Conservation efforts in the United States are generally traced to John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club in 1892. Muir wrote a series of books advocating the joys of the wilderness experience, which inspired efforts to conserve wilderness areas so that Americans could enjoy their pristine beauty. However, rising concerns about air and water pollution after World War II began to alter notions of how best to protect the earth. In 1962 Rachel Carson reflected these growing concerns in her book Silent Spring, a tale of the pesticide poisoning of man and nature. The book provoked a public outcry. Believing that conservation as advocated by Muir was no longer enough, some conservationists shifted their philosophy to environmentalism, a political movement demanding that the state not only preserve the earth but regulate and punish those who polluted it. As a result...