Starting off our textbook with Oostvaardersplassen and rewilding immediately puts this book in a contemporary environmentalist viewpoint. As Jim showed, this is a unique standpoint for a modern environmental studies or science textbook and sets our book apart. Exploring this concept of rewilding is an interesting way to show how our preconceived notions of nature are idealistic and nostalgic for a long gone time. Rewilding is an interesting idea, but it is one that involves a lot of human intervention, including the killing of many animals. Our idea of nature is no longer the natural way of the world as we enter the human-dominated anthropocene. Thinking of nature as this paradise untouched by humans is not practical in finding long-term solutions, and it is this mindset that frames the rest of the solutions and topics explored in this text.
We then explored how population fits into this worldview. Seen as the root of all our problems by many classic environmentalists, population is shown here to be an important environmental factor, but not necessarily a bad factor. Interestingly, several, sometimes conflicting, classic and contemporary ideas are described in this chapter. Classic ideas of IPAT and Ecological Footprints are described, but these ideas seem to provide context for the issue of population rather than show a solution. Contrasting is the idea of induced intensification, which reinforces ideas we read earlier in the essay ‘Planet of No Return’. Both of these suggests that there are no limits to growth, that as long as humans keep growing, so will human innovation. However, after this idea that population growth can be good, solutions to population growth, such as women’s literacy, are proposed. This originally confused me, but I think this chapter is providing many contrasting ideas to show the complexity of this issue. Another thing that struck me was how different population growth was happening world wide with birth and death rates either both low or high or higher birth. Population is a highly place and context dependent debate.
Similarly, the next chapter introduces the complexities of environmental issues in an economic context, and generally pro-economic solutions are introduced and analyzed. One thing that really stood out for me was the cap and trade ideas applied to wetland mitigation. It seems very impractical to destroy wetlands just to create them somewhere else, and it echoes classic environmental ideas of the rewilding attempt at Oostvaardersplassen. This provides evidence against cap and trade as an effective tool, as the geography of such attempts does matter, but it still shows how it can be useful in cutting pollution in a cost-effective manner. Other proposed solutions, such as green taxes and green consumption, all show pros and cons. The complexity of environmental issues are expressed through population and the economy.
Maya Bon says
Blake,
It isn’t necessarily womens’ literacy that has shown to correlate with a lower birth rate, rather the education and political empowerment that goes into giving women more equal positioning within society. Literacy is very important within that process, but I think that it shouldn’t be regarded as the whole story.
Myka Martin says
Although I don’t know whether or not I agree with rewilding (it probably depends on context), I think that your statement about it “including the killing of many animals” is a simplification. In Oostvaardersplassen, they don’t have to kill the deer themselves. Some of them will starve, but that seems to follow an expected population increase/decrease pattern. This happens all the time without intentional human intervention. So, then, which is more ethical, shooting the deer so they won’t suffer or allowing them to starve in order to let the population “naturally” develop?