SENV 215-01 Spring 2000 Howard Horowitz
MR 2:00-3:15 Office G-430
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY
Objectives: To examine historical and geographical perspectives regarding man's role in changing the face of the Earth, from "prehistoric" times to the present. Global and multi-cultural traditions of resource use - of land, water, air, forests, grasslands, oceans, fuels, and minerals - from ancient times to the present. Includes diverse interpretations of human ecological impacts, from religious and cultural influences to economic and ecological perspectives.
Texts:
Cronon, William. Changes in the Land. Hill and Wang, 1983.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. W.W. Norton, 1997.
Outwater, Alice. Water: A Natural History. Basic Books, 1996.
Readings Packet: articles by Lynn White, Lewis Moncrief, Rene Dubos, Barry Lopez, Hans Jenny, and others. The packet will include historical documents, including short excerpts from writings by Christopher Columbus, Thomas Malthus, William Bartram, Gifford Pinchot, and Rachel Carson.
Course Requirements and Grade Determination:
1) Regular attendance in class, timely reading of assignments, and willingness to participate in occasional discussions.
2) An in-class exam based on lectures, and a take-home exam based on assigned books.
3) An Environmental History Journal: an annotated collection of at least 12 articles, drawn from journals and newspapers, regarding topics in Environmental History. Include the articles themselves, as well as your summary and discussion.
4) One paper, 8-10 pages long, based on a specific topic in environmental history. Specific requirements of this paper will be discussed in class.
COURSE OUTLINE
What is environmental history? Discussion. What are resources? Discussion. Values and concepts in depletion and conservation. Short-range vs. long-range perspectives: persistence of cultural tradition vs. receptivity to change.
"The seven generations law" examined through three short case studies: (1) Native Americans versus Museums of Anthropology on the burial of ancestors; (2) the extinction of the passenger pigeon and its link to the future mitigation of global warming impacts; and (3) drilling for oil in the Arctic NWR for "energy independence".
The radiation of Homo sapiens into a cosmopolitan species.
The arrival of man into America: migrations across Beringia, Clovis sites, and the "Pleistocene overkill" hypothesis. Prehistoric resource use: fire, tools, hunting and gathering.
The domestication of plants and animals, and its impact on world ecosystems. Questions about domestication: what, where, when, why, how? Irrigation agriculture: Wittfogel's "hydraulic civilizations" hypothesis, and its critics. Contributions of N.I. Vavilov, Carl Sauer, and others. Population size, social structure, and the emergence of dominant states: Jared Diamond's
Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Old World domestications compared to New World domestications: the "Columbian exhange" (Alfred Crosby): Deliberate introductions: animals and plants; inadvertent introductions: epidemic diseases and "weeds". A closer look at cattle: from wild aurochs to domesticated dairy cow. A closer look at potatoes: from South American ecological-zone polyculture to monoculture, colonialism, and famine in Ireland. A closer look at corn: evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Pacific diffusion. Hugh Iltis and the rediscovery of teosinte: indigenous knowledge systems in agriculture and medicine, and their survival in commodity production systems.
What can the history of agriculture teach us about agricultural crises around the world today?
The emergence of metallurgy: copper, tin, gold, bronze, lead, and iron. (Mining and environmental history: glimpses from Rome, Peru, New Jersey, and the American West.) The rise of cities.
Environmental history of the ancient Mediterranean world: Egypt, Phoenicia, Israel, Greece, Rome, and Carthage. Mediterranean deforestation, soil erosion, and agricultural adaptation. Are there Judeo-Christian roots to environmental degradation?
Traditional patterns of resource use; the patterns imposed by European colonialism and the emergence of world markets. Resource versus commodity. Case study: Cronon, Changes in the Land.
The perception of limits: Malthus to Zero Population Growth.
"Cornucopians" versus "Neo-Malthusians". Ecological underpinnings: biological productivity, populations, and carrying capacity. The "tragedy of the commons": supposed examples, apparent examples, and false examples. Other perspectives on "the commons" from various cultures around the world. Birth control versus "wealth control"; will the "demographic transition" proceed in the face of unequal resource distribution?
The environmental and social devastation of the post-Civil War era in North America: in the mid-West, the Great Plains, the Rockies, and the Far West. Ecosystem changes - loss of native grasses, buffalo to cattle, barbed wire and railroads, removal of native people onto reservations. Alice Outwater's Water.
The emergence of "conservation" and "resource management": J.W. Powell, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot. Public lands in America: National parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, offshore waters. The development of "multiple-use" and "sustained yield" policies; the concept of the "allowable cut". Water storage projects, from the Hetch-Hetchy controversy in California to the Tocks Island controversy on the Delaware River.
Recent environmental history: the emergence of biocentrism as a factor in public policy. Rachel Carson and the science and politics of pesticides. The Wilderness Act, N.E.P.A., and the Endangered Species Act. Various approaches to the preservation of biodiversity. The Law of the Sea Treaty. Current issues: sustainability, public versus private, government agencies versus non-government organizations, international environmental cooperation, the bioregional vision.