Canadian Conservation History 2016 Loys Maingon NO CL AS S Environmental Literature Survey 2014 Loys Maingon Course Contact and Material Loys Website:Homework 1: Kundoqk (Jacquie Green) (2013) Haisla Nuyuum: Cultural conservation and regulation methods within traditional fishing and hunting Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. Vol. 2, No. 2, 2013, pp C Gordon Hewitt (1921) The Conservation of Wildlife in Canada. New York: Charles Scribner, 344 pages. Why Conservation History? (Quantity and Quality) 1.Why has environmentalism stagnated since 1972? 2.People who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it (Edmund Burke. 1790) 3.Are Conservation and Environmentalism separate? Hold this thought: Central assumptions of conservation are: a.The environment is originally pristine b.The environment is terra nullius - nobodys land c.Therefore there is no history and no practice of conservation before Western presence. d. In Canada and US, conservation is born out of game management and indians are blamed for over-hunting. U.S. in 1964, Canada in 1974 Why Conservation History? (2) Conservation History is a subset of history of science. = Attitudes to science 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So2_NxQLGxQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So2_NxQLGxQ 2. Goes to first minutes of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_eJdX6y4hM Homework (?): Watch 7 hours with the AAAS: Pollution Legislation back to 1914 Traditional narrative: Environmentalism Born 1962 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring The death of President Garfield (March to September 1881) Louis Pasteur ( ); germ theory (1858) : There is no known circumstance in which it can be confirmed that microscopic beings came into the world without germs, without parents similar to themselves. Joseph Lister ( ): anti-septic theory (1867 Lancet) Pollution Legislation back to about Septic Treatment history:health/plumb/documents/training/2013/history_of_sewage_disposal.pdfhealth/plumb/documents/training/2013/history_of_sewage_disposal.pdf The driver is cholera, typhoid Less than 100 years of environmental law Marine Oil Pollution Act (1990) Oil Pollution Act (1924) modifies the River and Harbor Act of 1899 Gifford Pinchot and The Anti-pollution League ( ) Official Conclusion Official Washington has no knowledge that the American people give a damn about pollution, and until they do care there will be no great advance as to pollution, a disappointed Herbert Hoover said. The oil pollution law was, in the end, a small victory that stopped the worst forms of harbor pollution and gave authority to the Corps to investigate and correct gross hazards. The new law also showed industry the value of organizing against environmental regulations. The American Petroleum Institute created a statistics and research effort that was designed to defend against any additional federal legislation on oil pollution. Partly because of their efforts, the 1924 law remained in the same form until 1970, when the Santa Barbara oil blowout of 1969 added to the public indignation over weak environmental laws.. What is Environmentalism? (1) Reaction to social darwinism? Environmentalism (1922) 1 : a theory that views environment rather than heredity as the important factor in the development and especially the cultural and intellectual development of an individual or groupenvironment 2: advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment; especially : the movement to control pollution. (Merriam-Webster) What is Environmentalism? environmentalism, political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities; through the adoption of forms of political, economic, and social organization that are thought to be necessary for, or at least conducive to, the benign treatment of the environment by humans; and through a reassessment of humanitys relationship with nature. In various ways, environmentalism claims that living things other than humans, and the natural environment as a whole, are deserving of consideration in reasoning about the morality of political, economic, and social policies. environmentorganization (Encyclopedia Britannica) Problems and Theses Problem: Is environmentalism a relatively recent concern? (1922?) Thesis: Environmentalism is a white anglo- american cultural phenomenon (i.e Ken Burns and Roderick Nash) 2. Is environmentalism a revolt against Western civilization? 3. Is it a modern feminist rejection of Classical Science? (1980) 4. Is environmentalism a cultural privilege of hunter/gatherer or aboriginal societies? (1983) Canadian Version (1992) Alternative: Environmentalism is an inherent if minority- part of our culture which has persisted through folk culture and minority dissenting perspectives (Apocrypha and Heresy) Other Sources: Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius Environmentalism and Personal Experience Environmentalism is empirical testable experience If we look at the cultural foundations of modern biology and ecology we will find them to be identical to the roots of modern environmentalism. Environmentalism also has a long precedence in legal history The origins of Western culture go back to the cult of the goddess, which takes up back to BC. Marija Gimbutas Evolution of Ethics The Ethics of the City Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age. University of Chicago (1979) precautionary principle Our ethics are inherited from the ethics of city states which exclude nature Evolution of Anglo-American Law Sierra Club vs. Morton (1972) US Supreme Justice W.O. Douglas:The critical question of "standing" would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated before federal agencies or federal courts in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers and where injury is the subject of public outrage. Western Culture: Environmental Origins The origins of Western culture go back to the cult of the goddess, which takes up back to BC. KEYS 1.Evolution (Human Biological, Human Cultural) 2.Connection to life processes 3. Matter is sacred and the sacred is material Environmentalism: 50 Years of Failure ? Is the failure a product of how we understand environmentalism? If you ask the wrong question you dont get the right answer. How do you persuade people who have no stake? Suzuki:matters/2012/05/the-fundamental-failure-of-environmentalism/http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science- matters/2012/05/the-fundamental-failure-of-environmentalism/ Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger (2007). Breakthrough: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility The 50 to 30 years Key Considerations Key Text: Donella Meadows, Jurgen Randers and Dennis Meadows Limits to Growth 1972, Questions: Who showed most interest in the project? How successful was it? Origins of Environmentalism? Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species (1858) George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as modified by Man (1865) The Modern Synthesis: Symbiotic Planet Evolutionary Considerations Evolutionary Domains: NOT SO TIDYBUT VERY NEAT! Bacterial Evolution Serial Endosymbiotic Theory So, what is our relation to all those other organisms? (2) 1. George Wald ( ) Nobel Prize in Physiology Animal Communication, Dolphin have language... And then, so did many other animals 3.Baldwin and Schultz (1983) (Dartmouth College) 4.D.F. Rhoades (1983) Talking Trees (University of Washington). 5.Chemical Ecology and Plant Behaviour 6.Infrasound Communication 1980s How does it all lock and hang together in an ecosystem? 2 Videos on Botanical Intelligence 3 minutes 18 minutes So, how does this play out in terms of Western culture? 1. Folk culture has continuity and commonality. Folk culture is oral culture. 2.Agrarian/country folk cultures maintain a strong bond to nature. 3.Traces remain or are adapted in literate cultures. 4. Each Renaissance (12 th Century, 16 th Century, 18 th - 19th Century is marked by a rediscovery or cult of Nature) 5.Key Text: De Rerum Natura Titus Lucretius Carus (99BC-55BC) Major exponent of Epicureanism Disappears in the Middle Ages, rediscovered 1407 Important in the Medici circle Pierre Gassendi and Marin Mersenne Key to Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Leibniz - Thomas Jefferson, Mary Wollestonecraft, Tom Payne, and The Transcendentalists Relevant today? : Michel Serres 1977 and Greenblatt 2012 The Nature of Things (Before David Suzuki) The focus is on how we perceive we only know by sensations. We construct an understanding of the phenomenon of life Structure of the 6 books centres on 3 topics 1.Ode to Venus (Natures creativity and the boundless universe) 2.Universe consists of atoms and is subject to constant change (clinamen) 3.Senses are the only source of knowledge, which is the way we know the atoms 4.Final book: The Great Plague of Athens,all matter is subject to death and dissolution. The 3 Laws of Thermodynamics 1.The First Law basically says that energy or matter can neither be created nor destroyed. 2.Energy exhibits entropy. 3.All processes cease as temperature approaches absolute zero Epicurus: The Garden Birth of Science BC Self-sufficiency Free will The gods dont care Empirical test Everything consists of atoms No interest in politics (country life) Body and soul are one Men and women equal Death of Nature 1980: HOMEWORK LucretiusCarolyn Merchant Lynn Margulis Gaia is a tough bitch