Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 56

conservative peasantry in a land dominated by rural estates. Others wrote
against the decadence and degeneration due to industrialization. They
despaired that life in the dirty, overcrowded cities without fresh air and
contact with nature was leading to a long-term decline of the human spe-
cies. Data from the army showed that recruits from the big cities were
unhealthy compared to those from the countryside. Besides concern with
nature, these reformers also wanted to preserve old buildings. City plan-
ning developed as a profession, with the first journal published in Berlin.
Critics of urban decay and of capitalism closely followed the writings of
Englishmen such as John Ruskin and William Morris. 2
By the turn of the 20th century, more and more Germans were par-
ticipating in outdoor recreation. They spent their Sundays and their
summer vacations in the mountains and countryside hiking, climbing,
and boating. Young people joined wandervogel clubs. Hundreds of thou-
sands of people engaged in “life reform” activities such as vegetarianism,
nudism, temperance, and unconventional living arrangements. Others
worked to bring nature back to the city by forming garden clubs. Ernst
Rudorff sought laws to preserve hedgerows and to prevent streams from
being straightened. 3 In the 1890s, Prussia and other states (Lander) within
the empire enacted laws to protect natural monuments such as old trees,
waterfalls, and geological formations.
Ordinary citizens had protested against air and water pollution. Three
times in the 18th century—1714, 1721, and 1778—people in Stuttgart
petitioned to stop the silting and pollution of the Nesenbach River. In
the 19th century, citizens of Hamburg objected to pollution of the Elbe
River. In 1895 residents of a suburb of Hamburg blocked construction
of a foundry because it violated the residential and agricultural charac-
ter of the area. The national government in 1869 adopted an industrial
ordinance providing for permits for effluents and licenses prior to con-
struction of new facilities. 4 In 1895 the government passed the Technical
Guidelines for Air Purity.
As early as 1817 hydraulic engineers began straightening and diking
the Rhine River to control floods and improve navigation. The negative
consequences were to erode alluvial soil, lower the water table, increase
sediments, and destroy floodplains and marshes. Nevertheless, floods
continued. Cities and industries dumped their wastes. Factories on the
banks of the Rhine emitted sulfur dioxide, resulting in acid rain that
killed the forests. The Ruhr River suffered more. In this coal mining