Environmentalism

by Peterson Del Mar,David

• ISBN13: 9781408255582
• ISBN10: 1408255588
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2011-07-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

With the fate of the environment set to become a dominant concern of the 21st century, this new Seminar Study will be an essential introduction to the history of environmentalism and the political and social debates surrounding the western world's pairing of economic growth and nature appreciation. Why are our environmental problems still growing despite a huge increase in global conservation efforts? Peterson del Mar untangles this paradox by showing how prosperity is essential to environmentalism. Industrialization drove people to look for meaning in nature even as they consumed its products more relentlessly. Hence England led the way in both manufacturing and preserving its countryside, and the United States created a matchless set of national parks as it became the world's pre-eminent economic and military power. Environmental movements have produced some impressive results, including cleaner air and the preservation of selected species and places.  But agendas that challenged western prosperity and comfort seldom made much progress, and many radical environmentalists have been unabashed utopianists.  Environmentalismconsiders a wide range of conservation and preservation movements and less organized forms of nature loving (from seaside vacations to ecotourism) to argue that these activities have commonly distracted us from the hard work of creating a sustainable and sensible relationship with the environment.

Author Biography

David Peterson Del Mar has taught courses on environmental history in Canada and the US and currently teaches at Portland State University. He is the author of five books on social and environmental history, including Beaten Down: A History of interpersonal Violence in the West (2005).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. x
Publisher's acknowledgements	p. xi
Chronology	p. xii
Who's who	p. xiv
Glossary	p. xvii
Map	p. xxiii
Analysis And Assessment	p. 1
Introduction	p. 3
Domesticating The Wild	p. 6
Background	p. 7
The birth of conservation	p. 8
Nostalgia and nature loving	p. 10
The birth of nature tourism	p. 12
Pets	p. 14
Environmentalism in the colonies and early US	p. 15
Industrial Nature Loving	p. 18
The spread of conservation and preservation	p. 19
Nature and nation	p. 21
Wild nature	p. 26
Domesticating the wild	p. 28
The Friendly Wild Of Post-War Affluence	p. 32
Background	p. 33
American suburbs	p. 34
The friendly wild	p. 35
Meaning and ecology	p. 38
The Counter-Culture's Nature	p. 41
Prosperity and alienation	p. 41
Wild = good	p. 43
Nature loving goes mainstream	p. 45
Farley Mowat and the world we have lost	p. 46
Mother natureÆs sons: Cousteau and Denver	p. 48
Epiphanies	p. 50
Silent Spring	p. 51
Green surge	p. 52
Western Europe	p. 53
The rest of the West	p. 56
Green nationalism	p. 58
Radical Departures	p. 60
Background	p. 60
Deep ecology	p. 62
Bioregionalism and ecofeminism	p. 64
Friends of the Earth	p. 65
Greenpeace and Earth First	p. 67
Thwarted	p. 70
Background	p. 70
Western European Greens	p. 72
Central and Eastern Europe	p. 74
Backlash and accommodation	p. 75
Success stories	p. 79
Divisions	p. 81
Extreme Nature Loving	p. 83
Wilderness and technology	p. 84
Wild playgrounds	p. 85
Consuming nature	p. 87
Aquariums and dogs	p. 90
Freeing Keiko and finding Nemo	p. 93
Assessment	p. 95
Documents	p. 99
Beowulf	p. 100
William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey	p. 102
The Cruelty to Animals Act of 1835	p. 106
George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature	p. 108
Anna Sewell, Black Beauty	p. 109
William Morris, News from Nowhere	p. 111
vRobert Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys	p. 112
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierras	p. 115
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring	p. 116
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac	p. 118
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring	p. 120
Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf	p. 121
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness	p. 123
Richard Adams, Watership Down	p. 124
Donella H. Meadows et al, The limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind	p. 126
Arne Naess, 'The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movements'	p. 128
Endangered Species Act of 1973	p. 133
Where You At? A Bioregional Quiz	p. 133
Earth First! Action in Oregon, 1985	p. 134
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1992	p. 137
Petra Kelly, 'Creating an Ecological Economy'	p. 138
Kyoto Protocol, 1997	p. 139
Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World	p. 142
æ10 Steps to Animal Communication'	p. 145
Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It	p. 147
Rural Manifesto of the Countryside Alliance, 2009	p. 149
Report of the League Against Cruel Sports, 2010	p. 150
Guide To Further Reading	p. 152
References	p. 159
Index	p. 160
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