Suchergebnisse

"The English word "environment" dates to the mid-nineteenth century, and the concept that it was invented to describe is not much older. Only since the late eighteenth century, and only in certain contexts, has it become common to believe that life can best be explained in environmental terms. Surroundings is the first full history of the concept - one that shows how it became compelling to particular communities of people. Today we confront the legacies of this long history, which the author argues has made it difficult to speak coherently and persuasively about questions of environmental justice and equity. The history recounted in Surrounded can help us better understand why we find ourselves in this predicament and what we might do about it. For it uncovers not only the diversity of forms that environmentalism has taken in the past but how paying attention them can open our eyes to the promising new varieties of environmentalism that are emerging today"--

This book is the first volume of a monograph series published by the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan. The purpose of the series is to make works by Japanese scholars accessible to a wider readership and to increase the knowledge of scholars in this field, particularly in relation to Asia. This volume includes four chapters on energy and the environment of Japan, China, and Britain, and four short book reviews on recent academic works published in Japanese and English. The four chapters cover the following topics: the relationship between deforestation and the development of the silk reeling industry in a district of Nagano Prefecture (central Japan) from the 1870s to the 1900s and the subsequent shift from firewood to coal; the importance of timber supplies for the development of industry as illustrated by a case study on the supply of timber for use as rail sleepers in the Japanese national railway network during the prewar period; a methodological survey of the history of ecology and the environment in China; and an analysis of the British Smoke Nuisance Abatement Act of 1821 as a measure that incorporated the interests of politicians, landlords, and industrialists.

This book provides a comprehensive and comprehensible history of China from prehistory to the present. Focusing on the interaction of humans and their environment, the author traces changes in the physical and cultural world that is home to a quarter of humankind. Through both word and image, this work illuminates the chaos and paradox inherent in China's environmental narrative, demonstrating how historically sustainable practices can, in fact, be profoundly ecologically unsound. The author also reevaluates China's traditional "heroic" storyline, highlighting the marginalization of nature that followed the spread of Chinese civilization while examining the development of a distinctly Chinese way of relating to and altering the environment. And also, he makes the compelling argument that all of humanity has a stake in China's environmental future

1. Pre-American ecology : environmental alteration is addressed (1100-1854) -- 2. Colonial environmentalism : the first land use & timber regulations (1681) -- 3. Transcending society : the sacrament of wilderness (1862) -- 4. The national park system : preserving wilderness for public use (1865) -- 5. Animals and the environment : creation of the ASPCA (1866) -- 6. The timber barons : profit vs. sustainability (1889) -- 7. The conservationists : save what is left of the forests (1901) -- 8. Naturalist in the capital, Theodore Roosevelt : American wilderness as America's cultural heritage (1908) -- 9. The park service : reforming the federal park management system (1908) -- 10. Lobbyists for life : devastating effects form unlikely alliance (1936) -- 11. The whole of the wild : interconnectiveness of nature (1944) -- 12. Change is in the air : the first Air Pollution Control Act (1955) -- 13. Environmental progress : synthetic pesticides and corporate accountability (1962) -- 14. The new danger : the protection of endangered species (1966) -- 15. Smoke on the water : the Environmental Protection Agency (1970) -- 16. The environmental days : the first Earth Day (1970) -- 17. Beyond the government : Greenpeace makes international headlines (1975) -- 18. Pollution solutions : changes in the automobile industry (1970) -- 19. Ozone depletion : success of the Montreal Protocol (1987) -- 20. Climate chaos part I : the first warning is sounded (1847) -- 21. Climate chaos part II : climate-change denial (1980s-2000s) -- 22. Globalizing environmentalism : international conferences (1972-2017) -- 23. Oceans in the balance : the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (1997) -- 24. Urbane ecology : development of green cities (1800s-present) -- 25. Renewing perspectives : harnessing wind, water, and sun (1960s-present) -- 26. Cyclic waste : reduce, reuse, recycle (1970s-present) -- 27. America's black heart : the debate over coal (2017) -- 28. Leaving the environment behind : environmental policies rolled back (2017).

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Chapter 1 Anthropocentric environmentalism -- Placing (European) humans first -- Scrambles in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific -- Enter the environmentalists? -- To the 1900 convention -- The 1902 bird convention -- Marine life -- World war -- New hope? -- Chapter 2 From war through war -- Whaling -- Oil pollution -- Fisheries -- The 1933 convention -- Birds in North America -- Transboundary pollution -- A World again at war -- The United Nations -- Chapter 3 Cold war, science, and the environment -- Containment, fisheries, and whaling -- Korea -- Science, nature, and the cold war -- The Great Leap Forward -- The atomic arms race -- From moratorium to test ban -- Victory for the environmentalists? -- Chapter 4 Silent Spring, Stockholm, and the North-South divide -- The new environmentalism -- Vietnam and the environment -- Marine life -- Decolonization and the North-South divide -- LDCs and the environment -- Stockholm -- Stockholm's legacy -- Omens -- Chapter 5 Creating regimes -- Stockholm: A legacy lacking -- The Anglo-American shift -- Marine life -- Acid rain and the climate conundrum -- The ozone quandary -- Chernobyl -- The Persian Gulf War -- Addressing ozone -- Hazardous waste -- To Rio -- The Rio conference -- The resistance to environmental regimes -- Chapter 6 The Anthropocene epoch? -- Addressing the Rio Agenda -- NAFTA -- Marine life -- Hazardous waste -- The ozone layer and climate change -- Johannesburg -- The challenges persist -- The climate conundrum continues -- Paris -- Nuclear power and plastics -- In the Anthropocene? -- Conclusion: Accomplishments and challenges -- Accomplishments -- Challenges at sea -- Challenges on land: Poaching, poison, and radiation -- Demographic challenges

"Nature and technology have become critical issues, both empirically and theoretically, within the history of technology and related fields. This book comes at an important moment in the specialty's history: scholarly dialogue has been ongoing for more than a generation, with work under an explicit "envirotech" framework now entering its second decade. The goal of this book is to synthesize some of the critical topics and contributions in envirotech scholarship"--