefit of the largest possible number of people.  His benefits that he offered to provide through environmental conservation
were short term.  For those he sought benefits for, were humans living at the time the decision was made and as close to the location
of natural resource in question as possible. On the other hand Aldo Leopold in the late 1940's called for a revolution in human consciousness
with his "land ethic" that proposed an "ecological conscience" a basis for collective responsibility.  Gathering from Leopold's land ethic it goes
beyond economic exploitation of natural resources and extends natural rights doctrine to the land, including a recognition of the intrinsic
value of the life that has no economic worth. He wrote that once human consciousness was raised it could transcend the limits and shortcomings
of largely ineffective environmental conservation laws.  Rachel Carson wrote in 1962 "Silent Spring", the response from the public dramatized the
political power of this combination of moral, ethical, cultural, political, and scientific concerns.  Her carefully  documented attack on the use of
nonselective chemicals did more to rally the public outrage behind environmentalism than any previously written statement.  Leopold's and Carson's
work provides a foundation upon which sustainable development discourse was built.
 

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