Not in Our Backyard: The People and Events That Shaped America's Modern Environmental Movement

April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, saw the largest demonstration in U.S. history; 20 million people took to the streets. Eight years earlier, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring had alerted Americans to environmental destruction. Here Redmond, managing editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian , and freelance journalist Mowrey review major events of the environmental movement in the past two decades. These include the nuclear threat of Three Mile Island, the toxic poisoning near the Love Canal and the environmental impact of the West Side Highway in New York City. Also covered are the efforts of ecological saboteurs, outraged housewives tracking toxic dumps and other grassroot activists. Readers may be surprised to learn that in 1991, then-Senator Al Gore cast the deciding vote to block the repeal of the 1872 General Mining Law, and that David Souter, then New Hampshire Attorney General, was accused, though not charged, with improper activities in prosecuting the Clamshell Alliance (1977-78). This is a lively account of struggles to protect and improve the environment since the first Earth Day. (Dec.)