“Interdisciplinarity” Achieved: A Brief Look at Interdisciplinary Environmentalism in the 1960s

This paper looks at the development of a new, pragmatic approach to environmentalism in the 1960s. This new approach, in response to the newly emerged and accepted field of ecology just a decade earlier, opened its reach to a wider variety of scientific and intellectual fields, resulting in a more balanced, interdisciplinary approach to environmentalism that took hold in the 1960s and was given validity with the emergence of some watershed moments in the American environmental movement: that is, Earth Day and the creation of the EPA in 1970. This study looks at some of the well-known figures in the environmental movement of the 1960s, such as Rachel Carson, and some of the lesser-known figures, such as Murray Bookchin and Stewart Brand. The focus of the study is an outline that looks at the various ways that an interdisciplinary approach to environmentalism emerged as an important aspect of the social, cultural, and political discourse of the time. Murray Bookchin’s “ecological anarchism” fused social theory with ecological concerns; Rachel Carson, a creative writer in addition to a scientist, merged environmentalism, creative writing, and scientific inquiry; Leo Marx provided a new look at the relationship of technology and the environment in a rapidly changing, postindustrial time; and, in his activism and with the publication of the Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand brought environmental thought and ecological principles into the marketplace. In the 1960s, environmental thought needed to be combined with more applicable and accessible social, political, and economic principles in order to open a larger mainstream environmental dialogue. These figures, through their respective avenues, were able to form this interdisciplinary approach that gave rise to a wider, more diverse approach to environmentalism.