Throughout history, environmentalists have had a great influence not only on natural spaces, but also on our lives. Here are four influential ones.

● John Muir (1838 — 1914)

His lifelong love for hiking began when he hiked to the Gulf of Mexico in 1867. Muir spent much of his adult life wandering and fighting to preserve the wilderness of the West, especially California. His efforts led to the creation of Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park and so on.

● David Brower (1912 — 2000)

David Brower was connected with wilderness preservation. He became the Sierra Club’s first executive director in 1952, and then, over the next 17 years, the club membership grew from 2,000 to 77,000. The club achieved many environmental successes under his leadership. After leaving the club he went on to found other environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and Earth Island Institute.

● Rachel Carson (1907 — 1964)

Born in Pennsylvania, Rachel Carson studied biology at Johns Hopkins University. After working for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Carson published The Sea Around Us and other books. Her most famous work, Silent Spring, described the harmful environmental influences of pesticides (杀虫剂). After Carson’s observations were proved correct, pesticides like DDT were banned.

● Wangari Maathai (1940 — 2011)

Wangari Maathai was from Kenya. After studying biology in the US, she returned to her home country to begin a career as an environmental activist. Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which, by the early 21st century, had already planted some 30 million trees, providing jobs and firewood for rural communities. In 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

An elderly couple in the UK claimed that they were held hostage by a pair of seagulls nesting on the roof of their home. Every time they tried to leave, the birds would become aggressive and attack them.

One time, when Roy Pickard, the 71-year-old husband, decided to take his chances and go outside, he was hit so hard on the back of the head that he had to be taken to the hospital for help. Local authorities have installed a gazebo outside the couple’s home, which should offer some protection. That’s the best they can do for now.

“The whole thing has been terrible,” Roy old reporters. “I’ve not been able to go out of the front door. If I try to get out of the door, the two adult birds are right there, and I’ve got no chance. It’s really frightening. My wife isn’t well at the moment, so we’re relying on me to get out.” Luckily, the Pickards’ garage is connected to their house and he can get out through there when he needs to do some shopping, but he doesn’t dare get out of the car to close the garage door, so he always leaves it open until he comes back.

Roy has complained about the situation to both the local authorities and animal organizations like the RSPCA and RSPB, but their solutions have not been very helpful. The Wyer Council says that seagulls are protected while nesting, so all they can do is try to make the couple’s life bearable by installing a gazebo and making arrangements so that the 77-year-old wife, Brenda, can reach her private appointments safely. Unfortunately, animal organizations wouldn’t help the Pickards either. For now, all they can do is wait for the chicks to fly away. “The RSPCA and RSPB have been no help whatever. They seem to put the rights of these birds above those of people , which is ridiculous,” Roy said.

In a world where “no news is good news” and good news is not news, the media doesn’t tell stories of good behavior very often, but gives a long description of conflicts instead. However, a new study suggests that good news can actually encourage good actions.

The study examines the warm, encouraging feeling we get from watching someone act with courage or kindness — a feeling known as “moral elevation (道德提升).” In the study, researchers explored whether people are encouraged to do good by simply watching the news on acts of kindness. They also tried to determine whether common acts of kindness would be enough to get fallings of morals elevation, or whether the actions had to be special or amazing.

People read articles and watched videos describing acts of common or uncommon kindness. Some read about an organization that creates neighborhood gardens, while others saw a music video showing how the singer helped poor communities around the world. People then had the chance to give money to others or keep it for themselves.

The results show that hearing about these good actions made people more likely to give away their money — but these actions must be amazing or special good actions, not just everyday acts of kindness. What’s more, people who saw themselves as highly moral people were likely to give money more often than those who did not.

This study has important influences on the news media, which likes to report negative events more often than positive ones. The results show that even a small change by the media could have deep influences. “We have every reason to believe that even a week stimulus (激励), like a story of moral goodness, can bring out moral elevation,” write the authors. So, if the news were to report no good actions more often, perhaps we would see a deep influence among readers.