A brief history of environmentalism
- How the environmental problems
arose and when we cared about
them
Prof. Victor Lau
Hunters of the Kalahari. One of the last
remaining hunter-gather societies
Agricultural revolution (10000 BC)
Agricultural ages
• Food from domesticated plants and
animals
• Nomadic to settled community
• Villages with increased population
• Increased production spare time for
leisure, which allows cultures to develop
Scientific Revolution
• 16th-18th century
• Nature was seen as a book needed to be
carefully read and studied in order to
understand the cosmos and our place in it.
• The aim of science was “to lay the
foundation… of human utility and power” in
order to “conquer nature in action” (Bacon)
Mechanization Watermill
Horse cart
• Steam engine by James Watt in 1781
The age of fossil fuels
• Coal and later oil -a new kind of fuel to
replace manpower, water, wind, horses, and
wood
• The coal powered steam engine in return
supported coal and iron mining for
industrialization.
• Materials became more abundant and
population grew rapidly.
The first oil well driven by steam engine in the US
in 1861
The age of electricity
• In 1880, coal powered steam engine was attached
to the world's first electric generator. Thomas
Edison's plant in New York City provided the first
electric light
• Electricity allows more widespread use of fossil
energy
Industrialization
Pre-industrial society- Feudalism,
manor economy, lord and peasants
Urbanization
Capitalism
18th -19th century Industrial Revolution
Mechanization
Industrialization
Urbanization
Modernization
Capitalism
http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Efq-aNBkvc
/
London in 18th century
Water pollution
• Urbanization caused a large population
living in the ‘city’.
• This led to pollutions and spread of
diseases - epidemics of cholera and typhoid
• London was one of the first cities in the
world to build a sewer system and improve
the quality of its drinking water supply.
The Silent Highwayman". Cartoon commenting on polluted
condition of the Thames. Punch, 10 July 1858. Source: Wikimedia
Great smog of London in 1952, where
4000 people were killed
Deforestation
• In the 17th century, most buildings, furniture and
even entire cities could not exist without wood.
• A warship in the late 17th century needed 3500
trees aged 80 to 120 years old.
• The building of railways needed plenty of woods.
• Forests and grassland were cleared to create
arable land to grow grains to feed a growing
population
• Forest was destroyed for mining.
Deforestation
Open pit in mining in Amazon
Mining
Imperialism
and
colonialism
Opium in India
Extinction of species
• Dodo
• widely seen in
Mauritius in 1662
• Extinct in a century
after the Dutch
colonized the
island.
Tasmania tiger/wolf
Driven to extinction after British colonization of
Tasmania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vqCCI1ZF7o
Great
acceleration
The Great Acceleration
Population growth
• Thomas Malthus published Essay on the
Principle of Population in 1798
• The earth set limits to growth of human
population
• Human populations were held in check by
wars, famines… through competitions
• Give rise to pessimistic ecocentrism (vs
optimistic technocentrism)
Is Malthus right? http://www.web-books.com/eLibrary/NC/B0/B62/095MB62.html
Demographic transition
1979-2015
一孩政策
Environmental
problems in
modern China
大躍進
文化大革命
Opening-up policy in 1978
• Deng Xiaoping’s saying “To get rich is
glorious” has stimulated an emphasis on
wealth creation and material
consumption for economic development
《穹頂之下》柴靜
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbK4KeD2ajI
When people become
aware of the
environmental problems?
Nature preservation
• Start in the later years of the 19th century in
Western Europe and the US
• establish national parks and preserve nature
- Yellowstone established in 1872
• Aim to provide recreation for the elite class
(later the wider public), but not mainly for
conservation.
• Not until early 20th century, nature is cared
for its own value along with democratization
of the society.
• Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring published in
1962.
• It was considered a milestone in environmental
movement, but her impact was controversial!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I
pbc-6IvMQI
The attacks on Carlson
• Miss Rachel Carson’s reference to the selfishness of
insecticide manufacturers probably reflects her
Communist sympathies, like a lot of our writers
these days. We can live without birds and animals,
but, as the current market slump shows, we cannot
live without business. As for insects, isn't it just like
a woman to be scared to death of a few little bugs!
As long as we have the H-bomb everything will be
O.K.
—Letter to the editor of the New Yorker [cited in
Smith 2001, 741]
Modern environmental movement
• In 70s, people came to realize that the side
effects of industralization are serious.
• Environmental pressure groups Friends of the
Earth and Greenpeace were both established
in 1971.
• Attempts to tackle the problems through
legislation and research.
• But the ideas of modernization and economic
development are seldom questioned.
Spaceship Earth
• NASA’s Apollo missions in 1968 first gave
view of the small blue Earth floating in
space
• It reminds us of how fragile and unique
the Earth’s systems are and it forces us all
to imagine ourselves globally.
We are like the shrimps living in this
glass ball!
In 1972, the Club of Rome, a
group of economists,
scientists, and business
leaders from 25 countries,
publishes The Limits to
Growth, which predicts that
the Earth's limits will be
reached in 100 years at
current rates of population
growth, resource depletion,
and pollution generation.
Global problems
• In 1970s, apart from the local problems of
conservation, global problems started to
attract public attention, including :
acid rain, ozone layer depletion.. climate
change, extinction of species, nuclear
accidents and wastes…
Acid rain
Ozone hole
Ozone hole
• By the mid-1980s a severe seasonal thinning
of ozone over the Antarctic was observed
• the world’s media were reporting on a ‘Hole in
the Ozone Layer’.
• the Montreal Protocol established a global
ban of the production of CFCs by the late
1990s – the first international effort to deal
with an environmental problem
Nuclear accidents
• The 1979 Three Mile Island accident and
1986 Chernobyl disaster, along with high
construction costs, ended the rapid growth of
global nuclear power capacity.
• In 2011 an earthquake and tsunami caused
damage to Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in
Japan.
Anti-nuclear movement in Japan 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
The real challenge !!!
Global warming
• In 1988, a climate scientist, James Hansen testified
to a Congressional hearing
“the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse
effect is here.”
• Global warming had become a visible, present
danger to everyone since this year is very hot.
an environmental issue
mature so quickly ...shifting
from science to the policy
realm almost overnight.”
International collaboration
• The year 1972 saw the first of the 10-yearly Earth
Summits in Stockholm, Sweden
• the defining event of international
environmentalism.
Sustainable development
• In 1987, the United Nations’ report Our Common
Future in Stockholm.
• global environmental issues were connected with
issues of development and economic growth.
• The concept of sustainable development was first
introduced in this report.
• Under the name of sustainable development, there
could be dialogue between environmental activists,
conservationists, scientists and green politicians
and representatives of international business and
trade.
Environmental ethics - Deep ecology
• Famous book Deep Ecology
(1973) by Norwegian philosopher
Arne Naess
• the environmental crisis is not so much a ‘shallow’
problem of technical mastery but, a ‘deeper’
problem of mentality, world-view or even
spirituality
• The anthropocentric and technocentric approach
to environmental problems are shallow ecology!
• We should live in harmony with the ecosystem
as we are a part of it and to live in symbiosis
with the other inhabitants of this system -
ecocentrism. [For shallow ecology, humans are
separate from nature]
• The transition from ego to a social self, and
further from a social self to an ecological self. As
such, nature has intrinsic value as we are part of
it.
yearsTheEnvironmental
evolution of problems Environmentalism
environmentalism
1900 Loss of biodiversity and Nature preservation
degradation of ecosystem and conservation
1960 Pollutions (local) Environmental
protection
1980 Global pollutions (e.g. ozone) International
collaboration
After Environmental problems related to Sustainable
1990 economy, social justice, human development
rights, poverty, etc.
Global warming and climate Carbon emissions
change reduction
Environmental problems related to Green living
consumerism, materialism,
capitalism, modernization
Readings
Environmentalism since 1945. Garry Haq, Alistair
Paul (UL GE180.H36 2012)
Environmental history
https://www.eh-resources.org/industrial-
revolution-20thc-timeline/
• A Brief History of Environmentalism
by Andy Reynolds (in Blackboard)
