In January of 1970, he created the Environmental Protection Agency. This agency served to combine many other agencies with similar goals that were present at the time. The primary focus of this agency was addressing concerns regarding pollutants in the air, surface water, groundwater, and solid waste disposal. Nowadays, the EPA spends it’s resources in research, studying our impact on the environment and how best to reduce it. They also study the events of climate change, and how our actions can invoke severe weather. The rest of the 1970s became known as the “Environmental Decade.” He set up many more laws and policies throughout this time: the Clean Air Act Extension (1970) enforced regulations on harmful chemicals in the air, the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972) regulated the commercial and trade use of marine animals, and The Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) protected the bodies of water filtered for consumption. Through these various policies and regulations, the government and private industries were able to decrease the number of harmful chemicals and emissions. By regulating the manufacturing, processing, distribution, and use of chemicals and harmful  substances, the larger corporations and citizens are more aware of the individual impacts they have on the environment, as well as long term consequences that may stem from their use.

Nixon brought global diplomatic attention to environmental issues using his presidential powers, and also promoted legislation in Congress to create a permanent structure for these legislations. By bringing light to these issues, Nixon reinforced them in the minds of American citizens and gathered global attention as well. 

President Clinton issued an executive order expanding recycling by Federal agencies (September 14, 1998)

President Clinton issued an executive order to prevent the introduction of invasive species into our environment (February 3, 1999)

One of Goodall's major contributions was to the field of primatology with the discovery of tool making in chimpanzees. This is notable because only humans were thought to use tools, but Goodall's discovery led to a reconsideration of the term "human." 

Another contribution Goodall made during her study with chimpanzees were their cooperative hunting of red colobus monkeys. Goodall made the discovery that chimpanzees hunted together in a pack to eat and find out that they were meat eaters as well. 

She also found out that chimps patrolled their borders. This discovery was connected to humans in the way that human criminals protect their territory. 

Jane Goodall also received a Ph.D at Cambridge and helped break the barrier of the definition of humans. Before her work, the idea that animals could exhibit human like behaviors was rejected. However, Goodall graduated with a thesis entitled "Behaviro of the Free Ranging Chimpanzee." 

She was also sponsored by National Geographic and released books with her work alongside chimps. "My Life Among Wild Chimpanzees" and a TV documentary "Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees" were a huge success and showed a new side to animals such as the social life of chimpanzees. 

Erhlich found interest in ecology during his early highschool years and during his later years, his research had focused on entomology. He was concerned about the growing population and how humanity treated Earth: the way humans used the limited amount of resources on Earth compared to the consumption of humans. 

One of his main contributions was his publication of many articles and papers on The Population Bomb, which he advocated for population control. Ehrlich was the founding creator of Population Connection, an organization that was created to reduce population growth in order to help the environment. He also held positions in other organizations such as the Sierra Club. The Population Bomb is a best-selling book during his time, it identified the issue of the rapidly growing human population and it also advocated for limiting population growth. He brought the attention to limiting birth rates, but although he brought the problem to attention, years later, his statement of the on-going famine was proved incorrect in some ways that the main problem was over-consumption.