Christopher Hamlin
Department of History

H 383/STV 375 ENVIRONMENT AND ENVIRONMENTALISM IN HISTORY FALL 1995

Prof Christopher Hamlin
467 Decio, 309 O'Shaughnessy
631-5092, 631-5017, 234-1815
Office hour: 2:30-4 F; and by appointment

This course is an introduction to the new field of environmental history. While many of us think of "The Environment" only becoming important as a public issue with the first "Earth Day" in 1970 (or perhaps a decade earlier or a decade later than that), environmental issues have in fact long been of central importance. In recent decades historians have begun actively to explore 1) the past sensibilities of various groups toward the quality of their air, water, and land, and 2) the customs, laws, sciences, and politics that have guided use of the environment. They have also begun 3) to document and interpret the long heritage of passionate discussion -- by philosophers, theologians, and social and natural scientists -- about resource use, environmental change, pollution, and the long-term prospects for humanity. Finally, 4) they have been concerned with the actual changes humans have made in the environment, and with the ways environmental factors -- i.e. the distribution of wood, water, minerals, the changes in climate and disease -- have affected human history. All these matters belong to the new discipline of environmental history. Accordingly, this course will range widely: our methods and perspectives will come from the history of ideas as well as cultural anthropology and epidemiology; we will look at the ancient near east as well as modern America. Our topics will range from ideas about the legitimate use of nature in the Judeo-Christian heritage, and in Greek philosophy to the rise of organic gardening and the politics of water-allocation in the American west. This course does not presume a particular background; on the contrary, a group of students with a wide range of interests, views, and backgrounds is ideal for so wide-ranging a course.

TEXTS

C. PONTING, A Green History of the World: the Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations [GHW]

R. NASH, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics

J.V. SWITZER, Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions

H. HUTH, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes

P BROWN and E MIKKELSEN, No Safe Place [NSP]

packet, LaFortune Copy Shop

EVALUATION

Assessment will be based on performance on a mid term and a final exam, one project/paper, and satisfactory completion of exercises. Grading is competency based, and summative. A grade of "A" will require at least 90 of 100 points.

A. Survey -- 5 points, due Fri Sept 1

B. First Exam, in class portion Friday Oct. 6; take home portion given out Oct 6, due Oct 9. The in class portion will consist of short answer questions taken from lectures; the take home will consist of selected questions from readings worksheets 24 points

C. Worksheet Journals -- periodically throughout the semester I will supply questions on the readings. I ask you to write on a total of 7 questions from at least 4 different works (21 points total). There is no specified length; just try to give a thoughtful and convincing answer to each part of the question. You are to work on these in groups of two. You can choose your own questions to answer but discuss your responses with your partner. Include your partner's comments on your answer and have your partner include your comments on his or her answers. Response on worksheets on readings prior to October 4 are due at the first exam; responses to questions from later worksheets are due December 6.

D. Term Paper -- Term paper projects are to be done by individuals working in groups. They will be evaluated both as individual papers (18 points), and on the coherence of the group project (8 points). You will need to meet early on with members of your group and decide on individual topics and determine what is necessary to coordinate your individual contributions. Drafts of individual papers will be due to me and other group members on Monday 13 November. Your revisions should include comparisons with the findings of other group members and any transitions or introductions to make your personal contribution fit smoothly into the whole. The final group report will be due 6 December.

Tentatively I have designated the following groups. Please decide on your preference by the second week of class.

Group 1: the environmental history of the community and campus

-- the environmental impact and policies of South Bend and the university of Notre Dame

Group 2: premodern (pre 1800) ideas about the uses of nature

-- the origins of ideas of the rights of animals? or the ownership of air and water?

Group 3: environmental institutions -- international or US

-- debates and legislation over endangered species, or wilderness areas, or nuclear power?

Group 4: environmental controversies

-- Love canal, Hetch Hetchy, spotted owls, water projects

Group 5: the histories of environmentalist groups, philosophies, movements

-- deep ecology, the Nashville agrarians, the Soil Association, the Audubon society

Group 6: environmental sciences and technology

-- the succession concept, the alternative technology movement, organic agriculture

Remember that all papers must have a significant historical dimension. That does not mean the topic must come from the remote past; it means simply that you must ask historians' questions of your topic -- what led to it? what were its effects? who were the central actors involved and why did they act in the ways they did? how was it typical or unique in the context of its times?

E. Final Exam. The format will be the same as the first exam. There will be take home questions from worksheets, given out 6 December, and a short answer section from lecture material. (24 points)

SCHEDULE

Weds 23 Aug intro video -- the scope of environmental history
Fri 25 Aug general worksheet packet, #1, GHW c 17
Mon 28 Aug toxins video NSP xv-74, 88-91, 109-161
Weds 30 Aug worksheet Switzer, c 1-3
Fri 1 Sept discussion of NSP/video: what should we do?
Mon 4 Sept How did we get into this fix: the natural history of humankind packet, #2; GHW c 1, 3, 4
Weds 6 Sept natural history of humankind/2 GHW, c 5-6
Fri 8 Sept natural history : Greeece and New zealand
Mon 11 Sept are we still in the ancien biological regime? packet, #3, GHW, c 11
Weds 13 Sept What is Nature? Packet, #4B (4A for background), Nash, Prologue
Fri 15 Sept Nature and Culture in Antiquity GHW, c 8
Mon 18 Sept Nature and Culture: the Judeo Christian Heritage packet #5
Weds 20 Sept white thesis packet #6,7, Nash c 4
Fri 22 Sept The Use of Nature: Law, Custom, and Policy packet #8
Mon 25 Sept9 Nature and the New Science Nash, c 1
Weds 27 Sept Capitalism and resource use -- mining GHW c 9
Fri 29 Sept --forests, fishes, animals
Mon 2 Oct Europizing the world I GHW c 10, Switzer c 14
Weds 4 Oct Europizing the world II packet #9
Fri 6 Oct exam
Mon 9 Oct what to do with America I Huth, c 1-3
Weds 11 Oct what to do with America II Huth, c 4-7, Nash c 2
Fri 13 Oct land policies in the American west Huth c 8-9
Fall break
Mon 23 Oct the rise of environmental science to Darwin
Weds 25 Oct the impact of Darwin
Fri 27 Oct the rise of ecology Nash c 3
Mon 30 Oct the problem of the city I Huth c 10, GHW c 14-16
Weds 1 Nov the problem of the city II
Fri 3 Nov The conservation movement Switzer c 4.7
Mon 6 Nov Muir and Pinchot Huth, c 11
Weds 8 Nov national forests and national parks
Fri 10 Nov the emergence of environmental groups
Mon 13 Nov plow that broke the plains Huth c 12
Weds 15 Nov from the new deal to environmentalism
Fri 17 Nov the population critique GHW c 12, Switzer c 17, packet #10
Mon 20 Nov the energy critique GHW c 13, Switzer c 6
Weds 22 Nov the toxic critique packet #11, Switzer c 5, 8-10
Mon 27 Nov the ethical critique Nash, c 5-6, epilogue
Weds 29 Nov the cultural critique
Fri 1 Dec international environmentalism Switzer, c 11-13, 18
Mon 4 Dec where is the heritage taking us? packet #12
Weds 6 Dec

Survey

Namephoneemail address

1. Where do you (have you) lived? What kind of environment did you live in (e.g. on farm, in inner city)? Did that environment affect you significantly? How?

2. Which of the following do you think of as environmental problems? (circle those that are, put an x through those that aren't, put a box around those you're not sure of, or which you think might sometimes be environmental problems and sometimes not): Poverty, guns, earthquakes, famine, AIDS, salinization of agricultural soil, smoking, tooth decay, highways and automobiles, floods, radon pollution, cancer, apathy, feedlot agriculture, Beavis and Butthead, dams, chemical-intensive agriculture, whaling, sport hunting, global warming, suburbs, loss of genetic diversity, desertification (the creation of deserts), exposure to carcinogens in the workplace, species extinction, human beings

3. Mark those statements you believe with B; mark those you strongly disagree with, with a D; mark those you would like to believe but can't quite manage to with an L; leave others unmarked

a) environmental problems are a product of Western industrialized civilization

b) the responsibility for the quality of the environment should be vested in

1) individuals

2) localities -- towns, regions, states

3) nations

4) international organizations

5) the Catholic church

c) one's religion significantly affects one's interaction with the natural environment

1) eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc) promote less destructive ways of living than western religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism)

2) Catholicism promotes less destructive ways of living than protestantism

3) science promotes less destructive ways of living than religion

4) if people had stronger religious belief we would have fewer environmental problems

5) if people were less religious we would have fewer environmental problems

6) the Creation is appropriately anthropocentric -- humans are the most important species "Man is the measure of all things)

7) the Creation is appropriately biocentric -- humans are but another species

d) all species have a right to exist

1) all species have a right to exist in natural habitats of a significant size

2) it is enough if we maintain a small breeding population in zoos or similar institutions

e) environmental problems are a product of capitalism, and the profit system

f) there is a single best policy for human interaction with nature

g) as the impact of particular environmental problems is felt sufficient pressure will be created to solve them

h) we owe to future generations

1) nothing

2) a sufficient system of renewable resources -- e.g. topsoil, a wide range of species, stocks of wild plants and animals -- forests and fish -- that can be harvested in a sustainable fashion

3) an adequate stock of nonrenewable resources -- e.g. coal, oil -- that will allow them to survive reasonable comfortably until alternatives are available

4) the maximum GNP and greatest material wealth possible.

i) environmental problems

1) are basically the heritage of past errors and ignorance

2) were significantly worse 25 years ago

3) will be significantly worse in 25 years than they are now

4) are being assessed and responded to in a rational way

j) the benign dictatorship of experts would be better at solving environmental problems than are democratic forms of governance

1) environmental problems are due to the inadequacy of modern legal and administrative institutions (taxes, treaties, tort law, concepts of rights, criminal codes, agency budgets)

2) because they integrate all options into costs and benefits, economists would be the best experts to lead such an administration

k) modern environmental problems were inevitable; it is inconceivable that decisions could have been made sufficiently differently that we would not have the problems we have

l) the corporate sector takes environmental problems sufficiently seriously

m) wider distribution of political and economic power among consumers, workers, citizens would lessen environmental problems

n) environmentalists, for the most part, are privileged elitists unfamiliar with the demands of the "real world"

o) we should assess our use of natural objects on the grounds of

1) what is immediately most convenient to ourselves as individuals

2) what is beneficial for the long term interests of humanity

3) with regard to their own intrinsic worth, alloting the same rights and significance to non human parts of nature as to humans

p) we would have fewer environmental problems if we knew less science and were more superstitious

q) the life of the steward on a family farm in New England, Wisconsin, Iowa, or the like is more meaningful and fulfilling than life in a suburb

1) life in cities is likely to be (more, less) sustainable than life in the countryside

r) the current human population exceeds (or nearly exceeds) earth's carrying capacity

1) in certain situations it will be ethical to restrict the rights of people to become parents

2) human populations stabilize when they grow too large

3) nature stablizes excessive human population through epidemics and famines

4) the human era of dominance of earth history is likely to be very brief, in the matter of a few thousands rather than millions of years

s) we owe to the past

1) nothing

2) the preservation of rare natural areas -- (wilderness areas, wild rivers, etc)

3) the preservation of unusual scenic areas

4) the preservation of indigenous cultures

5) the preservation of places of historical signficance

6) all existing species

t) killing animals is good

1) killing animals personally (hunting, butchering) is better than killing animals impersonally

2) it is wrong to kill animals for "sport"

3) we have no right to kill animals

4) it is dehumanizing to kill animals

u) the earth is rightly thought of as our "Mother" and deserves to be treated accordingly

v) the private ownership of land is a human right

1) land held in private is better maintained than land held in public

2) land owners have the right to dispose of or use land as they please

w) women are likely to behave in a more benign way toward the environment than men

x) divine providence is in control -- all will work out in the end

1) all will work out in a way that is familiar to us -- the "good life" is infinitely sustainable and extendable to everyone

2) all will work out, but the "good life" will be very different from the way we think of it now

3) current environmental problems are part of God's plan; the apocalypse of Revelation is will be the environmental catastrophe toward which we are quickly heading

y) new technologies, perhaps beyond our imagination today, will provide solutions to problems of securing sufficient food, energy, and safely disposing of wastes

z) the curriculum usually taught in American primary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions of education is significantly to blame for the persistence of environmental problems in America and elsewhere

4. What is the earliest environmental problem you can think of?

5. What is "environmentalism"

6. When did "environmentalism" begin?

7. What principles govern your own behavior with regard to the environment, e.g. what restraints do you impose upon yourself, what rights do you exercise unthinkingly, in what kinds of actions do you see yourself contributing to the solution of environmental problems?

8. Describe the sort of human and natural landscape in which you hope to live