Environmental Imperialism Summary

The current era is one plagued by a bevy of environmental concerns, from global warming, to deforestation, to land pollution. In order to address such concerns in a timely fashion, it seems imperative that academics from multiple disciplines employ their expertise to expose the threat of the continued human degradation of the planet and to offer solutions to these critical environmental questions. In particular, the work of historians can find equal application in the field of environmental activism. For example, the studying of historical trends in human behaviour and action can, as academic Alfred Crosby exemplifies, reveal the falsity of the nature-culture binary that allows the human degradation of the planet to continue unchecked. Moreover, …show more content…
He suggests that this human demographic takeover could not have occurred without the aid of non-human actors, such as animals, pathogens, and weeds, which also completed takeovers of their own. Crosby states that "the demographic triumph of Europeans in the temperate colonies is one part of a biological and ecological takeover which could not have been accomplished by human beings alone." In so doing, Crosby shifts the focus away from humans, who have traditionally been implicated as the sole actors of history, and suggests that non-human entities also play a significant role in shaping the outcome of historical events. While offering non-human entities historical agency in an unprecedented manner, this innovative assertion also challenges the longstanding and detrimental nature-culture binary that positions humans as separate and distinct from nature. The challenging of this binary is of utmost importance in order to curb the pollution and exploitation of the …show more content…
Guldi and Armitage postulate that when "put to the service of the public future, history can cut through the fundamentalisms of scientists and economists who preach elite control of wealth or scientific monitoring of all earth systems as the only possible way to avoid catastrophe. History can open up other options, and involve the public in the dialogue and reimagination of many possible sustainabilities." Historians have both the ability to understand long-term trends, and, through these trends, imagine possible future outcomes. It is easy to see how this skill is integral in the promotion of environmental justice. In studying long-term trends, historians have the opportunity to grasp the full extent of the human impact upon the environment. This, alongside their unique ability to speculate about future realities with the knowledge they have of past human behaviour, puts them in an excellent position to intervene in discussions of environmental