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So America had been working its natural resources pretty hard

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there'd always been plenty so there was no way we'd run out right well just [Fuel gauge moves to empty]

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about everyone from farmers overworking the soil to miners digging up the earth

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and paving the way for some serious erosion with taking the environment for

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granted after a while all the nature lovers watching forests being replaced [Man appears in forest]

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by factories got mad and got to work enter the Sierra Club formed in 1892 it

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was an organization created with the single-minded goal of saving the

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wilderness way to think big guys appreciated well the president of Sierra

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Club was the famous preservationist John Muir

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who was kind of like the real world version of the Lorax

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he was even as orange as the lorac seriously we didn't manipulate that [John Muir with colored beard on paint page]

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photo at all and we shmoop did right here - you have any questions anyway

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yours first big task stopping the sale of public lands to private developers [Muir points to for sale sign of public land]

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see there was a whole lot of land under public care either waiting to be

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preserved or to be developed into the world's biggest public ball pit you know [Man laying in a ball pit]

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it's pending on the environmental ideology of the government it's done a

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lot depended on who came into office and luckily for conservationists in came

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Teddy Roosevelt well after duly considering the public

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ball pit idea Roosevelt voted with his heart he loved

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the outdoors and thought roughing it in nature was good for the body and the [Roosevelt riding a horse under a rainbow]

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soul in the end he decided it was time he and John Muir start making beautiful

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music together so Teddy threw his weight behind the [Newlands Reclamation Act appears]

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Newlands reclamation act of 1902 which encouraged fledgling home and land

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owners to move into non irrigated or arid land if you heard that right it

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encouraged homeowners and farmers into living in the desert as well how did [Men walk onto desert land]

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they survive well the Act also subsidized the cost of the land allowing

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the new desert dwellers the extra cash to pay for irrigation so the government

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basically said here's some cheap desert land now go water it yourself

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but most people didn't seem to mind for many this was a win-win since the [Farmer sitting on top of podium]

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government took in some nice revenue from the sale

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love these public lands and private developers got a whopping discount on

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the whole thing plus with everyone working together to irrigate large

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swatches of dry land over a million previously barren acres were recovered [Barren land appears]

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for farming well as a result population in the previously too dry to live in

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West started growing only the desert-dwelling chupacabra was [Chupacabra appears in the desert]

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displeased to our town after a manly man camping retreat in

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Yellowstone Park with John Muir Roosevelt decided to take the Newlands

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reclamation act even further stating that some pieces of the American

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wilderness had to remain completely untouched in 1891 law let roosevelt

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designate over a hundred fifty million acres of american land of national

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forests by the time he left office these areas could never legally be developed

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and would remain wild forever kind of like a crazy college roommate who never [Wild animals in a field]

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did anything with his life only a whole lot more pleasant to be around [Man sleeping on a couch]

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