The Origins Of Modern Environmental Thought

The Origins of Modern Environmental Thought provides readers with a concise and lively introduction to the seminal thinkers who created the modern environmental movement and inspired activism and policy change. Beginning with a brief overview of the works of Thoreau, Mill, Malthus, Leopold, and others, de Steiguer examines some of the earliest philosophies that underlie the field. He then describes major socioeconomic factors in postÐWorld War II America that created the milieu in which the modern environmental movement began, with the publication of Rachel CarsonÕs Silent Spring. The following chapters offer summaries and critical reviews of landmark works by scholars who helped shape and define modern environmentalism. Among others, de Steiguer examines works by Barry Commoner, Paul Ehrlich, Kenneth Boulding, Garrett Hardin, Herman Daly, and Arne Naess. He describes the growth of the environmental movement from 1962 to 1973 and explains a number of factors that led to a decline in environmental interest during the mid-1970s. He then reveals changes in environmental awareness in the 1980s and concludes with commentary on the movement through 2004. Updated and revised from The Age of Environmentalism, this expanded edition includes three new chapters on Stewart Udall, Roderick Nash, and E. F. Schumacher, as well as a new concluding chapter, bibliography, and updated material throughout. This primer on the history and development of environmental consciousness and the many modern scholars who have shaped the movement will be useful to students in all branches of environmental studies and philosophy, as well as biology, economics, and physics.

Modern Environmentalism presents a comprehensive introduction to environmentalism, the origins of its main beliefs and ideas, and how these relate to modern environmental ideologies. Providing a historical overview of the development of attitudes to nature and the environment in society, the book examines key environmentalist ideas, influences and movements. Science's role in mediating our view of nature is emphasised throughout. This entirely new account draws on the explosion of writing on socio-environment relations since Pepper's earlier work, The Roots of Modern Environmentalism.

Disenchanted with the mainstream environmental movement, a new, more radical kind of environmental activist emerged in the 1980s. Radical environmentalists used direct action, from blockades and tree-sits to industrial sabotage, to save a wild nature that they believed to be in a state of crisis. Questioning the premises of liberal humanism, they subscribed to an ecocentric philosophy that attributed as much value to nature as to people. Although critics dismissed them as marginal, radicals posed a vital question that mainstream groups too often ignored: Is environmentalism a matter of common sense or a fundamental critique of the modern world? In The Ecocentrists, Keith Makoto Woodhouse offers a nuanced history of radical environmental thought and action in the late-twentieth-century United States. Focusing especially on the group Earth First!, Woodhouse explores how radical environmentalism responded to both postwar affluence and a growing sense of physical limits. While radicals challenged the material and philosophical basis of industrial civilization, they glossed over the ways economic inequality and social difference defined people’s different relationships to the nonhuman world. Woodhouse discusses how such views increasingly set Earth First! at odds with movements focused on social justice and examines the implications of ecocentrism’s sweeping critique of human society for the future of environmental protection. A groundbreaking intellectual history of environmental politics in the United States, The Ecocentrists is a timely study that considers humanism and individualism in an environmental age and makes a case for skepticism and doubt in environmental thought.

Originally published in 1984, The Roots of Modern Environmentalism provides a historical, philosophical and ideological background to environmentalism. Topics covered include, the roots of technological environmentalism, the medieval cosmology and Bacon’s philosophy, the non-scientific roots of ecological environmentalism, such as Romanticism and its scientific roots in the theories of Malthus and Darwin. The Marxist perspective on Nature is also discussed. The concluding chapter is a criticism of education which challenges its usefulness as an agent of socio-economic change. This book will be of interest to academics and students of environmentalism and geography.

Professor Hay (environmental studies, U. of Tasmania) must have been a patient and long-time follower of environmental debate over the last 35 years to have masterfully untangled the myriad and subtle contentions and changes of heart in ecophilosophy, ecofeminism, ecoreligiosity and spirituality, green critiques of science, green politics, philosophies of place, and ecology's relationship to democracy and postmodernism. Hay's Tasmanian provenance seems less weakness than strength since he provides a more international perspective on environmentalism that includes Australia, North America, and Europe. Not only geographically wide-ranging, Hay is ideologically inclusive, bringing into the environmental forum --without apology or pride--discussions among animal rightists and their critics, and assertions that environmental concern is partially pre-rational. Reading Hay's environmental tome is likely to introduce even seasoned readers to new names (Deborah Slicer, John Rodman, Warwick Fox, Stephen Clark, Ariel Salleh) and so, new arguments. Suitable as a primary or secondary text for an advanced undergraduate or graduate class in environmental thought. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Topics covered include the roots of environmental philosophy; the development of ecophilosophy, deep ecology, and ecofeminism; how religion relates to environmental values; environmentalists' writings on science and epistemology; animal liberation; the role of place; the economic dimensions of environmental thought; environmental writing in various political traditions; and "green" writers' critiques of political movements. The work draws from the disciplines of philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, and cultural studies.

Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Despite condemnation in the press and heavy-handed attempts by the chemical industry to ban the book, Carson succeeded in creating a new public awareness of the environment which led to changes in government and inspired the ecological movement. It is thanks to this book, and the help of many environmentalists, that harmful pesticides such as DDT were banned from use in the US and countries around the world. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Lord Shackleton, a preface by World Wildlife Fund founder Julian Huxley, and an afterword by Carson's biographer Linda Lear.

The premise of this book is that our environmental dilemmas are products of biological and sociocultural evolution, and that through an understanding of evolution we can reframe debates of thought and action. The purpose is to explain the wide variety of environmental worldviews, their origins, commonalities, points of contention, and their implications for the modern environmental movement. In three parts covering the origins, evolution and future of environmentalism, it offers instructors and students a framework on which to map theory, case studies and classical literature. It is shown that environmentalism can be described in terms of six human values—utility, stability, equity, beauty, sanctity, and morality—and that these are deeply rooted in our biological and cultural origins. In building this case the book draws upon ecology, philosophy, psychology, history, biology, economics, spirituality, and aesthetics, but rather than consider these all independently it integrates them to craft a mosaic narrative of our species and its home. From our evolutionary origins a story emerges; it is the story of humankind, how we have come to threaten our own existence, and why we seem to have such difficulty in acting together to ensure our common future. Understanding our environmental problems in evolutionary terms gives us a way forward. It suggests an environmentalism in which material views of human life include spirituality, in which our anthropocentric behaviors incorporate ecological function, and in which environmental problems are addressed by the intentional relation of humans to the nonhuman world and to one another. Aimed at students taking courses in environmental studies, the book brings clarity to a complex and, at times, confusing array of ideas and concepts of environmentalism.