intellectual history of the environment

Has anyone read this? Seems a bit like Worster's "Nature's Economy" - Bill McKibben covers romantics, imperialists, mechanism, and the crucial shift from thinking about nature as a spiritual subject to considering it a valid object of scientific, empirical study. But this book comes with some modern updates to Worster's study - the incorporation of significant people who are not dead white guys, including Alice Walker as well as Al Gore (ok, he is a white guy, but he's still alive and active in shaping current environmental thinking). It looks like he's very interested in showing the internal conflicts in the field of environmental policy-making and demonstrating that activists do not now and have not really ever agreed on what the "right way" of thinking about the environment is. Plus, McKibben even specifies right there in the title ("American Earth") that this is going to be a history of AMERICAN environmental thought...something I wish Worster had done.

http://www.slate.com/id/2207168/

Environmental issues in the Middle East

Hi guys - this whole website (greenprophet.com) about environmental issues in the Middle East is incredibly interesting, but I thought you'd think this article was particularly cool, especially after we talked about Edmund Burke's argument that the people of the Middle East (especially under Muhammad Ali - the ruler of Egypt, not the boxer) have largely been responsible for their own building projects. Also, Hassan Fathy's book "Architecture for the Poor" sounds like a good read - something that would interest both Brand and Guha!

http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/02/26/17943/hassn-fathy-sustainable-architecture/

Protest against the Stewart Brand view

Good Afternoon again friends! This is a CNN article about Greenpeace protesting against genetically modified corn in Mexico. This link should create some discussion if mixed in with Stewart Brand. The issue raised by environmentalists was that the genetically altered corn could mix and ruin the native corn crop of mexico. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/20/greenpeace.mexico/index.html?iref=allsearch

Africa and Environmentalism

Good Afternoon friends! This is a rich website pertaining to the idea that climate change will negatively impact the third world countries first. http://allafrica.com/sustainable/

Empire Forestry Association becomes the Commonwealth Forestry Association

Homepage: http://www.cfa-international.org/index.html

Brief history in the Handbook: http://www.cfa-international.org/Handbook_conspectus.html

"In 1962...the Empire Forestry Association changed its name to the Commonwealth Forestry Association by a Supplemental Royal Charter"

Check out their Global Warming/Sustainability/Reforestation Video:

Human History and Energy Regimes: Empathy is the Key?

When you google "human history and energy regimes" you come up with a lot of posts about Jeremy Rifkin's new book The Empathic Civiilzation. http://empathiccivilization.com/about

Rifkin claims that "[n]othing could be more important at this juncture in our history as a species than to have a meaningful cultural debate about the role empathy has played in the development and conduct of human affairs. Our ever more complex energy-consuming global civilization is careening the human race to the very brink of extinction. We need now, more than ever, to retrace our steps, to understand how we got here, so that we can find a new, more secure footing that can free us from the entropic shackle and allow us to thrive while living more lightly on Earth and in harmony with our fellow creatures and the ecosystems that nurture life. Our scientists tell us that we have but a few years to find a new economic road map for civilization -one that takes us into a new energy regime that is more sustainable and able to break the fever that is heating up the biosphere.

To accomplish this undertaking requires that we know how human consciousness has developed over eons of history as we transitioned into a succession of ever more complex energy-consuming civilizations. By rediscovering our cognitive past, we find important clues to how we might redirect our conscious future. With our very survival at stake, we can no longer afford to remain unmindful about how empathic consciousness has evolved across history and at what expense to the Earth we inhabit."

Jeremy Rifkin:

According to his website promoting the book: http://empathiccivilization.com/author

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Rifkin

OR, "As head of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C., leftist political activist Jeremy Rifkin has organized demonstrations, formed coalitions, and initiated lawsuits in behalf of a number of causes, most recently against persons, groups, and institutions whose activities in biotechnology--especially genetic engineering--he sees as a potential threat to life." according to Biography Resource Center [Snell Library Databases page]: Biography from Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2010. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010. http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/servlet/BioRC Document Number: H1000082959

Climate Change in literature

So, while listening to NPR in the car a few days ago I heard this really fascinating interview with the British novelist Ian McEwan. After taking a trip to the arctic with a group of other artists, writers, and humanists, he was inspired to write a novel about climate change, the recently-released book, Solar. As I'm writing my paper on books about the history and science of climate change, I think it is interesting to consider how contemporary writers are incorporating the issue into fiction.

I've not yet read the book, so I can't vouch for it's quality (reviewers have mostly agreed that it's not McEwan's best book). But this is the first book of contemporary literature I have come across that grapples with the question of climate change and what it means for humanity, which in itself is interesting, given that climate change is the issue of the day. It seems a difficult topic for a novelist to tackle, given that it is such a heated political topic and there is much uncertainty surrounding what course climate change will take in the future -- unless the novelist is a science fiction writer, I suppose. I'm interested to read it and see how (and if) McEwan successfully gets a moral point across without sounding too preachy . . .

Anyway, the interview is here:
http://www.wbur.org/npr/125470747

And a review here:
http://www.wbur.org/npr/125434400

- Sarah