Environmental History

Environmental lectures
Lecture 1: Introduction clip

What is Environmental History?
- ‘Environmental History is the study of the evolving relationship of humans and
nature, the intended and unintended consequences of human interaction with
the natural world through time.’

Academic disciplines and research questions
- Sciences and humanities
- History: historicizing and contextualizing
- Academia and activism
- Pitches by students (last lecture)

Environmental History as a New Subdiscipline
- The first textbook on environmental history in the Netherlands is circa 25 years
old.
- In Scandinavia, the US, and the UK environmental history started a little bit
earlier, but not earlier than the 1980’s as a subdiscipline on its own right.

1. Impact of nature on mankind
a. Natural disasters
b. Geographical, ecological determinism
c. Animal studies  animals as historical actors
2. Impact of mankind on nature (on mankind)
a. Depletion of resources, degradation of nature
b. History of activism and government policies
3. Environmental concepts
a. Biodiversity, sustainability, anthroprocene

The concept of nature
- Wild nature?
o All nature feels the impact of human actions.
- Authentic, pristine landscapes
- Turning back the clock, back to nature, harmony
- Anthropocene
- Nature conservation, managing nature.
- Back-breeding, rewilding

The history of environmentalism
- Three or more stages
1. Nature conservation and preservation since the 19 th century (green)  without
criticism about modernism
Fascism and nature (brown)  romanticist view, longing for a pre-modern
utopia.
Pollution activism since 1940s
2. Environmentalism since 1970s (grey)  Club of Rome report: structuralist
problem that we cannot change by just conserving lots of nature, we need a
different life of living to keep the earth livable and to maintain our resources.

, 3. Climate activism since 1990s (blue)  more local activism, global concern that
we’re not only pollution our own region but the whole earth, more focused on
human health.

Stage 1: Green and brown environmentalism
- Civilization and modernization
- Nature and culture
- Urbanization, agriculture, and industrialization
- Extinction of species  Christian element; parts of God’s creatures are
disappearing so something is happening.
- Nature monuments and recreation

Stage 2: Grey environmentalism
- Local pollution activism
o Industrial pollution and public health, catastrophes
- Western environmentalism
o Rethink modernity, consumers; depletion, renewable resources; leftist
and rightist green parties
o Ecological and peace movements

Stage 3: Blue environmentalism
- Global warming, rising sea levels
- New activism: Fridays for Future, Extinction rebellion
- Ecology and anti-globalism
- Civil society and international organizations
- Anthropocene

Oostvaardersplassen
- Authenticity vs. ecological engineering
- Rewilding vs. nature conservation
- Green, grey, brown, or blue environmentalism
- Public dilemma’s: cage or reserve?
- Angles for environmental-history research?
-

,Lecture 2: The political ecology of the Early Modern World

Introduction
- Key points
o Political Ecology
o Amartya Sen
o Distribution of Resources

What is Political Ecology?
- Environmental History is the study of human interaction with the natural world.
o The influence of Environmental Factors on human history
o Environmental changes caused by human actions.
o History of human thought about the environment
- Political Ecology studies the relationships between political, economic, and
social factors and environmental issues and changes
- Division of natural resources is not a given.
- Not an issue of supply and demand
o Amartya Sen (1933-…)
- Story about resources that were made in India but were distributed to Europe
to feed the people there on the order of Churchill. This caused a famine in
India.
- Bengal Famine of 1943
o “Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food
to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough food to eat.”
o Because of political choices people don’t get enough food
- Not a lack of supply, but inequality of distribution

Wood in the Early Modern World
- The Early Modern Period was a Wooden world  wood centered world,
everything was made from wood.
o Peculiar: wood was scarce
- Arthur Standish in 1612: “No Wood, No Kingdome”
- Robert Johnson in 1609: “such a sickness and wasting consumption, as all the
physick in England cannot cure”  In England we overuse wood,
deforestation is a century old problem.
- Thomas Mun in 1621: “would mean haue vs to keepe our woods and goodly
trees to looke upon? (…) Doe they not knowe that trees doe liue and growe
and being great, they haue a time to dye and rot, if opportunitie make no
better use of them? And what more noble or profitable use then goodly Shipps
for Trade & warre?”  these problems are central in the social environment 
focus on the background of the people who said this.
- Construction
o Houses
o Ships
o Mining
o Farming
- Wood was as central to colonizing a kingdom as other goods (such as sugar
and cotton)

, - The entire empire was brought home by the wooden goods that they had in
their homes.
- Fire
o Food
o Heating
o Industry
- Wood formed 20-25% of costs of sugar production  for example for the
sugar mills, but also to enrich the sugar  this wood was necessary for the
boiling process and made it of higher quality.
- Before the Europeans arrived in Barbados was filled with forests  when the
British settled, they used a lot of the timber which caused a wood shortage.
- Plantation Drax Hall
o Instructions James Drax to Richard Harwood
o “Either to let your New Land as you fall it to run again (to wood), (or) to
plant the same quantity in another place.”
o “[A]nd I would [,] that you have ffalln Land Enoff for provision below the
Hill [,] Either to lett you New Land as you ffal it to runn againe to plant
the same quantaty in some other price.”
- It was very hard to draw a line between the lands of different colonization.
- Colonizers did try to protect their wood though.
- Petitions to protect the trees.
 “Destroying of the Palmetto is a general prejudice to the public
wealth.”
o And therefore:
 “Servants, as well English as [enslaved Africans] or Indians that
cut [Palemetto] shall receive public punishment for every time
that they shall so offend.”
o Likewise, the cedar trees
 “Which defend the Islands from winds and tempests, be
preserved and maintained.”

- Bermuda
o Result of petitions
o Securing to common interest
o Everybody punished.
- Barbados
o Result of petitions
o Security to individual interest
o Only not landowners punished.
- Scarcity is not natural.

- Scarcity
- No accident; political choice
- Profit for private individuals

Pearls in the Early Modern World
- Pearls were found all over the world.
- They became a commodity.
- Abundance of pearls to show wealth  jewelry, decoration.