|
|
|
Anniversary Forum
Rooting Around in Search of Causality
Paul Sabin
| IN HIS FREQUENTLY CITED 1980 essay on ideas of nature, Raymond Williams criticized the intellectual separation of economics and ecology, and called for the two disciplines to be brought together.1 His insight still speaks to how we define environmental history and raises the question of whether closer examination of political economy is in tension with the ecological emphasis of the field. |
1
|
|
If we see economics and ecology as inseparable, we may realize that a broader set of human activities are "environmental" than we previously recognized. Humans are living creatures that interact with the natural world through all that we produce and consume. When ants carry morsels into their anthills, we call that work ecology. When humans throw up skyscrapers, pocket cell phones, eat popcorn, or sit around in a meeting—that's ecology too. Some things we do, like driving cars, have greater consequences for the rest of the natural world than others. But each of our activities, however mundane, is ecological. |
2
|
|
Some studies of economic production and consumption, such as William Cronon's account of the lumber industry in Nature's Metropolis, recognize this crucial insight and weave business and ecological analysis together. You can feel the heft of the ax and imagine the physicality of a log floating down stream. Cronon's microeconomic analysis is representative of how environmental history has led historians to rediscover the significance of business and political history, which had fallen out of favor in the history profession. Historians have found in their concern for environmental change a new reason to study the flow of commodities or the development of business enterprises and cities. |
3
|
|
As we probe more deeply into the history of capitalism, however, we are discovering that many things that we don't think of as environmental have the most powerful determining impact on the land. The state of public education, as well as race and class relations in the United States, have pushed many families into the sprawling suburbs and edge cities of North America. Society's ability to manage social relationships and provide public amenities such as education or safety turn out to be extraordinarily potent drivers of environmental change, perhaps far more important than love for the single-family house, automobile, or suburban landscape. But how do we make sense of education or public safety as "environmental" issues? |
4
|
|
The trend toward broadening our understanding of what is "environmental" has been embraced by environmental advocates today. The basic structures of modern capitalism, from international trade policy and financial institutions to agricultural and highway finance and American habits of consumption, are understood to be more powerful determinants of our relationship with nature than more clearly environmental activities, institutions, or legislation. |
5
|
|
As with environmental activists seeking to rewrite international trade agreements, there are risks to environmental historians broadening their scope to examine political and economic history. In telling interdisciplinary stories about environmental change, we could easily begin cherry-picking theories of political and economic change. Increasingly, however, our theories will conflict. Environmental historians then will have to resolve their differences through substantive debate not about forestry or farming, but over how the economy functions and the nature of political life in the United States or internationally. Additionally, as we tell stories about the significance of the International Monetary Fund or World Trade Organization, environmental historians inevitably will be pulled away from stories rooted in ecosystems toward narratives based in international finance and governance. |
. . . |
There are about 608 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
