Lectures Flashcards
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
- 99% of rain forests in Sierra Leone ‘have been destroyed by the natives in their wasteful method of farming
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What did Lane-Poole conclude in 1911 about Sierra Leone?
- 99% of rain forests in Sierra Leone ‘have been destroyed by the natives in their wasteful method of farming
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
What was a valuable, comprehensive source on coal usage in the 19th century?
- Dearth of Petrol, leading Walter Long to determine that oil was of strategic importance to the US; resulting in the creation of Naval National Petroleum Reserves for future needs - i.e. Alaska, 1923.
Essay Four Important Notes
Detail Hartig, Brundtland and the MDGs.
- Whereas Hartig might be seen as part of an evolution of thought in the realm of sustainable forestry, Brundtland’s definition can be read as an attempt to create a summative line on sustainable development in light of multiple but jarring, inconclusive and incompatible narratives on sustainability.
- Brundtland presents poverty as the site of social unsustainability, charging that “poverty generates tensions and conflicts, urban and rural violence”.
- Through models of redistribution, such as, in one case “25 per cent of the incremental income of the richest one-fifth of the population is redistributed equally to the others”, Brundtland detailed how greater social equality, and hence, sustainability, would come about.
- By the MDGs of 2000, environmental sustainability in its own right represented only one of eight objectives – the rest of which were more directed at wider social uplift through eliminating famine, hunger and disease.
Essay Four Important Notes
Detail the context and role of the OCF
• OCF: 900-day long study by a “high calibre” group of academics and politicians with strong environmental credentials (namely, Gro herself, Volker Hauff, Paulo Nogueira-Singh, Maurice Strong and Jim MacNeill to name a few).• Objective of OCF: “re-examine the critical issues of the environment and development”, as well as to “formulate innovative, concrete, and realistic action proposals to deal with them”
Essay Three Important Notes
Quote Dahl and describe the Gasoline Famine of 1920
- Oil promised the tools of modern warfare, including aeroplanes and an oil-powered Navy (which could travel double the distance of the coal counterpart) - Dahl
- Gasoline Famine of 1920’; as noted by Olmstead and Rhode: “In the spring and summer of 1920, a serious gasoline famine crippled the entire West Coast, shutting down businesses and threatening vital services. Motorists endured hour-long lines to receive 2-gallon rations, and, in many localities, fuel was unavailable for as long as a week at a time… In San Francisco, gunplay erupted in a dispute over ration entitlements.”
Essay Two Important Notes
Francisco de Vitoria
- “Secondly, in the law of nations a thing which does not belong to anyone (res nullius) becomes the property of the first taker, according to the law Ferae bestiae (Institutions II.I.12); therefore, if gold in the ground or pearls in the sea or anything else in the rivers has not been appropriated, they will belong by the law of nations to the first taker, just like the little fishes of the sea”
Essay One Important Notes
Bernard de Mandeville
- ‘but what made that contemptible spot of the earth so considerable among the powers of Europe has been their political wisdom in postponing everything to merchandise and navigation [and] the unlimited liberty of conscience enjoyed among them’ commenting on Dutch.
- Although the over-consumption of Dutch was criticised by Mandeville, and improvers were wary of Dutch dependence on imports, officials became increasingly open to the Dutch model.
- Assertive state + political economy for material advancement predisposed officials towards attaining ‘those moral and temporal goods which are necessary for a pleasant life’
Essay One Important Notes
What did John Houghton and Nicholas Barbon conclude about the intensification of resource consumption
- John Houghton and Nicholas Barbon - intensification of resource consumption was ultimately for the common good. The issue was not so much about over-use of resources, but under-use - resultant from perceived under-employment in the agrarian sector.
Essay One Important Notes
Quote Paul Slack from the Invention of Improvement
- Where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What did John Hartwick return to in 1977?
- Hotelling thesis, from 1930s. Now seen as prophet, only because a broken clock is right twice a day
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What did Venezuela see in the 1980s
- Venezuela - catastrophic debt crisis. Whereas 1970s saw huge windfall as west sought oil, 1980s saw collapse in prices which made public spending schemes impossible to finance. By 1989, food riots.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What was project independence?
- US: Project Independence - complete self-sufficiency by 1980. Carter drove solar; tighter reg. On gas. Berated Americans for wastefulness - at time of Winter 1977 blackouts. New taxes were propositioned, but did not make way through Congress (no definite answer on where windfall would go).
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What did the Iranians tell the West in the 1970s?
- “the industrial world will have to realise that the era of terrific progress and even more terrific income and wealth base from cheap oil is finished. They must find alternative sources of energy”
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
How did Nixon respond to the energy crisis?
- US response: Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act - Nixon - control allocation to states and industries at wholesale level, based on oil distribution in 1972 - not effective; some with abundance, others, dearth.
⁃ Localised shortages and queues, impromptu rationing, bans on Sunday driving, speculation on gas - people stock up.
⁃ Saw images of people fighting over oil (not frequent, but pictured - people did not record normality). Moral tone on consumption arose, tapping wartime sentiment - ‘if you drive alone, your passenger is Hitler’. Encouragement of car pooling.
⁃ 1974 - truck driver strike - resisted 55mph speeding limit (not fuel efficient/ delayed deliveries). Does not last longer than 2-3 weeks as not unionised.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What caused the surge in oil in the 2000s?
- Rise of China from 1999 onwards
- 2005 - aftermath of Iraq.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
Western response to the energy crisis?
- After exponential increase, price of freight shipping decreases by factor of 10.
- Massive investment into shipyard building -> leads to overcapacity. Rapidly shut down in 1980s as supply routes normalise.
- 1980s - North Sea becomes affordable, goes online.
- The Soviet petrostate of the 1970s collapsed in the 1980s (part of wider decay of Union)
- Posted price system ends in 1980s. Becomes free market with booms and busts.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What happened during the Christmas 1973?
- Iran (not involved in War) raises price to $11 (double posted-price) to encourage transition away from oil.
- Concern over scarcity to encourage virtuous behaviour
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
When did nationalisation of oil companies occur in the postwar period?
- 6 October 1973: Trigger moment for dramatic shift in oil supply and understanding of energy generally
⁃ Yom Kippur - Egypt and Syria attack Israel - lost war rapidly.
⁃ Fighting closes pipelines from Syria to Med.
- 16 October - doubling of posted price from Gulf countries.
- 17 October - total embargo to US and Dutch (Dutch keen supporters of Israel, and biggest oil refiner) ⁃ Raised price from $3 to $5.11p.b. -> Auction price up to $17. Supertankers would be bought whilst in transit.
- Freight rates quadruple in October in rush to secure oil.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
When did nationalisation of oil companies occur in the postwar period?
- Syria 1964, Algeria 1971, Libya 1971, Iraq 1972.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
When was OPEC founded?
- 1960
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
By how much did the price of supertankers rise during the energy crisis?
- Scramble for supertankers - go up in price by 253%.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What is important about the nature of the Middle East in terms of oil and geostrategic positioning?
- M.E. -> Not only is oil present, most oil passes through. Suez opened in 1869. World tanker fleet built to fit through Suez. Closes in 1956 during crisis. Oil tankers cannot get through, but are not equipped to go around Africa - only supertankers can achieve.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What problem faced the posted price system?
- Posted price low - companies make money in refinement. Inflation over 1960s means real cost of posted price is low, meaning income to government from oil companies falls.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What could be said about oil companies (in terms of integration)?
- Oil companies are vertically integrated - from production to forecourt. Crude is rarely sold outside of the company - as such, there is no clear price on a barrel of oil (intentional - allows company to settle tax liabilities). Instead, governments operate using a posted price (as of Aramco, 1950). Royalties and tax are deducted from the posted price, which typically resulted in 50:50 distribution.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What was the delicate balance the US govt tried to achieve throughout the 1970s?
- Government attempted to keep prices down for consumers, whilst oil companies insisted on elevating the price in order to fund new exploration.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
Who declared the 1970s a ‘National Energy Crisis?’
- John Nassikas, Federal Power Commissioner
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What contributed to energy problems in the US?
- Expansion of Phoenix and Arizona, for instance, sees shortages of gas in the SW. Pressure on fuel led to interest in the Canadian Arctic.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What happened in the US in the 1970s vis-a-vis oil supply?
- By late 1960s/70s - gas supply becomes erratic - due to high consumption in 1950s/ 60s.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What did the US Govt do by keeping oil prices artificially high?
- 1960s - US becomes dependent on gas for energy production over oil - as a result of high cost. Government puts cap on max price of gas.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
When did Time Discounting become important?
- Time Discounting became more important in the 1990s. Significant manifestations occurred in the 2000s with the likes of the STERN 2006 model - built in the cost of futurity into its report.
1970s Energy Crisis Lecture
What is a truism about oil prices?
- Predictors have been repeatedly wrong with estimates for oil price.
Energy Limits in the Age of Abundance Lecture
What did the Arabs attempt to do in 1973?
- Arab nations attempt to destroy Israel - plays out on global playing field.
Energy Limits in the Age of Abundance Lecture
What did Truman do in 1959?
- 1959 oil quotas to deliberately elevate the price of US oil - to keep Texas producers in business.
Energy Limits in the Age of Abundance Lecture
What did M.A. Adelman write about predictions
- ‘All predictions are unreliable, particularly those concerning the future’
Energy Limits in the Age of Abundance Lecture
How could the exploration of northern Canada be recognised as?
- A hearts and minds investment - US oil companies showed officials Canada’s biggest th blowout - D-18 - 25 October 1970 - to prove the viability of supply in the region.
Energy Limits in the Age of Abundance Lecture
What theory outlined the depletion of the Ozone by CFCs?
- 1974 Rowland–Molina hypothesis
Age of the Environment Lecture
Evidence how strains on oil supply contributed to research into riskier/ more expensive oil fields.
- King Christian Island - 1970 - Canada - Arctic dev. Began in 1960s, but maintaining high investment = difficult. Investors sceptical of supply. US feared for natural gas at the time -> forced to consider purchasing from USSR.
Energy Limits in the Age of Abundance Lecture
Briefly outline the principles behind Tim Mitchell’s ‘sabotage’.
- Tim Mitchell - Sabotage: coal - lots of workers, greater potential to derail critical processes. Oil employs few people on high salaries. Oil companies more predisposed to sabotage - to prevent a glut in supply. Constantly attempting to create fear of end to drive prices up. Cartelisation allows control of upstream and downstream processes. Oil companies have a ‘preference for crisis’
Energy Limits in the Age of Abundance Lecture
What could be said of oil consumption trends in 1980s?
- Oil consumption in 1980 did not match the consumption levels of pre-shock trends.
Age of the Environment Lecture
When was there a general impetus for the development of a global institution for managing the environment?
- New Scientist, 1970 - called for global management.
Age of the Environment Lecture
When did different institutions
- End of 60s - rise of national institutions for the environment: USA Environmental Protection Agency (1970);
- UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution 1969, Ministry of Env. 1970;
- FR - Ministry of Environment 1970;
- Germany - Environmental Programme, 1971;
- EEC - Environmental Action Programme, 1971.
Age of the Environment Lecture
Who advocated ‘Big Ecology’?
- Odum Bros - uses electric modelling to show flow of energy through a system. Funded by US atomic agency.
Age of the Environment Lecture
What did Lyndon Caldwell advocate?
- Urban planner - 1963 - env. Should be governing concept of planning. Concept could unify institutions.
Age of the Environment Lecture
What was concluded in 1959?
- Antarctic Treaty 1959 - region separated as separate sphere for science.
Age of the Environment Lecture
What did C.P. Snow state in his book, Two Cultures?
- C.P. Snow - Two Cultures - humanities were too dominant in politics, scientists had the ‘future in their bones’
Age of the Environment Lecture
What was 1957?
- International Geophysical Year
- Influenced rise of Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in the UK.
Age of the Environment Lecture
What did Jacob Darwin Hamblin argue?
- Jacob Darwin Hamblin - US military and the environment - weaponising (climate mod., nukes and Agent Orange), fighting in a global conflict. 3/4 of all meteorologists work for USAF.
Age of the Environment Lecture
How were UN projects received?
- Mixed effect. African nations saw the UN as a form of neocolonialism.
Age of the Environment Lecture
What two major UN organisations emerged in 1948?
- At the same time as the formation of UN Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilisation of Resources (UNSCCUR), UNESCO emerged under Julian Huxley, 1948.
Age of the Environment Lecture
What were the USAA interested in during the 1950s?
1950s - rise of technofix solutions - weather control - esp. Australian + US military interest.
Age of the Environment Lecture
What did Osborn find in his 1948 ‘Our Plundered Planet’
Less use of stats, talks of ‘living environment as a whole’, humans as a ‘geological force’.
Age of the Environment Lecture
How did Vogt legitimate his findings?
Trained as an ecologist, with connections to likes of Leopold.
Vogt sees the issue as arising from the ignorance of men, rather than industrial society.
⁃ Relies on stats and data.
⁃ ‘Only the biologist ‘sees his role more clearly’.
⁃ We live in one world in an ecological and environmental sense.
Limits and Growth Lecture
What happened on the Kaibab Plateau?
1930s - Kaibab Plateau - removal of wolves saw massive detrimental effects across ecosystem.
Limits and Growth Lecture
What stadial theories emerged in 1946?
1946 - emergence of notion that empires collapsed due to soil erosion - ‘The Hundred Dead Cities of Syria’ - W.C. Lowdermilk -> looking at land through 7000 years. Wanted to determine what caused the failure of the M.E. Breadbasket.
Limits and Growth Lecture
Detail Paul Sears’s contribution
Paul Sears - Deserts of the March - 1935 -> like Carey and Liebig - linked to civilisation as a whole, solution -> applied ecology.
Limits and Growth Lecture
When was the first global soil survey conducted?
Imperial Bureau of Soil Science, 1929 - British Empire - first global survey of soil across world. Imperialism blamed for degradation; drawing on heritage of Liebig
Limits and Growth Lecture
What legislation was introduced to respond to the dust bowl problem?
- Dust Bowl - affected 54% wheatland, 20% idle cropland, 25% farms abandoned by 1936.
- 300m tonnes of dust released into air by 1936.
- Solution - Taylor Grazing Act, 1934 - end of the ‘frontier philosophy’. FDR institutes policy to prevent a ‘manmade Sahara’.
Limits and Growth Lecture
What did Lewis Mumford contest?
- Lewis Mumford - paleotechnic - coal use. Neotechnic - new solutions for future fuel use. Ideal model -> TVA.
Limits and Growth Lecture
What did Rupert Vance advance concerning GS and GN?
- Rupert Vance, 20th century, channelling Carey - suggested that the south had mined its soil unsustainably to support the north. Believed technocrats could solve the problem
Limits and Growth Lecture
Who was Alfred Lotka?
- Alfred Lotka - Polymath, mathematician and chemist. Classic text -> Fundamentals of Ecology, 1953.
Limits and Growth Lecture
What did Raymond Pearl introduce in the first half of the 20th century?
- Raymond Pearl - Logistic Curve - ‘population pressure is always a major cause of war’. Published the Biology of Population Growth - was criticised by Knibbs for being too simplistic - but fitting data into curves would become popular academically in later years.
Limits and Growth Lecture
What happened in 1927?
- World Population Conference 1927: Incl. Huxley, Raymond Pearl, Alexander Saunders, Brian Dunlop, Keynes. Margaret Sanger -> case for birth control. Many present influenced by eugenics.
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
What did Wallace E Pratt claim?
- ‘oil is found first in the minds of men’ - i.e. power of entrepreneurialism and enthusiasm
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
What was a valuable, comprehensive source on coal usage in the 19th century?
- 1871 Coal Report
- Richs rouce for understanding consumption, primary for use of coal in economy.
- Projected consumption between 1871 through to 2300; one of first to use population curve planning.
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
What is the Jevons paradox?
- greater efficiency does not reduce demand - stuff becomes cheaper, meaning more people use it. Jevons did not see the importance of oil, however at time use was marginal.
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
What was Jevons’s perspective on the importance of coal?
- ‘coal is all powerful’, ‘coal commands this age’. Issue not to do with total exhaustion, but reaching intolerable prices. Calculated that British energy supplies would be exhausted by 170 years. Impactful - Gladstone referred to Jevons in Downing St.
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
What did Henry Grey Macnab predict in 1793 about coal reserves?
- Quantifying supply and demand - predicts 1200 years’ supply left. Thought demand would only rise by 25% in the future.
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
How were the coal fields of the 18th century described in Britain?
- ‘Subterranean forests’
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
What impact do oil and coal have upon national convergence/ divergence?
- Punctiform nature of coal + difficulty of transportation - divergence between nations
- Ease and cheapness of oil transfer - convergence.
Coal Oil and Power Lecture
During the First IR, what does Wrigley point about about the transition from organic to mineral resource?
- First industrial revolution - steam engines act as inanimate energy slaves - turning heat into motion. Coal is punctiform - Wrigley - people have to negotiate access to energy.
Ecology and Society Lecture
What does Robertson conclude in his 2012 book, The Malthusian Moment?
Although Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) is often cited as the founding text of the U.S. environmental movement, in The Malthusian Moment Thomas Robertson locates the origins of modern American environmentalism in twentieth-century adaptations of Thomas Malthus’s concerns about population growth. For many environmentalists, managing population growth became the key to unlocking the most intractable problems facing Americans after World War II—everything from war and the spread of communism overseas to poverty, race riots, and suburban sprawl at home
Ecology and Society Lecture
What does FDR claim about conservation?
- Conservation ‘is the basis for permanent peace’ - later echoed by Truman.
Ecology and Society Lecture
What does Arthur Tansley conclude in 1935 about ecology, using Freudian electric neuron theory?
- Change is the new issue in ecology. There is not one ‘climax’, system is preferable to organism or community. Results in ecosystem.
Ecology and Society Lecture
Who develops the succession theory in the 1930s?
- Succession - in any env., plants will follow a succession of dominant species, leading to climax community. Species compete with eachother to occupy a ‘niche’ in the system.
Ecology and Society Lecture
How does Warming describe ecology?
- ‘the manifold and complex relations subsisting between and animals that form one community’;
Ecology and Society Lecture
Who coins the term ‘eugenics’?
- Francis Galton
Ecology and Society Lecture
What was an alternative theory to Darwin’s theory of evolution?
- JB Lamarck - transmutation - species developed new characteristics within their lifetime, not over generations (actually supported by epigenetics)
Ecology and Society Lecture
What preceded ecological thought?
- Evolutionary theory - esp. 1859, Origins of Species
Ecology and Society Lecture
What are the different ways of understanding the environment?
- Fatalist - nature as capricious
- Hierarchists - nature between perverse and tolerant
- Individualists - nature as benign
- Egalitarians - nature as ephemeral
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What did Chevalier conclude in 1909?
- ‘as soon as man makes breaches in the forest, the equilibrium is destroyed’
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What are the three types of frontier?
- Land extensive frontiers - settler colonies
- Plantation frontiers - issues of labour force and local ecologies, possibilities of substitution
- Extractive frontiers - artificial fertiliser, mechanisation, ICT
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
How easy was it to substitute flows of goods in a globalised market?
- Substitution was more than possible in the global economy. During the civil war, cotton exports declined dramatically, and whilst supply was never at the same level as previously, much was recouped from Egyptian trade.
- Egypt CS: rising issue from pests and malaria - dams also led to siltation as a result of the dams.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
Detail the findings of Warde’s investigation into flows of resources into and out of Britain during the 19th century.
- looked at flows of resources in Britain - 1832 - main import = cotton, most land is used for potash - soap - to bleach things in textiles. Britain was a net importer of land - needed 15,000,000 Ha land extra - 30% extra of land. 1907 required 200,000,000 Ha more land by this time. Was a net importer rather than exporter of goods; though was a net exporter of coal.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What does the evidence suggest about the nature of resource transfer from the global south to the global north?
- Evidence does not point to the fact that the North was dependent upon the south. Prior to WWI, most resources came from within the north - 98% metal ore, 80% textile fibre, 100% energy, 99% raw materials. Although specialising in manufacturing, it still used its own resources.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What hypothesis detailed the impoverishment of primary producer nations over time?
Provide details about this model.
- Prebisch-Singer hypothesis (1940s) - Argentina - was v. Rich, became poor over time.
- As income rises, demand rises more for manufactured goods than primary goods.
- Over time, the relative price fo raw materials tend to fall
- Countries who specialise early on are trapped - if they want more manufactured goods, they need to produce more - but this in turn causes the price of goods to fall even more.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What did Marxists conclude about labour in relation to a globalised marketplace?
- Marxists - Emmanuel, Frank, Wallerstein -> wages are lower because resources are plentiful -> Labour, though internationally cheap, locally results in shortage and coercion -> plantation labour.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What did Marx claim about trade?
- Trade can actually result in the greater impoverishment of poor nations over time.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What did Fitzhugh and Carey conclude about the balance of trade?
- ‘balance of manure is the true balance of trade’.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What did Harold Innis term globalisation?
- a ‘vent for surplus’
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What was the desired modus vivendi in the first wave of globalisation?
- Colonised world specialised in the production of raw materials and land. Developed world to specialise in manufacturing.
Globalisation and Resources Lecture
What was the first phase of globalisation?
- First period of globalisation - 1840-1930 - associated with the raw trade of materials.
America: Soil, Slavery and the Perils of the Frontier Lecture
What did Samuel P Hays point out in his gospel of efficiency?
- Idea of securing resources for future development. Theodore Roosevelt on Yosemite - success of America rested on soil - needed regulation of waterways etc.
America: Soil, Slavery and the Perils of the Frontier Lecture
Quote George Perkins Marsh from Man and Nature, 1865
- ‘entirely withdrawn from human use… [as] the result of man’s ignorant disregard of the laws of nature, or an incidental consequence of war, and of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny and misrule’, the latter being ‘the brutal and exhausting despotism which Rome itself exercised… [then the] host of temporal and spiritual tyrannies which she left as her dying curse.’
- ‘The earth is fast becoming an unfit home for its noblest inhabitants, and another era of equal human crime and human improvidence… threaten the depravation, barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the species.’
America: Soil, Slavery and the Perils of the Frontier Lecture
What did the New York legislature conclude?
- Contrasted the relative growth of Virginia between 1790 and 1840 using census data, argued that slavery, ‘degrades labour, paralyses industry, represses enterprise, exhausts the soil, perpetuates ignorance, and impoverishes the people.’
America: Soil, Slavery and the Perils of the Frontier Lecture
What was George Waring’s gloomy prediction?
- ‘feeble from this loss of its life-blood; but the hour is fixed when, if our present system shall continue, the last throb of the nation’s hear shall have ceased, and when American, Greece and Rome shall stand together among the ruins of the past.’
America: Soil, Slavery and the Perils of the Frontier Lecture
What did Henry Carey Contest?
- British imperial system which helped drive the exhaustion of soils by the separation of consumer and producer. The farmers of the lands to the west were denuding their land of manure through export - ‘they borrow from the earth and they do not repay: and therefore it is that they find an empty exchequer.’
America: Soil, Slavery and the Perils of the Frontier Lecture
What did Jefferson conclude about tobacco?
- ‘It requires… indispensably an uncommon fertility of soil: and the price which it commands at market will not enable to planter to produce this by manure… But the western country of Mississippi, and the midlands of George, having fresh and fertile lands in abundance, and a hotter sun, will be able to undersell these two states… it is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness. Those employed in it are in a continual state of exertion beyond the power of nature to support.’
America: Soil, Slavery and the Perils of the Frontier Lecture
What did Jefferson conclude about tobacco?
- ‘It requires… indispensably an uncommon fertility of soil: and the price which it commands at market will not enable to planter to produce this by manure… But the western country of Mississippi, and the midlands of George, having fresh and fertile lands in abundance, and a hotter sun, will be able to undersell these two states… it is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness. Those employed in it are in a continual state of exertion beyond the power of nature to support.’
The Fall of Empires Lecture
What anxieties arose in the 1860s and 1870s?
- Fears of deforestation causing climate change in Australia and New Zealand.
The Fall of Empires Lecture
Bequerel, 1853
- ‘the progress of civilisation and wars are principal causes of deforestation… in Greece, as in Persia, the most flourishing cities disappear when the environing lands become deforested’
The Fall of Empires Lecture
How was peasant resistance to improvement cast?
- Historically backwards + bound to disppear.
The Fall of Empires Lecture
Charles Elliot, 1900
- ‘Marshes must be drained, forests skilfully thinned, rivers be taught to run in ordered course and not to afflict the land with drought or flood at their caprice; a way must be made across deserts and jungles; war must be waged against fevers and other diseases’
- Commissioner in East Africa.
The Fall of Empires Lecture
Alfred Russel Wallace
- 1864 - “In all ages, and in every quarter of the globe, the inhabitants of temperate have been superior to those of tropical nations.”
The Fall of Empires Lecture
What did Boussingault conclude about Rome?
- “Rome unquestionably contains in its catacombs quantities of phosphorous from all the countries fo the earth” - population was the issue which saw the downfall of Rome. New Soil Chemistry - perhaps Rome’s grain trade undermined the stability of empire -> overburdened bread baskets
The Fall of Empires Lecture
What did Fabre conclude in 1797?
- ‘destruction of the woods that covered the mountains is the primary cause of the increase in flood development’.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
Stadial theory
- In all ages, and in every quarter of the globe, the inhabitants of temperate have been superior to those of tropical nations. Formulated in Scotland by Adam Ferguson -> movement from hunter-gatherer to the endpoint of society.
- Lands out of time - Italy, South -> seen as economically backwards, following failure of civilisation.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What was the mainstream narrative on environment in the 19th century?
- Nature should be improved, in line with labour and Godly virtue.
- 1800s - emergence of limits
Enlightened Nature Lecture
Who is Jean Baptiste Boussingnault, what did he contribute to the narrative?
- 1830s -> socialist politician, developed accounting of the needs of plants - esp. Nitrogen. Suggests that this is transmitted via manure - and that exporting food would lead to the removal from the cycle.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
Who overturned vitalism?
- Justus von Liebig - replaces with essential elements.
- Divides history pre-1840 and post-1840 - not modest! Suggests plants need a minimum level of essential element to survive, but does suggest that this can come from artificially produced sources -> supporting fertiliser.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What did Linnaeus state about the regulative nature of Nature?
- ‘thus we see Nature resemble a well-regulated state in which every individual has his proper employment and subsistence, and a proper gradation of offices and officers is appointed to correct and restrain every detrimental excess.’
Enlightened Nature Lecture
Who was Arthur Young, what did he conclude?
- Agricultural writer, England 18-19 C. Treated as ‘rural Socrates’ significant contributor to the ‘New Husbandry’ - advancement of farming through the application of expert knowledge.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What did Buffon conclude about the finite nature of life? (Polyps)
- ‘There exists… a determinate quantity of organic matter… at the same time, a determinate number of moulds capable of assimilating it to themselves, which are every instant destroyed, every instance renovated… proportioned to the quantity of living matter’.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What was a popular theory during this period?
- Circulation theory, esp. brought out by ideas of the hydrological cycle, plant transpiration -> associated with Stephen Hale, Pierre Poivre.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What did Francis Home conclude during the Chemical Revolution?
- chemistry and agriculture belong together
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What did 19th century thinkers conclude about life and nature?
- New Chemistry - overturns vitalism, but maintains the notion of recycling. Chemical revolution sees the discovery of elements.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What did 18th century thinkers conclude about life and nature?
- Life is bound by the ‘right balance of humours’
- Difficult to conclude what life was - animate vs inanimate. Confusion over role of crystals.
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What does Charles Bonnet argue?
- ‘everything in the world’s edifice is systematic. Everything is in connection, in relation, in combination’
Enlightened Nature Lecture
What is Alexander Von Humboldt famous for?
- Number of scientific innovations - sp. in communication. Nature is seen as a great, interconnected thing.
Land and Resources in Classical Political Economy Lecture
What do the physiocrats believe?
- Wage theory
- Turgot - attempted to liberalise the grain market accordingly.
- Not nature, but the husbandman was the source of wealth.
- All exchanges involve bartering down to the lowest possible price in the market economy (Covering subsistence). Only exception is the exchange between husbandman and nature - husbandman gains full profits of nature.
Land and Resources in Classical Political Economy Lecture
Detail Ricardo’s Rent System
- Rents are a payment purely reflecting the differential of pieces of land (whether they require more or less labour).
- Malthus challenged - thought rent should be determined based off the products of the land.
Land and Resources in Classical Political Economy Lecture
What is Malthus’s perspective on limits?
- ‘No limits whatsoever are placed on what the earth is capable of producing’
- Population checks would begin ‘very far short of what the earth is capable of producing’.
- ‘It may be said that no instance has occurred, in modern times, of a large and very fertile country having made full use of its natural resources.’
Land and Resources in Classical Political Economy Lecture
Detail Smith’s Stable State
- In a fully stocked country, which could ‘advance no further’, competition for employment would be so great as to reduce the wages of labour to what was barely sufficient to keep up the number of labourers’
- Everyone is driven to subsistence.
Land and Resources in Classical Political Economy Lecture
Smith’s Point of View on labour and land
- What was scarce was not land but time.
- The division of labour can increase productivity rates, rationalising time use.
- People discover the needs of another through ‘truck and barter’
- People themselves are best at discovering the genuine needs of others.
- Increase of resources only means less labour -> resulting in cheapness rather than value -> method of ‘buying time’.
- ‘In them nature does nothing, man does all.’
Land and Resources in Classical Political Economy Lecture
Quote Steuart from 1770
- ‘if the soil be vastly rich, situated in a warm climate, and naturally watered, the productions of the earth will be almost spontaneous; this will make the inhabitants lazy. Laziness is the greatest of all obstacles to labour and industry… It is in climates less favoured by nature, and where the soil produces only to those who labour, and in proportion to the industry of everyone, where many can expect to find great multitudes.’
Land and Resources in Classical Political Economy Lecture
What is the range accepted by Warde for political economy?
- Smith upto J.S. Mill
Wood Shortage Lecture
Outline the divergences on sustainable yield theory
- 19th Century
- Cotta Vs Hartig
- Area vs stock (area won)
- Cotta & Hartig vs Pfiel and Hazzi
- State vs market (infl. by British liberalism)
- Wood as material vs wood as capital -> difficult to plot into futurity
Wood Shortage Lecture
What was Heinrich Cotta’s position on the state?
- ‘Only the state manages for eternity’ - monoculturing and the role of arithmetic in forestry can be overstated, but was present.
Wood Shortage Lecture
What was scientific forestry?
- Through figures such as Georg Hartig - belief that scientific management would see the woods become efficient enough to support an expanded nation.
- Attempted to define the ‘most average tree’ in order to plot productive forests
Wood Shortage Lecture
What was Arthur Standish’s belief about the woods?
- “too many destroyers”
Wood Shortage Lecture
What is the juridical position on the Wood Shortage?
- Rather than remedy issues, impose limitations - time of the year for cutting was limited, blade size was limited, certain hunting made illegal.
- Faith that moderation would result in greater security.
Wood Shortage Lecture
What is Warde’s position on the Wood Shortage concept?
- People feared a swood shorage even if they did not experience one. Cognitive ease at play -> translated ‘is wood becoming short?’ into ‘is the price of wood going up’?
Wood Shortage Lecture
Joachim Radkau
- There was not a wood shortage, but a concerted attempt by govt.s to seize power - difficult to universalise experience.
Improvement Lecture
Robert Bradley
- ‘The earth can never be rendered un-prolific, unless she is constantly contrained to feed one kind of herb or plant’
Improvement Lecture
Provide some evidence on morality and anti-improvement during the 1700s
- England, 1700: ‘A Common is nothing but a Naked theatre of Poverty, both as men and beasts, where all things appear horrid and uncultivated, and may be term’d, not improperly, the very abstract of Degenerated Nature’
- France, 1660s: ‘drunkards… strongly attached to their traditional privileges, and sworn enemies of all innovations from the smallest bagatelles because since they don’t have much taste, everything makes them angry. The women are no less brutal.’
Improvement Lecture
What did Petty contribute to the environmental narrative?
Petty, 1676
‘A small country and few people, may be equivalent in Wealth and Strength to a far greater People and Territory’
Improvement Lecture
What did Petty contribute to the environmental narrative?
Petty, 1676
‘A small country and few people, may be equivalent in Wealth and Strength to a far greater People and Territory’
Improvement Lecture
What did Seckendorff contribute to the environmental narrative?
Secekendorff, 1600s
‘The greatest treasure of the country consists in the number of well-nourished people’
Improvement Lecture
What did Nathaniel Grew contribute to the environmental narrative?
Nathaniel Grew, 1682
- ‘For what we obtain of Nature, we must not do it by commanding, but by courting Her. Those that woo Her, may possibly have her for their Wife; but she is not so common as to prostitute herself to the best behaved Wit, which only practiseth upon itself, and is not applied to her.’
Improvement Lecture
What did Francis Bacon contribute to the environmental narrative?
Walter Blith
- ‘All land… will admit a very large improvement’
Improvement Lecture
What did Walter Blith contribute to the environmental narrative?
Walter Blith
- ‘All land… will admit a very large improvement’
Improvement Lecture
What did John Locke contribute to the environmental narrative?
John Locke
- ‘Every man by the law of nature has a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence’
Improvement Lecture
What did John Norden contribute to the environmental narrative?
John Norden
- 1612 - “It is great providence to adjust of some course. to increasse not only meadow and pasture but especially tillage in this Kingdom to consider the dayly increase of whose wants of corn in years of no extreame necessity”
Improvement Lecture
What did James C Scott contribute to the environmental narrative?
James C Scott
- State agent of destruction in the environment through clumsiness rather than intent
Improvement Lecture
What did Lynn White contribute to the environmental narrative?
Lynn White
- The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis - 1967
- Judeo-Christian principles have subordinated nature + emphasised overconsumption. Ecologically minded Assissi -> marginalised. White - ‘especially in its western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen’
Improvement Lecture
What did Herbert Spencer contribute to the environmental narrative?
Herbert Spencer
- Introduced the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ Narrative
- Combined social and natural realms
