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Solomon, Steven. 2010. Water: the epic struggle for wealth, power, and civilization. New York: Harper. Steven Solomon's book Water: the epic struggle for wealth, power and civilization takes a look at how the control and efficient use of water has shaped human society from the ancient past to the present. With a look at water's influence in history from ancient civilizations to modern day, in his book, Solomon stresses that beyond the high value of precious resources such as oil, the control of water is far more important to the development of powerful societies. Weather through oceanic knowledge/skills or freshwater resource control/manipulation, throughout history water, Solomon argues has been the essential key to the rise and fall of great powers. Looking at different turning points in history, such as the rise of the Egyptian Kingdoms and Europe's establishment of the world trade system, Solomon shows how the control and advancements made in relation to fresh water control and/or seafaring highlights how water was the catalyst in each society's ability to gain and elicit control for a time being. With the support of his historical background in how water has played a keys role in the rise and fall of powerful kingdoms and nations, Solomon believes that water issues have the ability to impact political, economic, and environmental realities across the globe. Although lengthy, the book had a detailed amount of historical points that brought strength to his argument. I found his books to be very convincing in the fact that water played a pivotal role in explaining who in history were and were not able to rise to great power and take control impacting the direction of human civilization's growth. Throughout the past, water has shaped that way humans have developed. I agree with Solomon that it is by no means that this reality should change in the outcome of the future human history. For water related research or personal water related interest this book

Puzzling headline, no? But truly, this was an important study involving golden shiners (a common minnow), and the conclusions the researchers reached concerned how "uninformed agents can promote democratic outcomes in collective decision problems," or in less technical jargon, how "ignorance can promote democracy." Certainly intriguing in terms of boundary-crossing between the natural and the human sciences! But not without dispute over its relevance to the world of human politics, as noted at the bottom of the article. Relevance to ENVS is clear: we welcome ideas that cross the natural/social sciences, but we subject them to scrutiny too. (And, we worry about ignorance as much as anyone else does.)

Living Through the End of Nature by Paul Wapner presents a new way forward for environmentalism after the end of nature. Wapner argues that humans have altered the physical environment to such an extent that it can no longer be viewed separately from humans. Additionally, many argue that nature is just a social construction and never existed in the first place. Since popular environmentalism focuses on how humans can reduce their impact on nature, the end of nature presents a problem for the movement. However, Wapner argues that the end of nature will actually make the environmental movement stronger and more politically effective by making political debate less contentious and by focusing on the connections between people, landscapes, species, and narratives. Moving beyond nature will also soften the boundaries that currently exist, and protect the well-being of humans and the nonhuman world by focusing on opportunities that involve both, such as urban sustainability, social justice, poverty alleviation, and the rights of indigenous people. Overall Wapner's book is well argued and well supported by concrete examples. However, he continually presents wildness and wilderness in terms of otherness which leads the reader to question if he actually believes his own argument about the end of nature. Wapner provides good historical background of the environmental movement which makes this book useful for readers that are beginning to be interested in environmentalism, or potentially beginning students who would like to learn about different perspectives on the topic. I would recommend this book to almost anyone, though the academic style to Wapner's writing makes this book more appropriate for a classroom setting than for a popular audience.

An interesting exchange by two philosophers re. the relationship between the humanities and the sciences. Our students in ENVS 220 may have a good deal to bring to this discussion!

This site features major scientists and humanists discussing points of creative overlap, with plenty of interesting ideas and models we could learn from as we attempt to do the same in environmental studies.

We celebrate interdisciplinarity in environmental studies, while at the same time the various subfields of the classicly interdisciplinary discipline of anthropology are on the verge of divorce.  If we truly want to mingle the sciences and the humanities in making fresh sense of environmental issues, what can we learn from this sad story?

No, this not a Mac vs. PC rant. According to Jobs' biographer, he lacked the sheer brainpower of a Bill Gates, but had something far greater in many ways: genius, or at least ingenuity. And this knack is described in ways that resonate with our ENVS Program learning goals, including a creative blending of the humanities and sciences and attention to visual modes of thinking. So if you are still worried about your physics friends getting jobs and you getting nowhere, this Jobs may have a lesson for you.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus' first big essay The Death of Environmentalism stated that in order for us to take more productive action on the ecological issues of today and tomorrow we must move past environmentalism to post-environmentalism. In their book The Breakthrough: from the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility they argue that the environmentalism that got us this far, is now failing to address the major ecological issues of our time including climate change, and that we must move past this "politics of limits" (what they claim traditional environmentalism is) and move forward to the what they call the "politics of possibility." This is the idea of harnessing all of our human innovation, technology, creative ideas, and passion and pushing for a new modernization, one in which there is more prosperity for all. This they claim will allow us to properly address and take action on the major ecological issues of our time, like climate change. It's a compelling argument but one that seems to have some holes in it. If we are to push for a new modernization, and increase everyone's prosperity, how exactly do we go about doing that? Modernization had terrible effects on the people who didn't have the resources to fight it, would this be round two of that history? How do we make that transition in a more manageable and civil way? Regardless, this book is a must read for environmental studies/science/policy students and teachers, as well as people who consider themselves environmentalists and those who do not. Shellenberger and Nordhaus are clearly trying to reach across the divide, meeting the political left, center and right, and have already influenced some politicians and big names in our society. Could this be the direction we head in? The Politics of possibility?

In this conversation, Jamieson and (LC's own!) Odenbaugh discuss how climate change raises novel philosophical concerns and underscores traditional ones.  Climate change, they explain, poses a challenge for both consequentialism and its alternatives, and brings out questions about our obligations to future generations and about the moral status of non-humans. Further, the public controversy over climate science involves questions about the epistemology of testimony, the value-neutrality of science, and action under uncertainty.

In this article, the author discusses the devastating impacts humanity suffers from global warming. As he depicts, global warming results in several server problems for many countries that lack the ability to construct their own defensive infrastructures. In addition, he strongly believes that greening capitalism seems unlikely to truly take place and that it does not necessarily spell out the efficient cure to heal global warming. It is, according to his arguments, because capitalists and government see their benefits from capitalism as the first priority and often attempt to green capitalism only in their words. Another reason he offers from the article is to do with the fact that only when capitalism and its roots are profoundly understood, can it truly be seen why greening capitalism is an easy-said-than-done task.

A lot of American restoration efforts tend to aim Pre-Columbian. But really, that is pretty arbitrary (and problematic - humans were intimately involved with Pre-Columbian environments, as well as post-contact environments). So why not aim further back? This Russian physicist is doing just that - for fun, and setting his standard back 10,000 years. But there is more to it. This could be part of a huge effort by this fellow to stop arctic melting, a positive feedback loop that accelerates and is accelerated by global warming. If humanity blew the first task of an intelligent tinkerer in not keeping all the parts, can it repair that by trying to put the parts back? I'll be interested to see where it goes. Plenty of the usual restoration discussions to be had.

Map-based interface comparing human quality of life (primarily related to health, education, and income, but including other measures as well) in different parts of the US. Turns out, surprise surprise, that there are some huge differences from place to place, suggesting the necessity of situated research to explain these differences.

Zach Holz recommended this book to me before the break, and I heartily pass on his recommendation now that I've finished it.  There is a great deal of ecological relevance -- overpopulation, mountaintop removal mining, songbird protection -- in the storyline, but ultimately it is about a family, dysfunctional in basically all ways. Just now mulling over the ending (which I won't spoil), I wonder whether it takes someone as utterly disconnected from humanity as Walter (the dad) was to see the ecological truth of our trivial actions, such as letting cats outdoors?  And so, what does this mean for those of us who don't qualify as misanthropes?

Questions our assumption that there's a healthy or natural diet that humanity needs to return to. Another example of where we may be creating false divides between nature and culture.

In ENVS 220, students discuss/debate the relative contribution to environmental studies of the sciences vs. the humanities; here is one position, dubbed naturalism, in which science is viewed as the only path to knowledge. As the author summarizes, naturalism "doesn't mean anyone should stop doing literary criticism any more than foregoing fiction. Naturalism treats both as fun, but neither as knowledge." To some, naturalism is just another word for scientism, but it's worth us asking: What would a naturalist environmental studies be like? In what ways would it be better/worse/different?

This is straight out of the matrix - you know how the whole AI system runs of humans producing energy like batteries? These guys are seriously looking at doing just that. This story comes from GlobalPost, a new site that has great international reporting (when a lot of big papers had to fire their journalists as the industry started to decline, GP picked a lot of their international folks up as freelancers, so they developed a good set of connections around the world fast). They're doing a series on power and energy around the world, "Powerland", which this is a part of. Very cool news organization. In a new twist in the progress of the global energy system, Japan is now looking to reduce its energy dependence on Nuclear Power (a source so many other places are looking to for reducing their energy dependence on oil, coal, etc...) So the company featured in this video comes in with an interesting mix of waste diversion/energy production at the same time. The little, marginal bits of energy thrown about when ever anyone does anything - taking a step, talking on a phone, sitting down and chilling - is harnessed to power things in its surroundings. It is sort of like using exercise equipments rotations to generate energy, which some colleges have gotten major press for. I know the military was also looking at putting something in the soles of boots that would create energy when compressed, so that marching or walking could actually power some of a soldier's personal electronics. There are no numbers to see how scalable this is, but looking at the energy margins is interesting. They do add up - one step is nothing, but if you're in Tokyo and there are millions of collected steps all the time, that is a lot of energy-producing floor vibration. One has to wonder as to how serious an alternative this sort of technology is to other types. Almost like being able to paint solar panels onto things, and just take advantage of wherever the sun hits. Its almost desperate, b

For a different thing to pay attention to, listen to the street activist (I think - not clear what the source is) message at the very beginning of the video. Interesting the stance Japan seems to be taking, at least within some parts of its culture, in response to the Fukushima incident.

I noticed that the Powerland series on GP is being sponsored by Shell, which raises some interesting questions. Multinational energy corporations may be turning to energy alternatives because they know that oil is going down the proverbial drain. Paying attention to where companies like Shell, BP, and Chevron-Texaco might yield some worthwhile information about our energy future.

Connecting immigration sentiments to the anti-invasive fervor of environmentalists (a stylistic, more than a substantive trick, I think) this writer questions the war against non-native species, citing the dynamic and evershifting nature of, well, "nature." I appreciate the sentiment and the focus more on the function of ecological systems, rather than its ever-shifting make up (species lists being as much a burden to ecological thought as a blessing), but its a hard line to tread when you start picking which non-natives and which natives to battle. Zebra mussels, for example, were cited in the piece as lake-cleaning food sources for many small fish and in turn birds. This is true, most research shows that the zebra mussel is becoming a major food source around the great lakes. But is it an improvement? It is a difference, certainly. From a human perspective, its much worse: even beyond the obvious decimation of fishing industries (note the author says it increases populations of SMALL fish), try walking barefoot on a beach cluttered with the remains of zebra mussels. No fun. Lots of blood. Whole generations forced to wear water shoes where bare feet once sufficed. So, if we're forced into acknowledging that we can't rely on the essences of stable-state ecosystems as our guide to how ecological systems should be, what do we use? And can we (should we?) get past anthropocentrism (maybe I should sacrifice my feet, the fishing industry, and the various non-human populations of organisms getting hit by zebra mussels for the zebra mussels, small fish, and birds) in doing so? This is a big question, and I definitely don't have any great answers. But its worth pondering.