Environmental Protection in the USA

One of the consequences of high consumption combined with resource abundance is a strong disruption of the physical environment. Probably due to this factor Americans are so deeply concerned about the environmental issues. There were the times when Americans could not even think that the resources of their continent would sometime be exhausted. In the 1960s it was at last understood that there were real environmental problems.

It is often said that the world environmental movement began in 1962 with the publishing of a little book called “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson. It changed the views of a whole generation on scientific progress and the attitude to the world around them. DDT, a powerful pesticide, was invented during WWII. In 1948 its inventor, a Swiss scientist, got the Nobel Prize for it. And only in 14 years “Silent Spring” proved that killing insects means killing birds and fish – and finally – people. In 1972 US prohibited using pesticides of this kind.

The environmental thinking is rooted in the ideas that were developed as early as in 19^th century by Henry David Thoreau – a famous poet and thinker who believed strongly that people should live a simple life in harmony with nature. As an experiment, he lived for two years (1845 – 47) in a small wooden house in Massachusetts, and then wrote about it in “ Walden, or Life in the Woods” (1854).

In 1830s, the idea of wild prairies conservation was suggested. Yellowstone, the first national park in the world, was established in 1872. Conservation became a political movement. In 1890 Yosemite Park, Sequoia Park and General Grant Park were founded by John Moor, a famous politician. Now there are about 50 large national parks in the USA. The most popular one is the Great Smoky Mountains in the Appalachians. Many others are well known for some special feature, such as the Grand Canyon, the Everglades and the Petrified Forest. The area of all the US national parks is larger than the area of Great Britain. Over 200 million people visit them every year.

In 1892 John Moor founded Sierra Club, which is now one of the most influential environmental organizations in the world with its 650000 members. This club was the first to warn the society about the devastating consequences of acid rains.

There are many other non-profit environmental organizations, for example the Audubon Society, created in 1905. It works to protect birds and wild animals, and the places where they live and breed.

The public opinion was reflected in thousands of federal, state and local environmental laws adopted since 1960s. The Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) is a government organization that was started in 1970. It establishes rules and standards for protecting the environment.

37. As of 2012, the United States has a total resident population of 313,490,000, making it the third most populous country in the world.1 It is a very urbanized population, with 82% residing in cities and suburbs as of 2008 (the worldwide urban rate is 50.5%2). This leaves vast expanses of the country nearly uninhabited.3 California and Texas are the most populous states,4 as the mean center of United States population has consistently shifted westward and southward.5 New York City is the most populous city in the United States.

Just as the global economy waxes and wanes, so the patterns of trends affecting global mobility change. In the past, many of these trends stemmed from companies' experiences as they responded to the challenges of globalisation, and the US was certainly primary in promoting and shaping globalisation and the patterns of mobility support that came with it.

But is the United States still the main driver when it comes to generating the trends and innovations we see in the industry?

A significant trend that has shaped mobility in the last ten to 15 years is undoubtedly that of outsourcing. This has been a US-driven phenomenon, although other parts of the world are making steady progress with it.

Nowadays, trends themselves are often more globally based and are not as likely to emanate from one particular region. There are many reasons for this. Large and complex organisations may not be headquartered in one particular location, such as the US, but, instead, be organised around a group of business units and functions that may be headquartered across two or more continents.

The need to mitigate the cost of mobility programmes by focusing on flexibility and value and the importance of aligning mobility with how talent is managed in organisations has led to the development of changes to mobility programmes that are not driven by the needs of a particular region.

Regional drivers have not completely disappeared, but they are different, in that they may come from newly emerging regions where economies are showing strong growth.

Consumption is defined as the value of goods and services bought by people. Individual buying acts are aggregated over time and space. Many persons judge the economic performance of their country mainly in terms of consumption level and dynamics. The United States population is wealthier, older and more educated in these times. It is stated in an article published by the USDA that US demographic changes are likely to become more demographic in the years to come.

The Economic Research Service (ERS) has undertaken an extensive effort to project how population growth, an aging population, ethnic diversity, and income growth will affect future food choices and how the food system will respond to such changes. Convenience and the demand for quick options that fit with time pressured lifestyles are clear catalysts behind the switch from cooking from scratch to using partly and fully prepared ingredients. A further driver is also the lack of knowledge and skills to prepare meals from scratch.

Few people want to spend time on domestic tasks like cooking from scratch and home cooking, choosing instead convenient options for the majority of occasions and cooking from scratch when they want to rather than when they need to. Over one in two (55%) choose to spend 30 minutes or less preparing and cooking their main meal with 1 in 10 (11%) spending less than 10 minutes. (Blisard, Lin, Cromartie, & Ballinger, 2002).

Income is the most significant factor determining the level of consumption. Changes in wealth and changes in the rate of interest have little impact on short term consumption. This means that the consumption function is relatively stable and so...

The culture of the United States is a Western culture originally influenced by European cultures. It has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, and folklore. Today, the United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country as a result of large-scale immigration from many different countries throughout its history.

Its chief early influences came from English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish settlers of colonial America. British culture, due to colonial ties with Britain that spread the English language, legal system and other cultural inheritances, had a formative influence. Other important influences came from other parts of western Europe, especially Germany, France, and Italy.

American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, military and scientific competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist and moral elements. Despite certain consistent ideological principles (e.g. individualism, egalitarianism, and faith in freedom and democracy), American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographic diversity. The flexibility of U.S. culture and its highly symbolic nature lead some researchers to categorize American culture as a mythic identity; others see it as American exceptionalism.

It also includes elements which evolved from Native Americans, and other ethnic subcultures; most prominently the culture of African Americans and different cultures from Latin America. Many cultural elements, especially popular culture, have been exported across the globe through modern mass media.

The United States has often been thought of as a melting pot, but recent developments trend towards cultural diversity, pluralism and the image of a salad bowl rather than a melting pot. Due to the extent of American culture there are many integrated but unique social subcultures within the United States. The cultural affiliations an individual in the United States may have commonly depend on social class, political orientation and a multitude of demographic characteristics such as religious background, occupation and ethnic group membership.

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