This week in Environmental Studies, we delved into the first three chapters of Environment and Society. The textbook echoes many of the subjects and themes of earlier readings and the class as a whole, emphasizing the intermingling of humanity and nature, and discussing the numerous complexities behind environmental issues. An anti-essentialist viewpoint is communicated from the beginning of the text; by opening on the Oostvaardersplassen, a “human-made wilderness,” the authors clearly communicate how muddled any distinction between civilization and “nature” is. Additionally, the “object” approach of understanding environmental problems through objects connected with a multitude of issues, seen in the latter half of this textbook, and foreshadowed in the introduction, mirrors our own ENVS160 Situated Projects, which aim to explore objects and their contexts.
The first full chapter begins with a familiar topic: population. After rehashing the Malthusian and neo-Malthusian background to this topic, as well as defining IPAT and the carrying capacity, the textbook adds nuance to the topic by discussing induced intensification and demographic transition. The former of these recalls Erle Elis’ argument, raising the point that humanity tends to grow past ecological limits through the innovation and technology that arise from growth, with intensification and efficiency enabling greater productivity of limited resources. Moreover, the demographic transition model undermines notions of population growth as a disaster only potentially derailed by authoritarian measures; by positing a social transition model in which birth rates inevitably fall (thus causing population to stabilize) in response to societal development, this model firmly rejects the apocalypticism of neo-Malthusianism. Lastly, this chapter raises the importance of women’s rights and education in relation to fertility rates, enabling a far-more humanistic view of potential solutions to this issue.