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- Info
Historical perspectives on sustainable development
| Author: |
Pointing, Clive |
| Date: |
1990 |
| Periodical: |
Environment |
| Abstract: |
Most discussions of environmental issues today contain very little historical perspective. It is generally assumed that environmental problems have only affected contemporary societies. In some cases, this view maybe justified. For example, the use of highly toxic pesticides and other chemicals and the resulting pollution problems are essentially a phenomenon of the last 40 years. Most people recognize that acid rain and the enhanced greenhouse effect are the result of industrial processes and fossil-fuel burning during the past century or so. But is even this longer time scale really adequate for considering environmental problems? How can someone put into perspective the current deforestation of the Amazon basin without considering what has happened in Europe, China, and North America? Originally, 95 percent of western and central Europe was covered in forest, but that amount has now fallen to about 20 percent. Ten thousand years ago, China was 70 percent forest; it is now about 5 percent. In the 100 years after the 1790s, about three-quarters of the forests in the United States were cleared. How can anybody understand the current problems, of soil erosion, desertification, and the salinization and waterlogging of irrigated land without studying the historical examples of all these events? Is it possible to understand the present situation in the Third World-its poverty and dependence on cash crops and commodity exports-without understanding how Europe remade not just the political but also the economic and social relationships in the world after 1500? How can one understand the current energy crisis without considering the long-term changes in energy availability over the last 10,000 years? A thorough discussion of all these issues is beyond the scope of this article; instead, it examines three societies affected by environmental problems and considers how they reacted. |
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