Lecture 2

BRIEF HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY + ECONOMY & ENVIRONMENT RECENT HISTORY: THE LAST 200 YEARS  Malthus o Population growth and carrying capacity of the earth is likely not sufficient if population growth continues as its going o British scholar, 1970s almost 1980s  Thoreau o Nature as interconnected community o That things don’t happen in isolation o Early American people that discussed sustainability  Marsh o Stewardship vs. resource consumption o As an economic issue as well as a resource issue o How do you have stewardship if you don’t have value on what the environment is worth vs resource consumption  Muir o National parks idea in US o Sierra Club o Argued first ‘modern’ national park is Yellowstone park in 1870; 2) Australia 3) Banff 4) Canada some may believe that the first is in Magnolia in 1783 EARLY CONSERVATION – EARLY 20 TH CENTURY  Lacey Act of 1900 o Response to birds killed for fashion o Early wildlife protection o Senator was appalled we were killing birds for hats and make it illegal to bring illegal killed animals across state line and expanded to Nordic countries in Germany and helped stopping blatantly killing for fashion  Canadian Nation Parks o Banff in 1887 (world’s third or fourth National Park) o 1850 forward 1)Yellowstone 2)Australia 3)Banff lots of this came with wildlife protection  National Wildlife Refuges o Theodore Roosevelt o Founded pelican wildlife where they protect wildlife specifically  Nature as resource depot  use all resources then cant use it anymore ; movement forward  Gifford Pinchot  head of forestry FROM CONSERVATION TO ECOLOGY  Ecology first came in mention in 1860s in literature  Science of ecology o Relationships and connections  Opposed to nature is simplistic, static, stable environment  Looking at it if you take away x how does it impact y and z  Emerging ideas in 1800s

BRIEF HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY + ECONOMY & ENVIRONMENT  Food webs and trophic levels o  Humans not indispensable  Time when humans were seen as centre of the food webs, idea was nature was servicing people, and people can take what they wanted from nature  Succession o Changing plant communities  Succession following fire  Chaos and complexity theories o Unpredictability and uncertainty  In these successions while it can seen as mapped out, you were still working with error, so uncertain o Nature is not a machine  Can’t fix what you break b/c don’t know the action or reaction and you don’t know once you break it, how bad the reaction will be  Change in mindset from nature is simple  nature is being a part of the world and nature is unpredictable and chaotic that can’t be easily fixed ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT – 1960S AND 1970S  Silent Spring, 1962 o Rachel Carson o Idea of book: Better living through chemistry o Concept of pesticides were killing birds and people; idea that pesticides are killing birds and can kill people these aren’t minor pesticides but are like DBT which are very severe o In Toronto, built on garbage coastline was straight-line and expanded and how they kept rats down they had DBT truck that killed rats and books like silent spring which came national best seller, which was unheard of during that time, this brought discussion and at least ppl questioning what was happening  The population bomb, 1968 o Paul Ehrlich o First idea of exponential growth made real and why that matters  Small is beautiful, 1973 o E.F. Schumacher o Idea that while its popular for a long time, Nordic country look at economic growth is unsustainable eventually run into problems like population grow and the carrying capacity o grows the need to expand economy

BRIEF HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY + ECONOMY & ENVIRONMENT ENCIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT  The first Earth Day, 1970 o 20 million participants nationwide  Shut down parts of NYC for this gathering which was unheard of o Cuyahoga river on fire, 1952  runs through Akron Ohio; lit on fire so many times b/c it had so much oil and grease that it lights up (happened like 13 times)  Factories were allowed to dump water into this; environment had no value  Water bodies were often seen as a way to get rid of waste; had no value in terms of economic growth  Arab oil embargo, 1970 o Energy crisis o Very short but led to smaller and efficient cars and led to ideas that other places are in charge of our resource  Energy we need is being brought from somewhere else and others control  This was beginning/popularization to look at alternative energy sources  What we got to make sure embargo doesn’t exist again; how can we be self-suffiecient o Brought social consciousness  Love canal, 1978 o  Superfund, 1980 o Love canal cleanup  toxic oil, it was material that was legally dumped into unfinished cannel, it was well known, rainstorm caused environmental problems outside of being dumped into what was clay like cannel o Series of home experience toxic waste, in air, basement and school built along canal,

BRIEF HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY + ECONOMY & ENVIRONMENT o President Carter: declared emergency area and was superfund and now the federal government now is involved in US, not state government, when cleaning toxic waste US LEGISLATION IN THE 1970S  What happened in US helped push forward; started in US Canada come (it was a long time but prior to 70s ppl were allowed to do what they wanted to do)  1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)  1970 Clean Air Act  1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) o Multiple water, energy and pesticide regulations  Multiple water, energy, and pesticide regulations  1977 Clean Water Act EUROPEAN LEGISLATION IN THE 1970S  1970 UK Department of Environment founded o First Clean Air Act, 1970  1971 French Ministry of the Environment founded  1972 OECD adopts Polluter Pays Principle  1973 Environment Action Programmes  1974 German UBA (Environment Agency) founded  1993 European Environment Agency founded ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE  United Farm Workers organized, 1962 o Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta o General idea: pesticide free zone children: less likely cognitive impairments or issues than those where there are heavy pesticides, Mexico o Heavy pesticide: most likely lower income o Ex. Hamilton West end  affluent east end  traditionally lower income area  Hamilton was isolated and not a lot there and go to Hamilton most polluters in east b/c winds blow west to east; heavy polluted usually are east end because the predominate areas will not experience polluted airs  Wind blows west to east

BRIEF HISTORY OF SUSTAINABILITY + ECONOMY & ENVIRONMENT ENVIRONMENTAL JUCTICE MOVEMENT BEGINS  1982, PCB landfill proposed o African American neighborhood o Warren County, North Carolina  Protests and marches  1987, report by Ben Chavis o “Environmental racism”  Discussion of are we imparting these environmental problems unfairly in 80s we said yes but by how much? ENVIRONMENT ETHICS  Intrinsic value: a thing has value in itself o Related to economics; how much was it worth? At least that’s a question that can be developed further  Instrumental value: a thing is valuable insofar as it benefits humans  Land ethic o Aldo Leopold: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” EXPANDING TO A GLOBAL SCALE  Earthrise o 1968 Apollo 8 moon orbit  Blue Marble o 1972 Apollo 17 lunar landing o First clear image of space and it mattered because photos represented understanding of the isolation of earth, that there is no escape plan, this is what we have, and it became a symbol to change things  help lead to more discussions  1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment o Stockholm, Sweden  “Think globally, act locally” o René Dubos, from report Only One Earth  UN Environment Programme (UNEP) established o Importance of triple bottom line (environment, economics, and equity)  1983, UN - World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) o Chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland  1987 report, Our Common Future o a.k.a. “the Brundtland report” Sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” WCED. Our Common Future, 1987.  1987, Montreal Protocol o Global response to thinning of ozone layer (potential for catastrophe) o Phased out production of CFCs