Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition: Revisiting Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Edward O. Wilson 9783839441787

Citation preview

Craig Thomas Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition

New Ecology  | Volume 2

Craig Thomas (PhD, MLA, MFA) teaches geography and sustainability courses at Salem State University and Arizona State University.

Craig Thomas

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition Revisiting Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Edward O. Wilson

© 2018 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de Cover layout: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Typeset by Justine Buri, Bielefeld Printed by docupoint GmbH, Magdeburg Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4178-3 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4178-7

Content Acknowledgements  | 7

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson and Wilson | 9 Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?  | 23 Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability  | 51 Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progressive Era, and Regional Sustainability  | 83 Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability  | 117 Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development, and Global Sustainability  | 147 Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 st Century  | 179 Glossary  | 205 Works Cited  | 209

Acknowledgements I would first like to thank Deborah Koshinsky who was a close reader and avid fan. Deborah read, corrected and supplied comments to every page of this manuscript as well as contributed to the early mapping and preparation for the plan of the book. Nathan Ralph was also instrumental in helping built support material like my blog, finding appropriate images for the naturalist chapters, and discussing sustainability issues at length. I would also like to give a special thanks to Jacob Horstmann, my publisher, and his continued confidence in this project. I especially appreciate the sustainability scholars interviewed whose words and works are cited throughout. The sustainability scholars interviewed were identified in part because their work reflected an understanding of both sustainability the four naturalists and ecohumanitsts in this book. All interviewees were familiar of the naturalists and their writings, perspectives, and values. Analysis of the primary documents together with the interviews with these sustainability scholars or thought leaders helped reveal shortcomings in current sustainability thinking. Interviewed sustainability scholars include: Timothy Beatley, Professor of Sustainable Communities, University of Virginia; Amber Bill, Manager Community Engagement & Reserves, Parks and Gardens, Wellington, New Zealand; Peter Brastow, Senior Biodiversity Coordinator, City of San Francisco; Edward Cook, Associate Professor, the Design School, Arizona State University; Cecelia Herzog, President of Green Infrastructure and Urban Ecology Institute, São Paulo, Brazil; Stephen Kellert, Tweedy Ordway Scholar, Social Ecology, Yale University; Julie Klein, Professor of Humanities, English, Interdisciplinary Studies and Faculty Fellow, Office for Teaching and Learning, Wayne State University; Dr. Gary D. Lynne, Professor of Ecological Economics, University of Nebraska; William “Bill” McKibben, Environmentalist, Author, and Journalist; Curt Meine, Senior Fellow and ecologist, The Aldo Leopold Foundation; Bryan Norton, Environmental Philosopher, Georgia Tech University; Michael Popejoy, Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Harvard University; Dr. Charles Redman, Founding Director, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University; William Rudy, MA and MS of Ecology, Director of Campus Sustainability, Brigham Young University; Susan Santone, Executive

8

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Director, Creative Change Educational Solutions; and Timothy C. Weiskel, Cultural Anthropologist, Cambridge Climate Research Associates, Harvard University. Interviews with sixteen sustainability scholars were primarily directed toward determining how to positively augment sustainability education. I am greatly indebted to their time and generosity, as well as their research integrated throughout the book. They explored naturalists’ contributions to theoretical and epistemological contributions versus United Nations-based thinking to support the overall methodology of the literature review and sustainability classroom work. The results of these interviews established that sustainability scholars would like to see naturalist theory, practice, and education inform and enhance sustainability thinking. I would like to express gratitude for the important sources of mentorship, knowledge, funding and other support that contributed to this interdisciplinary book at Arizona State University. The Department of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning’s Director David Pijawka devoted countless hours, not only toward this book, but toward my character and professionalism in academia, as he does toward many students he mentors. Environmental historian Paul Hirt was also a mentor and teacher, holding some of the most productive writing classes for graduate students at ASU, and helping to bring the level of writing here to a much higher level than it would have been otherwise. Dean of the School of Sustainability’s Chris Boone, a tireless leader, epitomizes the transdisciplinary thinker discussed here and helped me understand the concept of sustainability as having deep historical roots that went beyond the idea of three pillars for sustainability. And finally, environmental philosopher and ethicist Ben Minteer contributed thousands of comments and criticisms to down to each sentence for over five years that we worked together. I hope someday I’ll be able to contribute as many hours to the benefit of one of his projects. Like the four naturalists under scrutiny in this book, none of them have limited themselves to one discipline, but work to link the relationship between people and nature, theory and practice, and cultural and natural histories to our present-day crises. All stand testimony to today’s sustainability leaders, teachers, researchers and practitioners, and their ongoing, often uncompensated, commitment to their students. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank Mavis and Henry for their unbridled support during the countless morning, afternoon, evening and weekend hours devoted to this book over the last five years. Let’s take the dogs and get out into nature again as soon as possible.

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson and Wilson

I ntroduction : N atur alists and H olism Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. H enry David Thoreau, Walden: O r L ife in the Woods (1854)

Our chaotic society and derelict environment mirror the great complexity and uncertainty of our times. Though it may seem implausible to us, our consumption patterns and rates may be outstripping the world’s resources. Population ecologists like William Rees (1992; 2013) and Mathis Wackernagel (1996; 2013), ecological economists like Robert Costanza (1991) and Herman Daly (2004), and environmental scientists and systems modelers like Donella and Dennis Meadows (2004) argue that we have likely already surpassed carrying capacity—the maximum human population the Earth’s ecological systems can support without deteriorating the ecosphere. At its core, this book examines the effective means for preventing the collapse of the carrying capacity of the ecosphere and avoiding the end of civilization as we know it. Our best estimates predict that by 2050, the U.S. population will exceed 400 million, and the world’s population will have surpassed nine billion, rising exponentially in some developing countries such as in already environmentally depleted regions in North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. By the end of the century, we are expecting the Earth’s carrying capacity to contain 11.5 billion human beings, doubling what many experts think is the Earth’s human carrying capacity. The resulting increased demand for depreciating necessities such as food, water, timber and fuel will irreversibly convert already dwindling and non-replaceable natural resources into consum-

10

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

able energy and other economic resources (Schneider & Kay, 1994). The rising population and consumption rates on Earth collectively will have a multitude of negative outcomes for humankind and ecosystems alike—or what are called socio-ecological systems (SES). But massive population and consumption growth manifests just one of many colossal problems for the ecosphere, or the global SES. The gradual but persistent warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases represents one such problem and exacerbates most existing SES challenges. More than 97 percent of publishing climate scientists confirm that since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840), humans have increased the ecosphere’s carbon dioxide (CO2) to levels unprecedented over the past 400,000 years, which will increase the range of global temperatures worldwide (Cook, et al., 2006; IPCC, 2014; Pew, 2012). Recently researchers also found global climatic change is occurring at a rate at least ten times faster than any change in the past 65 million years (Stanford, 2013). Yet another major SES challenge is biodiversity loss. Biodiversity loss in our forests, rivers, soils, and oceans is already estimated to be 100-10,000 times the background extinction rate. Plant and animal species loss has already permanently altered almost all—if not all—the ecosystems of the planet. For example, a recent report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (2015) states all ocean life is endangered, and if we continue along our same trajectory, coral reefs may well be extinct by the year 2050. Overfishing, run-off pesticides and herbicides, ocean warming, ocean acidification and other factors have coalesced to damage oceanic species richness and genetic diversity as well to disrupt the biological services the ocean naturally provides. These ecosystem services include: nutrient cycling, cleaning the air and the water of pollutants, providing oxygen and eliminating CO2, and other services provided by balanced ecosystems that developed over hundreds of millions of years.

C oll apse While these modern problems may seem new, a definite preponderance of evidence in recent sustainability scholarship demonstrates SES problems have been plaguing humankind since the dawn of human culture. Anthropologists like Jared Diamond (2006), Charles Redman (1999), and many others (Konfirst, 2012; Linden, 2006; Montgomery, 2012) have revealed how extreme events like soil loss, unfettered population growth, great changes in climate, and the homogenization of endemic natural systems have afflicted society for centuries. Ecologist, geologist, and anthropologist Jared Diamond (2006), for instance, cites pre-historical Montana as an example of a culture where climate

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition

shifts forced massive migrations, local extirpations, and changes in agricultural regimes set the course of that society’s declining future. Past environmental and socio-economic issues combined to collapse civilizations even in the ancient world. Examples of collapse into a dark age include the Sumerian city-state of Uruk (c. 4000 B.C.) with population densities roughly equivalent to those experienced by modern Parisians—the highest in the Western world (Boone & Modarres, 2006). Environmental historian Eugene Linden (2007) attributes the demise of Uruk to a 200-year drought between circa 2200-2000 B.C. that led to a 93 percent decrease in population. Population ecologist Lester Brown (2011) instead attributes its ecological and social demise to salt concentrations in the soil and “an environmental flaw in the design of their otherwise extraordinary irrigation system” (p. 9)—a source of many failed states. But whatever the cause, ecological events extinguished the Sumerian economy, then its society, eventually obliterating even the language itself (Konfirst, 2012). In another example, the Minoan civilization (2600-1400 B.C.) on the Greek island of Crete devalued and undervalued crops, leading first to their population exceeding carrying capacity, then famine, followed by the absorption of their culture into a larger and more powerful city-state. The Minoans’ innovations in the sciences and technology of the era also created capacity for energy-deficit spending and repeated economic boom-and-bust cycles. Later in Greece, while the rocky coasts helped form important trade routes created a progressive and “healthy” competition among the Greek states, this economic development simultaneously led to significant soil erosion from massively expansive agriculture projects and the subsequent “fragmentation” of competitive Greek city-states (Kotkin, 2006, p. 20). Despite having an advanced trade network, moreover, the Greek practice of agricultural terracing that constituted the foundation of their sustainability demanded significant amounts of physical labor in what environmental historian J. R. McNeill (2000) calls a “somatic energy regime” (p. 11). When invading forces removed this energy resource (i.e., slaves), Athens and other Greek city-states no longer had the ability to keep their farms from eroding into the Aegean (McNeill, 2000). It would not be until the nineteenth century that a student of social and environmental systems, George Perkins Marsh (1864), delivered, in Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, one of the first strong polemics against deforestation based on the collapse of Mediterranean civilizations from desertification. Seemingly, these societies failed to realize that society and environment function as one single, “coupled,” human-natural system (or SES), despite Xenophon having established irrigation and agricultural harvests as the ecological foundation of mercantilism in Oeconomicus (384 B.C.) (Glacken, 1975, p. 13). In a more recent example, the Khmer Empire (802-1431), centered in Cambo-

11

12

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

dia, had populations rivaling Roman populations at the height of its Empire. But their population and consumption growth caused massive deforestation, finally silting their irrigation system to such a degree that they could no longer be used. However ironic, it is often the same technology that leads to a culture’s rise, leads to its demise.

I de alist vs . N atur alist W orldvie ws As environmental historian Ulrich Grober (2012) states, “sustainability is the antonym of collapse” (p. 16). Cultural preservation has been the ultimate goal of society since the first civilizations. This is why Native Americans, who drew thinking outside the streams of Western science and philosophy, developed the “seven generations” concept (Hauptman, 2008).1 Historical proto-sustainability concepts are among the most fundamental cultural beliefs, including “sustenance” of the Old Testament (circa 1000-400 B.C.), or even the well-meaning, but idealistic and static “stability” of Plato’s Republic (circa 380 B.C.)—referring not only to food but also to all human necessities including shelter, nourishment, and fuel. History itself thus may hold many answers for restoring balance and achieving sustainability of the ecosphere. One important thinker from Greek culture who profoundly affected Western culture was Plato (428-348 B.C.). Plato’s worldview, while technically holistic in that it attempted to fit all animate and inanimate things on Earth into one construct, is a classic example of the constraints endemic to an ideological and unbalanced approach. Plato’s “Idealism” (often referred to as Platonic thought) heavily influenced Christian holism during the Enlightenment and contained a worldview not unlike many religious fundamentalists observed around the world today. Idealism is defined today as both a “philosophy,” and as “any of various systems of thought in which the objects of knowledge are held to be in some way dependent on the activity of mind. Often contrasted with realism” (Oxford, 2017). Although there is no one-to-one relationship between Plato’s Idealism and the understanding of idealism today, because of the latter part of this defi1 | Hauptman (2008), an Iroquois, argues that the Iroquois are the originators of seven generations concept, which has been useful in negotiation American-Indian relations since the 1800s, in Seven of Generations Iroquois Leadership: The Six Nations since 1800: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors. OED Bible translation: sustenance: necessities of life; food. The Bible, Psalm 22:30; 78:06; 102:18. Psalms contains many citations with direct reference to the coming of future generations depending on translation Hebrew dictum to build a city, “for the edification of future generations” (Exodus 17:14; Deuteronomy 31:19).

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition

nition, one can begin to see how idealist perspectives might not mesh with the approaches needed to solve SES problems (also known in sustainability discourse as wicked problems, which I describe in full in Chapter 1). Idealistic views in many ways contradict sustainability thinking since the tradition associated with its discourse has evolved from real-life environmental problems (Minteer, 2011; Cole & Foster, 2001). Plato denied facts and knowledge as emanating from a material and natural world. Instead, he posited concepts, values, and principles from an abstract system of belief steeped in eternal and idealistic “forms.” The urban ecologist Louis Mumford (1961) noted in his famous The City in History how Plato and his teacher Socrates originated idealistic thinking in Western thought, but they possessed virtually no understanding of the natural world to guide their philosophical worldview. Plato’s theory of perfect and eternal forms like “tree” or “mountain,” represented a higher plane of existence, of which the physical and material world was a mere shadow. Plato’s was what we would call today reductionist, or, “A person who analyses and describes a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents,” (Oxford, 2017). While in ecology as well as other sciences, reductionism compliments holism and the scientific method, here it constitutes more of a pejorative term given its failure to capture the immense range of layered complexity that emerges from study of the natural world. In contrast to Plato, Aristotle relied on direct observation of biological phenomena and conceived of “logos” as “reasoned discourse.” Aristotle (384322 B.C.), the “first naturalist,” originated scientific, naturalistic, and holistic thinking in Western discourse. His thinking can still guide the understanding and solving of SES, wicked problems today. Aristotle is rightly placed at the origin of naturalist history because he “put natural history on par with the traditionally respectable sciences such as mathematics, medicine and astronomy” (Huxley, 2011, p. 24). The philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) accredits Aristotle with raising human culture from its primitive status. Aristotle, the founder of the physical sciences and “father” of the scientific method, was also aware of organizing value of logos and purposely created the term “oikos” to represent both “ecology” and “economy.” Oikos or “eco” represented a discourse on the relationship between human beings and the natural world. Aristotle’s thinking is the first evidence of the full scientific method in practice, which is the reason he is often accredited with its invention. It is a considerably improved way of approaching a given problem, and it utilizes a combination of deductive (logical and empirical) and inductive (creative and probability related) reasoning (Klein, 1990). But even more important, Aristotle studied the natural world, developing, according to Wilson (1998), an “empiricist” and “biological basis for morality” (p. 53).

13

14

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Figure 1: The School of Athens. The late Renaissance painter Raphael contrasted two different worldviews—one spiritual and one material—that contributed to Western civilization to that point, and as characterized by Plato and Aristotle. (Raphael, 1509)

The conflict between Aristotle and Plato also represents two antagonistic philosophical views of Western thinking. This polarity is indelibly represented in later Enlightenment thought as complementary yet contradictory and already firmly established as seen in Raphael’s (1483-1520) late Renaissance painting “The School of Athens” (c. 1509-11) (Most, 1996). In it (see Figure 1.), Plato is pointing upward to represent the world of ideas, the intangible, abstract perfection of mathematics. On the right, Aristotle motions toward the Earth representing the world of natural laws, botany, chemistry, physics, and the scientific method. Plato is also “pointing upwards beyond the limits of pagan philosophy toward an eventual Christian revelation that he alone can vaguely sense” (Most, 1996, p. 165). Human co-operation with the natural world is important for SES problem solving. While Plato began with abstract ideas and proceeded to build a philosophy of nature around Ideal Forms—as thinkers do in primarily in religious frameworks—Aristotle, on the contrary, invented a new form of logic that began instead with specific observations from the material and natural sciences, proceeding through experimentation and trial and error to the formulation of ideas that were generalizations (Klein, 1990). Aristotle’s ethics instead derived along direct observation of physical laws and centered on the moral and ethical development of human beings as a result of contact with nature. Additionally, his ethics focused on innate biological functions of human beings within what we would today call an ecosystem—all concepts further developed by the naturalists examined in the present book. In direct opposition to his teacher, Plato, Aristotle reformed what a worldview could be, showing it could operate in congruence with—and as part of—the natural world (Klein, 1990). As a result, Aristotle’s concepts, values, and prin-

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition

ciples inform each other and seek agreement throughout his many books. Poetics, Physics, Rhetoric, Drama, Dreams, Economics (which meant both one’s products and labor, but also one’s “home” in an ecological system), Memory, The Natural Sciences, Moral and Political Philosophy, The Method of Science and Philosophy, Generation and Corruption and other books based on the precept that all the principles of nature reinforce one another. Especially important are Aristotle’s understanding of emergence (which is fundamental to contemporary ecology) and the solving of socio-ecological problems. Emergence and emergent properties have been defined as the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems (Anderies, Jansen & Ostrom, 2004). Emergent phenomena are conceptualized as occurring on the macro-level, in contrast to the micro-level components and processes out of which they arise (Goldstein, 1999). Finally, emergent properties are phenomena that cannot be predicted from the components of the level or unit in ecological levels of organization and have non-reducible properties (Odum & Barrett, 2005). Over two thousand years ago Aristotle thus effectively corrected Plato’s Idealism. In yet further example of how Aristotle’s sophisticated understanding of the relationship stemming from the confluence of science, ethics, economics—and knowledge as a whole—are apropos for today’s sustainability thinking, he was among the first thinkers to develop notions of diverse sustainability principles like intergenerational equity in his Nicomachean Ethics (350 B.C.). Additionally, he was the first to articulate sustainability’s concept of future generations (Aristotle & McKeon, 1941; OED, 2014). I suggest both Aristotle’s worldview—and the naturalist worldview in general—are much more pragmatic for solving SES problems as they also encompass natural and human concepts, values, and principles. Plato’s idealistic worldview (i.e., Idealism) is overtly ideological and antithetical to a holistic, ecological, and humanist worldview. It is also contradictory to sustainability thinking as it lacks components vital to sustainability thinking, such as observation, empiricism, and the scientific method. The philosophy of Idealism, the core of Plato’s thinking, is a worldview a naturalist often specifically rejects. Holism that is limited to the disciplines of either philosophy or science exclusively, or that conform to ideological and religious beliefs, is fatally flawed. Often throughout history, ideological and religious beliefs have run counter known scientific concepts, values and principles. Religious dogma, such as that which in the seventeenth century called Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo (1564-1642) heretics for reporting on natural laws we know today to be true, has historically prevented our scientific observations of the natural world from informing our entire worldview. Naturalists have often aspired to describe all the fundamental laws of the universe in complimentary and holistic terms. In this book I will demonstrate

15

16

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

that naturalist concepts, values, and principles frequently run counter to a more predominant thinking of global expansion and domination of both nature and other human beings. Here, I closely examine the worldview of four prominent American naturalists. During the course of my sustainability research, I have found that the life and work of what are traditionally referred to as naturalists, or natural philosophers—who are well versed in both environmental and cultural history—possess a sustainable worldview. Naturalists were among the first scientists and were ecologists before the creation of the discipline in academia. Since antiquity, certain naturalists can be considered exceptional thinkers as they were often trained in both the theory and practice of both science and philosophy.

S ustainable S ystems How can the long tradition of naturalist discourse help us achieve sustainability today? Similarly to Plato’s thinking, narrow, idealistic, and non-scientific views have divided human knowledge from natural knowledge for over two thousand years. Such views still predominate in a sustainable development paradigm where the values development and conservation are pitted against one another, as well as within the discourse and practices at the university where the sciences and humanities are compartmentalized. I propose that while many sustainability scholars have extolled Aristotle’s use of deductive reasoning (Klein, 1990), few have used his reasoning method to solve complex SES. In solving complex, emergent problems, while we can begin with deductive reasoning, we must also employ inductive reasoning. Since we must make decisions about the future with imperfect knowledge, we can use Aristotle’s reasoning method, which “starts from what is already known, proceeds sometimes through induction and sometimes by syllogism” (Klein, 1990, p. 140). In looking for a new sustainability paradigm, I find the writing of naturalists from the American environmental tradition provide a notably rich and fertile ground for sustainability thinking. While we often employ quasi-statistical reasoning projected indefinitely into the future to solve social and environmental problems here and around the world, sustainability is not about 5, 10, or 20 years, but it concerns the long-term. It is therefore apt to consider both our measurable past and our long history. In researching some of the most influential shapers of naturalist thinking, I found members of overlapping fields of study like biologists, climatologists, ecologists, foresters, ornithologists, evolutionary biologists and environmental scientists also often integrated their thoughts on the environment with economics, sociology, psychology, ethics, religion, philosophy, and history. Traditional naturalists often simultaneously cross-examined concepts, values, and

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition

principles from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities—also known as the Three Branches. As we will see, naturalists have traditionally observed data and phenomena holistically because of the demands of the field first called “Natural History.” The “first naturalist” Aristotle, who unified principles through writings on fields as diverse as biology and ethics, physics and poetry, and evolution and society, famously stated in Metaphysics: [T]he truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect it must be easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of the whole, meaning the whole is more than the sum of its parts (Aristotle, 371 B.C./2004, p. 36)

Aristotle’s third-century BC holistic view is similar to today’s definition of holism.2 His sense of all knowledge being related represents a worldview that is no longer “mystical,” or “top-down” as in a Christian or divine plan, as scores of great thinkers have proposed. His views are instead founded on the idea that knowledge from the Three Branches are all related, and they can be integrated in a paradigm of interdependency—where each part contributes to the whole—and works toward synthesis among all knowledge (Klein, 1990; Wilson, 1998; 2015). Because not every naturalist proved adept at integrating science and ethics, natural history and philosophy, ecology and society, and environmental and socio-economic problems within a holistic worldview, I call the naturalists examined in this book, given their deep and broad coupled-systems approach of their work, ecohumanists. Ecohumanists suggest changing the larger SES that created unsustainable practices in the first place. Their ethic of one coupled human and natural system, with economics subordinated to environmental limits, links important values from the natural sciences and the humanities for sustainability education. Throughout this book, I also sometimes refer to these naturalists as ur- or proto-ecologists and sustainability thinkers. A range of writings first drew my interest to these authors and how they could enhance sustainability discourse. These included Henry David Thoreau’s (1854) lengthy essay on “Economics” in Walden: or Life in the Woods (1854); and Ben Minteer (2006) and Bryan Norton’s (2005) treatment of Aldo Leopold as a pluralist as well as a sustainability and transdisciplinary thinker. I was also motivated by the contrast between Rachel Carson’s early writings on the sea and her Silent Spring (1962), a clear departure from her placid depictions of coast2 | “The theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts” (Oxford, 2017).

17

18

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

al ecosystems and their multifarious interactions, to a more pointed critique on industry and the application of science. Finally, E. O. Wilson’s (1986; 1992; 1998; 2012; 2016) writing on the coevolution of genetic (natural) and cultural processes, the theories of biophilia and consilience, as well as his commentary on the other ecohuminists, formed the foundation of this study. In preparation for writing the book and in ultimately choosing four representative naturalists, I carefully considered many holistic thinkers. In particular, I examined those who exhibited holistic and coupled-system thinking that extended to the social and economic spheres. I reflected on an international body of literature of naturalists and interdisciplinary thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander Humboldt, George Perkins Marsh, Charles Darwin, John Muir, John Burroughs, P.D. Ouspensky, Albert Einstein, Edward Abbey, Paul Erhlich, Michel Foucault, Wallace Stegner, Barry Commoner, Donald Worster, Jane Jacobs, Stewart Brand, Bill McKibben, David Owen, Lester Brown, and Vandana Shiva–all of whom are referred to in this book. These thinkers are among those whose concepts, values, and principles capture and integrate a remarkably heterogeneous range and depth of historical, normative, economic, ecological, scientific, and social values pivotal to a viable discourse in sustainability.

The A merican E nvironmental Tr adition I settled upon four American naturalists for several reasons. First, most of my life experience and research in environmental management and sustainability, as well as all my education in sustainability, has been as an American citizen. Second, until just recently, Americans have had the largest per-capita carbon footprint, and corresponding ecological footprint—the amount of natural resources needed to support a human population—of any existing country.3 Third, Western ideologies of capitalism, expansionism, democracy, and exceptionalism beginning with the Industrial Revolution in America led to many of the global environmental and economic systems we live in today; the four selected naturalists critique all of these ideologies. Thoreau responded to the effects of early American industrialism that he observed. It was the American-led economic expansion and leadership in the fields of ecology, science, and technology beginning at outset of the twentieth century to World War II to which Leopold reacted. Likewise, the explosion of unfettered research and 3 | Recently China’s carbon footprint surpassed the United States, although the average citizen has one-fifth the footprint of an average American, and many argue the products manufactured in China for us should contribute to our footprint, which might keep us in first place as the world’s largest consumer of natural resources.

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition

technological applications following World War II evoked a response by the early biologist and environmental activist Rachel Carson. Later, it is during the era of sustainable development that began in the 1970s, and exemplified by the Brundtland Report in the 1980s, to which E. O. Wilson responded at the turn of the twenty-first century. Fourth, I examined naturalism in the United States because it is Americans—especially conservative and religious right—the have been responsible for blocking many international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and quite recently the Paris Accord Climate Agreement, which have limited Europe, China, as well as smaller developing countries from establishing international sustainability policies sooner. Those obstructing such environmental agreements have ideological, religious, and economic worldviews well removed from how the ecosphere works, upon which the four naturalists often remark. Fifth, and finally, although the original, American environmental movement has now fragmented into many splinter groups, the influence of America and its media, economics, and military still reaches to almost every corner of the globe. Therefore, America’s potential for leadership in the creation of a more sustainable economic, ethical, and education system appears nearly boundless. In the end, I selected naturalists from four different eras: Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), Rachel Carson (1907-1964), and Edward O. Wilson (1934- ). I investigated a considerable amount of each author’s writing, making their work the main of unit of analysis. I focused on their most mature works: Walden, A Sand County Almanac, Silent Spring, and Consilience. I justify this in that each author devoted a concerted amount of time to search for connections between environmental and social systems, as well as accounting for the trajectory their views took as they reached a higher level of holistic and SES thought. Each book represents the thinker’s most developed, tried-andtested thinking on local-to-global sustainability. Thoreau could induce scientific principles from philosophic principles— and vice versa—because of his unique late Enlightenment education in natural history. Thoreau, like Aristotle, employed a version of the scientific method across the natural sciences and humanities that equally valued both inductive and deductive reasoning, and he became an American pioneer in SES or coupled-systems thinking. Other than Thoreau’s very well researched contributions to cultural and individual ethics before producing his manifesto Walden (1854), Thoreau had written many essays and journal entries on economics, as well as delivered many lectures at the Concord Lyceum,4 including one entitled “Economy.” 4 | Thoreau devoted much of his life to the Concord “Lyceum,” based on Aristotle’s concept of a town hall-type lecture open to the public, and delivered by local professionals to share with the community (Mumford, 1961).

19

20

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Leopold’s second book Game Management (1933), a very practical manual about the management of biological diversity, was written after countless articles on forestry, wildlife management, and the examination of what today we would call socio-ecological relationships, across all the states of the continental United States. It was not until after Leopold had a lifetime of working in forestry, on town councils, publishing in local newspapers, and working in the university that he could fully record his mature thoughts about biological health and integrity in A Sand County Almanac (1949). Despite what has been often perceived as anthropocentric rhetoric, A Sand County Almanac presents not a picture of prosperous men simultaneously preserving and living off the fat of the land, but instead it paints a model of resilience in the preservation and restoration of old places and ways. Likewise, I examined Carson’s and Wilson’s most mature thoughts on sustainability. Carson had published dozens of articles and received high praise and acclaim for three previous books of nature writing, one of which won the National Book Award. With Silent Spring (1962), she took a far more serious turn as an early environmental activist concerned with the destruction of many of her former research sites through the applications of pesticides (specifically, DDT). Finally, Wilson—twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and who could be counted as a historical naturalist for the importance of his work in the 1960s and 1970s alone—has made a number of bold attempts to unite natural, social, and human systems. This work blazed a trail for today’s sustainability thinkers and academics; yet, it is not until Consilience (1998) and in the brief Future of Life (2002) that he fully links the sciences and humanities and engages with some of the world’s most pressing and complex socio-ecological challenges that will face the twenty-first century. Each naturalist and ecohumanist presented in this book has contributed substantially to natural history and/or the science of ecology. In their youth, each was an amateur naturalist and ornithologist, and later in life an activist. Each was an education reformer either in theory and practice, often stressing the importance of education that extended far outside the university. As an activist, each has demonstrated a fully matured perspective on how nature should and must be treated from an individual point-of-view and as a matter of self-actualization, promoting local-to-global conservation. These naturalists were also all educators who fostered environmental education regarding diverse subjects such as forest management; the relationship between our understanding of God, nature, and humankind; environmental stewardship; the moral obligations to the natural world; and humility toward natural things that we do not fully understand. The book begins with Thoreau, and the era of rapid American industrialism, expansionism, and rapid scientific advancement in the middle of the nineteenth century—especially in the ecological sciences—and ends with E.

Sustainability and the American Naturalist Tradition

O. Wilson, the only now living naturalist of the four. During the 200-year period from Thoreau’s birth to the present, the United States led helped raise the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to that of 50 times that of a person living then, and increase the average per capita GDP from 565 to well over five thousand dollars (Mosley, 2010). In this same time-period, we have also increased global population from one to seven billion, increased fish catches from one to 74 million tons, and increased coal output from 10 million to well over five billion metric tons, drastically and irreversibly altering the ecosphere. (Mosley, 2010)

I deological and P ol arized W orldvie ws Today Today, energy corporations (seemingly interested first and foremost in business-as-usual exploration and delivery such as Exxon) have dominated the interests of recent government leaders like American President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Republican Senator James Inhofe to block important greenhouse gas-reducing policies with mechanisms such as carbon taxes. The United States, contrary to all good, solid scientific information as well as ethical considerations, is operating under the premise that climate change is at best an “engineering problem,” and at worst, a “hoax” (New York Times, 2017, Feb.). Quasi-scientific organizations like the Science & Environment Policy Project, the American Council on Science and Health, the National Center for Policy Analysis, the Independent Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, and the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition will also seemingly pay anyone with a PhD willing to deny that climate change is not happening, or certain toxins do not cause health problems, for instance, in order to generate confusion, stall important regulations indefinitely, and provide the basis for continued abuse of society and nature. James Inhofe, the current chair of the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, epitomized ideological, Platonic, and idealistic thinking when he said, “The climate is changing, and climate has always changed. The hoax is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful, they can change climate. Man can't change climate” (CSPAN, 2015, Jan.). Deeply polarized and ideological divisions between the American Right, who cling to growth-first ideas centered on deregulating energy and financial institutions, and the American Left, who also constitute the majority of environmentalists, and would like to see more, rather than less, regulation. So deep are the divisions, in fact, that environmental issues such as the Keystone pipeline, fracking, the dissolving of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the freeing up of federal lands and a score of national monument sites for the

21

22

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

exploitation of resources, rarely receive any airtime in the news among all the contentious discourse that dominates even the most informed discussions. In addition, United Nations planning has suffered further from the fact that most of its members are determined to have economic growth in developed and developing countries alike. Wilson (1998) writes (and many others have argued), “people generally don’t understand science” (p. 293). The educational training politicians generally receive is limited to social sciences, humanities, and/or the law, with minimal knowledge of natural sciences. Speaking to the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, the biologist and naturalist, Edward O. Wilson (1998) writes: Ecologists add another perspective, with this explanation: The populations reached the local carrying capacity, where further growth could be sustained with the technology available. At that point life was often good, especially for the ruling classes, but fragile. A change such as a drought or depletion of the aquifer or a ravaging war then lowered the carrying capacity. The death rate soared and the birth rate fell (from malnutrition and disease) until lower and more sustainable population levels were reached. (p. 314)

Unlike politicians, historical naturalists consistently frame the natural world in terms of both its—and humankinds’—health and wellbeing. Our greatest SES challenges call for an informed sustainability discourse commensurate with their magnitude, complexity, and integration (Kates & Parris, 2003). Here, I assert that the intrinsic ability of these unique ecologists, writers, activists, and thinkers to view the Earth, its ecosystems, and its inhabitants (human and otherwise) as a single, integrated system preserves the Aristotelian tradition of integrating knowledge. Today’s sundry and myriad disciplines can be consolidated in effort to guide core principles for living our lives with integrity and purpose to a finite planet. The writings and examples of ecohumanists provide more robust sustainability principles than today’s widely accepted or “received” UN-related sustainability thinking. Naturalist principles can help solve our most wicked problems by synthesizing a broad range of knowledge in the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities to inform sustainability discourse.

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

Mephistopheles: Ah, he serves you well, indeed! He scorns earth's fare and drinks celestial mead. Poor fool, his ferment drives him far! He half knows his own madness, I'll be bound. He'd pillage heaven for its brightest star, And earth for every last delight that's to be found; Not all that's near nor far Can satisfy a heart so restless and profound. The Lord: He serves me, but still serves me in confusion. J ohann Wolfgang von G oethe , Faust (1749)

In 1973, urban planners and science of design experts Horst Rittel (1930-1990) and Melvin Webber (1920-2006) first used the term wicked problems to define seemingly confounding “dilemmas” in the theory of planning.1 This term denoted the requirement of a new and significantly more capacitated mode of thinking for their resolution. At that time, no one yet knew what those problem-solving skills entailed. Examples of existing and future wicked problems abound, including theories of both global warming and cooling, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy and waste, and social injustice.2 1 | Rittel and Webber used the term “wicked” first in “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning” (1973). The concept was actually introduced to Webber by a student regarding the moral conundrums arising from an air pollution study in 1970. 2 | To help understand these problems, Rittel and Webber (1973) identified ten properties that distinguished them from science- and engineering-based problems. These include: 1) There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem 2) Wicked problems have no stopping rule 3) Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad 4) There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem

24

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

As mentioned in the introduction the world’s population will reach nine billion by 2050, yet further greatly increasing the global ecological footprint. In the United States, much of the ecological footprint—what we consume—is externalized beyond its borders where it is produced, depleting arable resources, contributing to global biodiversity depletion, and increasing dependency on an expanding global market for economic commerce (Kissinger & Rees, 2010; Kates & Parris, 2003). Although many developed countries have recently improved the administration of local environments, on the whole, we continue to increase our net global ecological footprint or amount of resources necessary to support the increasing human population of the Earth. Many experts agree the amount we consume globally is currently moving toward the resource supplies contained within two Earths (WWF, 2014). As a result of their high consumption, most countries of the developed world have an ecological footprint that extends far beyond their borders. They therefore contribute to depleting arable resources, causing global biodiversity depletion and increasing dependency on an expanding global market for economic commerce abroad (Kissinger & Rees, 2010; Kates & Parris, 2003). Although many developed countries have recently improved the administration of local environments, most all developed and developing countries alike continue to increase their ecological footprints unabated. Several analyses have human beings as already surpassing Earth’s carrying capacity, to equivalent to 1.2 to 1.5 of our Earths (Meadows, Randers & Meadows, 2004; Pijawka, 2015; Rees & Wackernagel, 2012). Similar to Rees and Moore (2013), who have estimated overshoot of carrying capacity at “1.5 planets” (p. 44), the World Wildlife Federation estimates the ecological footprint in terms of time. "It would take 1.5 years to produce the amount consumed in one year” (WWF, 2014), suggesting that every year we eat more substitute more “corn seed” for economic capital, as if the substitution in value is equivocal. Wicked social and ecological problems afflict developed and developing regions alike: widening income disparity, abysmal educational disparities, high 5) Every solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one-shot operation,’ as there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly 6) Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan 7) Every wicked problem is essentially unique 8) Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem 9) The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem’s resolution 10) The planner has no right to be wrong. (pp. 136-144)

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

levels of poverty, and rapidly growing urban populations are only a few (Beddoe et al., 2009; Munang, Thiaw, & Rivington, 2011). Most significantly, the three major SES problems described in the Introduction chapter—global climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising consumption—increasingly threaten the integrity of the planet’s life-support systems and underpin every social and economic system, exacerbating a slew of other problems in what are called cascading effects. The intricately knotted and interdependent, socio-ecological system (SES) problems I examine in this book through the lens of American naturalists are also local-to-global: • • • • • • • • • • • •

climate change biodiversity loss population and consumption growth government and corporate corruption social alienation as the result of industrial globalization the compartmentalization of academic disciplines large environmental externalities in the economic system depletion of once rich soils non-point source pollution the paucity of ethics in scientific research and technological application the lack of an ethic towards the flora and fauna of the Earth rampant, irreversible conversion of environmental resources into disposable commodities

In the Introduction chapter, I noted some examples where global climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising population and consumption rates have a multitude of negative outcomes for humankind and ecosystems alike. These wicked problems not only threaten people but also the world’s natural biological diversity. “How much extinction is occurring today? Researchers generally agree that it is catastrophically high, somewhere between the rate of a thousand and ten thousand times the rate before human beings began to exert a significant pressure on the environment,” or up to 10,000 times the “background rate” of extinction (Wilson, 2002, pp. 98-9). Today’s naturalist Edward O. Wilson continues to explain in The Future of Life (2002) the different ways in which extinction rates are calculated and how our “deadly efficiency in the pursuit of wildlife,” began as far back as the Paleolithic Era (p. 98). The annihilation of

25

26

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

megafauna such as the wooly mammoth, cave bear, and many other species initially raised extinction an order of magnitude.3 Sustainability scholars Thomas Parris and Robert Kates (2003), have described the most pressing SES problems as those that decrease carrying capacity. Anderies, Jansen & Ostrom, (2004) have defined SES as “an ecological system intricately linked with and affected by one or more social systems.” Unlike engineered systems, “SES are never fully designed or controllable,” but rather “emergent” and “self-organizing” (pp. 3-5). Other sustainability leaders have called them simply “coupled human-natural systems” (CHANS) (Young et al., 2006), or simply “coupled systems” (Kates, Travis & Wilbanks, 2012; Liu et al., 2007). If wicked problems were not daunting enough, some SES problems have been designated as super-wicked (Levin et. al., 2007), given that the time available to solve such problems is limited; and, there is no “testing ground”—meaning they cannot be solved by trial and error given we only have one planet on which to experiment. Peak oil, soil depletion, extirpation of local plant and animal species, growing urban squalor, and twenty-first century global traumas/ crises (such as the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disaster) are just some of the highly complex problems vexing our institutional abilities to anticipate and respond effectively—particularly over the long-term. In order to fulfill its raison d'etre, the field of sustainability must combat wicked and super-wicked SES problems. As I will demonstrate in this book, the contemporary concepts of sustainability and sustainable development grew out of the need to tackle SES problems. They also evolved from the input of experts from the spectrum of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities as well as with the realization that each individual intellectual branch lacked the inherent capability to solve rapidly surfacing social and environmental problems by singular disciplinary methods alone (Kates et al., 2000). The current discourse of sustainable development, however, seems too often derailed from its core mission by allowing models of continuous economic growth to be the driving force. How do we as a local-to-global society contend with such complexity? How will our polarized political leaders, often driven by aspirations that demand ever-rising levels of economic growth, hash it out? Is local-to-global, social-and-ecological sustainability a job for a collaboration of 195 countries and the newest supercomputers? The answer may be simpler than we often think. The challenge, I argue, speaks to the special skills of naturalists, our first scientists, ecologists and 3 | Extinction rates are calculated a variety of ways using a normalized value of geologic and evolutionary processes on species prior to human activity, including average survival rates of given species.

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

coupled-systems thinkers. Their field is especially equipped to understand the contemporary concept that is part and parcel to sustainability discourse, or as sustainability scholars Redman, Grove & Kuby, (2004) put it, “that what is often divided into natural and human systems be considered a single, complex socio-ecological system” (p. 161). In this chapter I will further explain complex and dynamic socio-ecological systems (SES) before beginning to investigate how the principles of foundational naturalists may help clarify, enhance, and advance sustainability and interdisciplinary discourse. I define viable sustainability by its ability to solve wicked problems. Alongside leading naturalists, I argue sustainability demands a long-term, historical worldview—a “fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society’s knowledge and point of view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics” (Palmer, 1996, p. 114). I demonstrate that as proto-sustainability thinkers, leading naturalists have long expressed skepticism toward incremental, instrumental, and efficiency-based approaches to coupled human-natural systems that ultimately lead to diminished carrying capacity. The Brundtland Report (1987) and other UN publications have provided only one (somewhat arbitrarily) constructed and constrained model for integration. However, the naturalist tradition has continuously studied the interface of nature and culture through its envisioning of holism or synthesis (Walls, 1995; Wilson, 1998; Worster, 1977). Many of today’s sustainability scholars realize that in order to address wicked SES problems, there must be integration of knowledge from many disciplines coupled with experiential and empirical knowledge from practitioners (Brown, Harris & Russel, 2010; Kates & Parris, 2003; Klein, 2006; Rittel & Webber, 1974). In this book, I focus on four American naturalists and the generational worldviews to which they were reacting—Henry David Thoreau and Early American Industrialism (1760-1840), Aldo Leopold and the Progressive Era (1890-1928), Rachel Carson and the Baby Boomer Era (1945-1965), and Edward O Wilson, and what is referred to here as the Era of Sustainable Development (1966-1999). The work of systems-thinking naturalists includes many humanist elements from history, ethics, religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts, which is why I, at times, refer to these four thinkers as ecohumanists. And although such thinkers have a demonstrated capacity for deeply understanding natural and human systems, they are often virtually ignored when interpreting and addressing today’s most complex SES, wicked problems: the core sustainability issues of the twenty-first century.

27

28

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

The U nited N ations ’ “S ustainable D e velopment ” Par adigm Sustainability discourse has made considerable strides since first introduced in United Nations (UN) literature during the 1970s and 1980s in terms of sustainable development. The truth, however, can be a hard pill to swallow: sustainability practices have yet to make the Earth sustainable (Adams, 2006; Rees & Wackernagel, 2013). After more than thirty years since the Brundtland Report, it is becoming evident that the three-pillar approach has generally failed. As the World Conservation of Nature states: There is a profound paradox here, on one hand you have the twenty-first century is heralded as the age of sustainability, with a rainbow alliance of government, civil society and businesses devising novel strategies for increasing human welfare within planetary limits, on the other hand, the evidence is that global human enterprise is becoming rapidly less sustainable and not more. (Adams, 2006)

Many sustainability scholars agree that our current UN-based framework for sustainability on which businesses, academic institutions, municipalities, and internal policy setters most often rely, is inadequate in application to the size, magnitude, and complexity of the pressing challenges at hand (Hopwood, Mellor & O’Brien, 2005; Holling, 2001; Kates, Parris & Leiserowitz, 2005; McKibben, 2009; Newton & Freyfogle, 2005; Jamieson, 1998; Norton, 2005; Solow, 1993; Vucetich & Nelson, 2010). While some individual ecological footprints drop, our aggregate regional, national, and global ecological footprints continue to rise. The current sustainability discourse thus is failing to fulfill its function of addressing our biggest SES challenges. While developed nations have made significant efforts to improve the quality of their “local” environment, in doing so, they also tend to consume more and more “global” resources, often from developing nations (Boutaud, Gondran & Brodhag, 2006). Few studies have been performed to integrate the study of global carrying capacity with actual macro-economic systems (Rees, 2006); and, while SES theory has been applied to many open system areas, it has not been applied to the closed system of the ecosphere. This fails to adhere to logic, because as population ecologist William Rees (2006) argues: In recent years a wish list of allegedly desirable socio-economic goals has come to dominate sustainability discussions at the expense of even shallow environmental factors. This is unfortunate because it diminishes the role of the most fundamental dimension of the sustainability conundrum—a stable, productive ecosphere remains prerequisite to everything else. (p. 221)

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

Many sustainability scholars suggest the dominant, but very weak, version of sustainability can be attributed to the use and primacy of economic growth models rather than ecological science and ethics to guide sustainability discourse (Adams 2006; Costanza 1993; DuPisani, 2006; Jamieson, 1993; Kates, Parris & Leiserowitz, 2005; Solow, 1993). This less comprehensive version of sustainability has led to an absence of agreed-upon indicators (Kates, Parris & Leiserowitz, 2005); difficulty in discussing normative values as metrics (Pijawka, 2015); and, where locally based indicators do exist, the lack of ties “to ecological science at all” (Newton & Freyfogle, 2005, p. 28). Central to efforts at lowering our ecological footprint and preserving the Earth’s carrying capacity has been the UN’s Brundtland Report, and the oft-quoted definition for sustainable development, “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This sustainable development paradigm has aimed to achieve a balance among three pillars—economics, environment, and society (Figure 2). Social equity between and within developed and developing countries was an important part of the Brundtland Report and follow-up UN literature, and these documents suggest that sustainability ethics should play a large role in sustainability theory and practices; however, its contribution has yet to be realized in any practical or policy-relevant sense.

Figure 2: The Three Pillars were introduced with the 1987 Brundtland Report and widely accepted by the 1992 Earth Summit

The failure of sustainable development may be in large part due to the proposed trade-offs between environmental conservation and economic growth. By compromising preservation and restoration principles, planners have reinforced business-as-usual practices and educational paradigms and have

29

30

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

privileged economic values over ecological limits. The United Nation’s current sustainable development framework and concept of trading-off between environmental conservation and economic growth are fundamental in the sustainability discourses of among businesses, international conferences, and academics. Eco-efficiency methods have often provided the foundation for sustainability practices, environmental and societal ethics, and sustainable development-based education. Yet, efficiency-based sustainability throughout history has been demonstrably detrimental to SES. In sum, many ecologists and environmental philosophers have characterized the three-pillar construction as formulated by the Brundtland Report and expressed throughout UN literature as so ambiguous as to be futile (McKibben, 2009; Newton & Freyfogle, 2005; Vucetich & Nelson, 2010). The sustainability framework that dominates contemporary discourse stresses balanced relationships among the three pillars or “three E’s.” In theory, the mainstream sustainable development model attempts to achieve a compromise between economic development and environmental conservation; in practice, its tenets are often so vaguely defined that stakeholders can (and frequently do) interpret them to suit their own private, economic interests (Kates, Parris & Leiserowitz, 2005).

“S ustainable D e velopment E ducation ” vs . “E ducation for S ustainabilit y ” Recent sustainability studies programs have been criticized by sustainability educator David Orr (2004) as teaching students to “merely to be more effective vandals of the Earth,” suggesting a violation of both the ecological and normative aspirations of sustainability (p. 1). Only a small subset of current sustainability education focuses on what Kates, Travis, and Wilbanks (2012) call “transformative action” (p. 7160), and Ison and Russell (2000) “second-order change” (p. 47). In “Sustainable Development Education” (SDE), sustainability has focused on the United Nation’s economic development literature. Economic development is the singular guiding force for higher education based on the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) guide. However, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that the guide does not even mention environmental values or ecosystem loss in its definition for sustainable development (OECD, 2014). Our most challenging SES problems must be approached by integrating knowledge systems that cross normal disciplinary boundaries with a worldview and associated value frameworks that transcend or transform traditional ideas of how to simplify the complex spectrum of knowledge without being overly simplistic or relying on a smattering of knowledge from each discipline, or the hegemony of one discipline (Klein, 1990; 2006; Wilson, 1998; 2014). But only a

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

small subset of current sustainability education focuses on what Kates, Travis, & Wilbanks (2011) call “transformative action” (p. 7160), and Ison and Russell (2000) “second-order change” (p. 47). In a “Sustainable Development Education” SDE framework, on the contrary, UN literature centered on economic development is the guiding force behind the formation of their principles for higher education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) pre-eminent guide for higher education in sustainability, “The Drivers and Barriers for Implementing Sustainable Development in Higher Education” is a prime example. It is also often partnered with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which does not mention environmental values nor ecosystem loss in its definition for sustainable development (OECD, 2014). SDE is centered on “conflicts that emerge” in actual cases of sustainable development, and tensions that stem from conflicts among the three pillars of the Brundtland E’s (Efficiency, Environment, Equity) and the three P’s (People, Planet, Profit) (Wals, 2006, p. 103). The Göteborg Workshop written from the presentations on December 7-9, 2005 may be one of the most often referred to documents in SDE theory, but of its 14 articles, none emphasize the natural environment or ecology, or even devote a third of the discussion to this area, as the three pillars seem to recommend (Holmberg & Samuelsson, 2006). In examining this argument, “Education for Sustainability” (EfS) advocates Jickling & Wals (2008) write, “globalization refers to the rise of economic ideologies embodied by the corporate sector and to the erosion of grassroots democracy” (p. 14). Contrary to SDE, it has a stated focus on transformative “curriculum change” (Mudler & Jansen, 2006, p. 72). Implicit in EfS is the elevation of the goal of transformative pedagogy (Jickling & Walls; Sterling, 2004; Wiek & Redman, 2012), “transformative living” (Wals, 2006, p. 163), and a “holistic” and “transformative experience” within the community (Pugh, 2010, p. 204). EfS frameworks include the goal of mobilizing “grassroots movements” and incorporating their “creativity” to form a much more active and “educated citizenry capable of “critical thinking,” unlike SDE frameworks directed at partnering with big money institutions of government and private interest in science and engineering-based projects (Thomas, 2009, p. 256-7). Sustainability education expert Ian Thomas (2009) has expressed that EfS, as opposed to SDE, centers on a “strong values base to allow for connectivity of self with community; sustainability values include: compassion, equity, justice, peace, cultural sensitivity, respect for the environment, and recognition of the rights of future generations” (p. 256). Developing a more transformational stream of education involves substantively reimagining sustainability through a change in perception that goes beyond simply protecting ecosystems and encouraging practices that reduce use and consumption. Transforming old educational systems has also been elusive

31

32

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

(Klein, 1990; 2006; Wilson, 1998). Universities currently have little guidance on how to approach the complexity of integrating disparate subjects such as sustainable design, energy, economics, and environmental management with cultural programs that address important issues like ethics, history, food, and health (Pijawka et al., 2013, p. 24).

H istorical I deological P ol ariz ations Sustainability both as a tangible goal and as a discipline faces almost insurmountable odds. Countless environmental-oriented professionals and academics have warned us of the theoretical challenges of the six-syllable word sustainability, (as demonstrated in the Chapter 1 and 3), interpreting it somewhat as linguists (and the handicapped) have interpreted terms like “handi-capable.” In a recent guide to writing history and nonfiction, environmental historian Stephen Pyne (2009) ranks two of his five most exemplary jargon and clichés in writing are “sustainability” and “interdisciplinary” (p. 139). The first he calls “fatigued into meaninglessness;” the second, he calls “beaten into a witless pulp” (p. 139). “Sustainability,” writes environmentalist Bill McKibben (1996) in a New York Times column “is a buzzword without the buzz.” Though the word has variously been championed as a challenge to or an obfuscation of the word growth, “‘Sustainability’ is doomed because it does not refer to anything familiar. We understand ‘growth,’ because everything that lives grows” (10 April). Sustainability is, nevertheless, inherently desirable; as Grober (2012) put it in the Introduction, the “antonym,” or opposite of “collapse” (p. 16). But sustainability education, including Grober’s research, has often focused on highlighting those efforts that contributed to economic sustainability at the expense of ecological values. In researching the history of naturalist thought, I have noticed a congruity among environmental historians and other thinkers who delineate polarized views of philosophers, as well as ecologists, social thinkers, politicians, and the general populace. A well-known example of this is Donald Worster (1977), who describes an “Arcadian versus Imperialist” paradigm as: [T]wo major traditions of ecology that begin in the eighteenth century which advocated the simple life of a man from man with the aim of restoring him to a peaceful coexistence with other organisms. The second, an “imperial” tradition, is best represented in the work of Carolus Linnaeus, “. . . [and] the ambition was to establish through the exercise of reason and by hard work, man’s dominion over nature.” (p. 4)

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

Worster (1977) uses thinkers like Thoreau to exemplify the Arcadian worldview. Thoreau and other naturalists viewed nature in a way that was “subversive” to contemporary society, as Worster (1977) puts it, by subverting the “accepted notion of what science does, the values and institutions of expansionary capitalism, and the bias against nature in Western religion” (p. 58). In this book I examine several eras individually, and suggest these well-documented historical polarizations stem from an ideological position versus a more scientifically grounded position and as represented by Platonic vs. Aristotelian thinking. In Thoreau’s time it manifests itself as a Linnaean vs. Romantic polarization; in Leopold’s time as a conservationist vs. preservationist polarization; in Carson’s time, as technocratic vs. precautionary polarization; and in Wilson’s time—and in Wilson’s (2002) own words—as an economist vs. environmentalist polarization. I argue that these historical polarizations have helped create a notable polarization within the field of sustainability science, which is in part, the cause of the SDE vs. EfS paradigm in education above. In short, throughout history, at one end of the environmental tradition is an idealistic, technocratic, cornucopian, growth-based and Platonic approach to solving problems. The opposing paradigm is a more realistic, ecological science-driven, and Aristotelian approach that emphasizes conservation and precaution in the face of Man’s hubris. Our opportunities for finding a common ground may be growing slim. Naturalists, more often than not, suggest that only a radical transformational change—or a major paradigm shift, in our collective worldview, our national and global economic system, and our education system—will make us sustainable. While many contemporary sustainability scholars seem to agree, perhaps the ecological economist J. J. Ferng (2014) best states it, arguing that living within the global carrying capacity would mean a radical transformation “from the prevailing human-demand-oriented consumption mode to the land-supply-oriented consumption mode” (p. 108). This is precisely what Thoreau argued in Walden in 1854.

“S ustainable Y ield” and “W ise U se ” Initial discussions of sustainability, in fact, date at least as far back as the Enlightenment in Europe, beginning, as it did later in America, with the conservation of forests. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (2014) dates the first usage of the English adjective sustainable during the Enlightenment to Randle Cotgrave’s 1611 dictionary, French and English Tongues, which defined it vaguely but implied an impact with a distinct threshold as “capable of being endured or borne” (OED, 2014). Sustainability “ur-texts” include such works as John Evelyn’s Sylva: or a Discourse on Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber for

33

34

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

His Majesty’s Dominions (1664), which predicted a future social and economic crisis because of the country’s shipbuilding. He thus initiated in Western discourse the concept of the sustainability of local forests in terms of fulfilling human needs (Wackernagel & Rees, 1996). Historians of sustainability have often interpreted any overt relationship between economics and ecology in a positive light. Our most widely accepted, or “received” framework for sustainability, is likewise centered on conversion of natural capital into wealth and the expectation of continual further expansion. In exploring sustainability’s deep roots, authors most often cite the German forest manager Hans Carl von Carlowitz (1645-1714) who coined nachhaltigkeit, which translates directly as sustainability, and it is still used by Germans today. This European economic-based sustainability tradition in the management of environmental resources would also directly influence Gifford Pinchot, who studied in Europe, and brought scientific forestry to America at the turn of the twentieth century (Grober, 2012). Both thinkers (often hailed by historians as founding sustainability thinkers) employed sustainability to benefit the wealth of their nations. Dwindling timber supplies following the Thirty Years War (1614-1648) in Germany and France comprised the fuel for the first manifestations of industrialism and were inextricably tied to the management of forests, the source of the contemporary sustainability concept (Caradonna, 2014). By the seventeenth century, Germany had greatly accelerated the destruction of its forests nearly stripping them clean for building its navy and to access the copper and iron ore needed for smelting during the seeds of European industrialism (Grober, 2012). As the environmental realities of a small country with limited resources that constricted the growth and development of the population, von Carlowitz recognized that Germany could not be economically and instrumentally sustainable, thus founding and framing the concept of sustainability within the scope capitalist and expansionist terms. In this climate, von Carlowitz, whom most environmental historians refer to as the “father of sustainability” as well as father of European forestry practices, promoted the concept of sustainable yield. Von Carlowitz learned from the then wealthiest and premier forest mangers under France’s King Louis XIV (1638-1715). Jean-Baptiste Colbert (16191683) had started managing forests primarily to support Louis’ shipbuilding for global trade and war. After touring Colbert’s managed forests in 1713, von Carlowitz introduced the concept of “sustained yield forestry” to Germany (Caradonna, 2014, p. 7), implementing many of Colbert’s advanced practices. In 1732, he published Sylvicultura oeconomica, oder haußwirthliche Nachricht und Naturmäßige Anweisung zur wilden Baum-Zucht (loosely translated as Forestry Economics’ Nature Decree: Moderate Instructions for Wild Tree Breeding). This comprehensive treatise tied the endurance of the mining industry directly

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

to the development of German forestry (DuPisani, 2006), and it was the first book in mathematical precision to account for how forests, shipbuilding, and iron smelters enabled exploration and colonization. Von Carlowitz employed economics as the dominant metaphor and wrote primarily to keep both the copper and iron mines and the German colonial apparatus running. In this work, von Carlowitz coined the term nachhaltigkeit or “lastingness,” the contemporary German word for “sustainability” (Du Pisani, 2006, p. 85). Nachhaltigkeit described forests that remain eternally productive and autonomously regenerative, while still producing enough harvest to profit economically (Du Pisani, 2006). However, spruce and pine that out-yielded other tree species were planted ubiquitously throughout Germany during this era, changing long-established forest ecosystems (Grober, 2012; Meine, 1988). During the Enlightenment, the new occupation of “forest managers” across Europe employed von Carlowitz’s sustainability concept in increasingly strict regulatory measures that geared forests toward the productivity of the nation. Many years later, as the First Chief Forrester of the United States Forest Service (USFS), Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946) became the first to bring advanced European forest management to America, and with it, the concept of sustainability. Pinchot received his graduate training in France between 1880-90, studying directly under Sir Dietrich Brandis (1824-1909), a minor but “textbook” utilitarian (Grober, 2012).4 Pinchot’s philosophy formed during this time (Miller, 2009), and was based, in part, on Colbert’s bon usage (which Pinchot translated as “wise use”). Pinchot also traveled to Germany to observe the concept in action (Grober, 2007, p. 25). Like his professor, Pinchot was a devout utilitarian and represented the conservationist worldview of the times, one that many later conservationists (including Aldo Leopold) did not consider to be in accordance with good ecological science (Callicott & Freyfogle, 1999). “Pinchot saw conservation struggles in terms remarkably similar to those used by the Brundtland Commission to define sustainable development,” environmental historian Lamont C. Hempel (2012) argues (p. 72). Pinchot’s ideas would guide not only the USFS, but also the Yale School of Forestry, the first forestry school—which Pinchot’s family founded in 1900 and remains arguably the most influential school of its field in the country (Grober, 2012). Pinchot marveled at the efficiency of American industrialism, which made the citizens of the United States the most materially prosperous in the world. 4 | Brandis was a part of the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1842) and John Stewart Mill (1806-73) that dominated the thinking of this era of English history. Like many thinkers in the 19 th century, Brandis placed an economic value on ecosystems preeminently in terms of supporting the maximum possible number of human beings for maximum happiness (Grober, 2012).

35

36

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

During the creation of the bulk of America’s national parks, Pinchot ensured the concept of “sustained yield” became the central policy. Pinchot was the right-hand man and advisor of all-things-conservation to President Theodore Roosevelt, himself an amateur naturalist. During his tenure, Pinchot’s department began using the term sustainable yield as a guiding objective in the long-term commercial management of American forests. The objective aimed to ensure largest harvests without degrading long-term forest productivity. Despite being fired by President Taft for insubordination in 1910, Pinchot’s sustainable yield legacy in the American dialogue was a longstanding one (Hempel, 2012, p. 396), with broad impacts and pervasive acceptance of the maximum sustainable yield concept (Callicott & Freyfogle, 1999; Merchant, 2007) and persisting at least until the 1930s (Grober, 2012; Hempel, 2012). It should be noted, though, that he based his theories on making the forests as economically productive as possible. In sum, even when we do look to history for core sustainability principles we still refer to economic-based sustainability. Their principles of conservation were moreover compromised by conquest and the perpetual exploitation of the environment. Von Carlowitz, defined sustainability primarily in terms of economic sustainability for the benefit of national industrialism and economic growth, a worldview that still dominates much of today’s sustainability discourse. Most importantly to contemporary sustainability discourse, Gifford Pinchot, a major force in shaping the idea of conservation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in America, further propagated this same worldview. The two well-known pioneers and icons in sustainability discourse, Carl von Carlowitz and Gifford Pinchot, appear ubiquitously throughout sustainability literature. German environmental historian Joachim Radkau (2008) argues, however, that Germans embraced real sustainability long before von Carlowitz. “That ‘the Limits to Growth’ were self-evident to them most of the time . . . every peasant had to practice a more or less sustainable husbandry to ensure his survival” (p. xvi).

A G ap in S ustainabilit y L iter ature In general, neither sustainability literature, nor sustainable development literature, nor SES research directly refer to the naturalist tradition. This is a function, perhaps, of a larger manifestation of the traditional downplaying of historical trends within these fields and the tendency to emphasize statistical forecasting and prospective scenario building (Brown, Harris & Russel, 2010; Redman, Wiek & Johnston, 2013). Sustainability research by even our most respected sustainability scholars, in fact, typically only incorporates the naturalist tradition in a light and aspirational fashion, (e.g., by offering a few inspira-

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

tional lines discussing naturalist “sense of wonder” or “spirituality”) (Andrews, 2005; Hawken et al., 2005; McDonough & Braungart, 2006). Even our most profound chemical and engineering designers of the new sustainability society, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, in their widely read work on industrial ecology, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2006), refer to Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson superficially by only acknowledging their “romantic strain” as those who loved the environment and “lamented its destruction” (p. 34). Only the ecologist C. S. Holling refers to Leopold regularly, starting in 1959 to discuss emergent properties, land health and regime shifts. The view that the humanities are unknowledgeable of, or unable to assist in, complex problem solving has been detrimental to sustainability as a whole. It might sound strange coming from an evolutionary biologist and naturalist, but as Wilson (2015) argues in the Meaning of Human Existence, the mission to understand humanity’s place in relationship with nature can only be achieved through uniting the science and the humanities: To understand cultural evolution from the outside looking in, as opposed to the inside looking out, the way we do it, requires interpreting all of the intricate feelings and constructions of the human mind. It requires intimate contact with people and knowledge of countless personal histories. It describes the way a thought is translated into symbol or artifact. All this the humanities do. They are the natural history of culture, and our most private and precious heritage. (p. 57)

The systematic neglect and exclusion of naturalists within the sustainability agenda has been, and remains, detrimental to the needs and development of the field. Each of the ecohumanists examined in this book devoted scores of pages of their writings to science and ecology, to government and economics, and to ethics and aesthetics. In Ecohumanism, Robert Tapp (2002) has used the nascent term ecohumanism to describe a worldview in which people and other species can flourish, and to “confirm the legitimacy of a humanist claim to a voice in the environmental struggle” (p. 3). I use this term somewhat more categorically to signal a researcher of coupled human-natural systems and an advocate of holistic problem solving who employs many concepts, values, and principles from the Three Branches: the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Literature from the fields of environmental history, the history of science, environmental literature, and environmental philosophy provide a wealth of information in addressing past SES problems. Two recent books by Enlightenment-to-Modern era historians Sustainability: A History by Jeremy Caradonna (2014), and Ulrich Grober’s Sustainability: A Cultural History (2012) also reinforced the importance of the history of the concept sustainability. Both helped

37

38

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

to confirm much of my earlier research regarding the need to link historical and contemporary sustainability discourse with ecological thought. Yet, neither made a clear differentiation among environmental thinkers, viewing all as beneficially linking ecology and economy. For example, Caradonna (2014) provides only the most general of theses, and firstly that “human society and economy are intimately connected to the natural environment.” He pins his argument to the United Nation’s “three pillars” model, the most simplistic and highly criticized model of sustainability that exists (p. 8). A second Caradonna (2014) sub-thesis is that we need to “decentralize and localize,” and the third is that “a society will collapse if it doesn’t obey ecological limits” (p. 16). The three main arguments in Caradonna’s book are as Newton and Freyfogle (2005) have described the sustainability’s three pillars: so vague they are virtually meaningless. Instead, I describe an alternative to the three pillars and other definitions detrimental to sustainability, and one that instead suggests an approach based in the concept, values and principles of transdisciplinary thinking. I also suggest—contrary to Caradonna—that we do need top-down national and international control because bottom-up, localism movements will never make the world sustainable by itself. In saying we must respect ecological limits, Caradonna is, of course, correct; but, in retrospect, he supplies only a very long laundry list of intellectuals without holding them accountable in many cases for reinforcing larger systems of environmental degradation and extreme social injustices. For example, in describing von Carlowitz, in the most simplistic analysis, Caradonna (2014) writes, [V]on Carlowitz and others [meaning Colbert and other early forest managers] established a belief system, but one that was drowned out by the clanking, primitive machines in the early rush toward civilization. But the crucial idea was that people should live within their limits; and not only live within limits but thrive within them. (p. 14)

I advance an alternative idea: that von Carlowitz and Colbert founded their concept of sustainability for the building of ships, forging iron weaponry, conquest, colonialism, slavery, and extraction and removal of natural capital from the colony to the mother country; they thus sought to thrive outside the limits. In only the most superficial sense do these early Enlightenment thinkers foster a German or French ethic based upon living within ecological limits. Other than the texts by and about the four ecohumanists examined, I have also been particularly influenced by the research of naturalist historians such as Donald Worster’s The Economy of Nature (1977), Paul Farber’s Finding Order in Nature: The Naturalist Tradition from Linnaeus to E. O. Wilson (2000), and Sharon Kingsland’s The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000 (2005) to link

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

the simultaneous expansion in the understanding of ecology and sustainability with American expansionist theory that inherently seeks to dominate and exploit nature. I also often refer to work in environmental philosophy, environmental ethics, and sustainability studies, especially that by Bryan Norton (1991; 2003; 2005) and Ben Minteer (2006; 2011). Norton’s comprehensive volume, Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management (2005) presents one of the most developed links between Aldo Leopold’s life and work and sustainability discourse, including how to coordinate theory and practice. Minteer’s Landscape of Reform (2006) and Refounding Environmental Ethics (2011) explore the social and democratic vision of many naturalists and introduce Leopold as providing a “third way” that diffuses historical ideological polarizations among environmental views in real-world practices. In doing so, Leopold and his tradition help to construct a framework of representative and pluralistic values in environmental decision-making (Minteer, 2006, pp. 153-87; 2007, pp. 24-5). These three works are invaluable to this present book, providing a link between the four researched authors to sustainability ethics and the importance such ethics can contribute to the natural and social sciences.

N atur al P hilosophy What exactly is a naturalist? During the height of its use in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a naturalist denoted, first, a field biologist engaged in direct observation and experimentation, and second, a natural philosopher or student of natural history (Farber, 2000; Worster 1977; Wilson, 2014). Cultural theorist Raymond Williams (1973) noted that in the early nineteenth century, a naturalist was synonymous with a “scientist,” and “in practice those whom we would call physicists or biologists” (p. 216). The word “scientist,” in fact, first appeared in William Whewell’s (1794–1866) dictionary published in 1840, several years after Thoreau graduated from Harvard University (Worster 1977, p. 130). Therefore, I begin my examination of four American naturalists during this same time with Thoreau and an era that the evolutionary biologist and naturalist E. O. Wilson (1998), history of science scholar Richard Yeo (2003), and literary scholar Laura Walls (1995) refer to as a unique time in history when the Three Branches (i.e., natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) were considered one interconnected body of knowledge. As Walls (1995) suggests, Thoreau consolidated two competing narratives of holism during his era, one philosophical and one empirical, and grounds philosophy and ethics within the natural sciences:

39

40

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson [T]he effort to read nature as a ‘whole’ was shared by many of Thoreau’s contemporaries: Goethe, Coleridge, Emerson, Carlyle, Ruskin, Shelling, Paley, Whewell, Humbolt, Darwin …. Thoreau saw his task to be joining poetry, philosophy, and science into a harmonized whole that emerged from the interconnected details of particular natural facts. (p. 4)

Cultural theorists (Williams, 1973), historians (Farber, 2012; Worster, 1979), biologists and socio-biologists5 (Wilson, 2012), and experts on the history of science (Yeo, 2003) have identified a third defining aspect of the naturalist—a holistic worldview. The act of naturalists’ shaping and understanding of ecological holism connecting human and natural studies imbues the term naturalist with its most crucial aspect for sustainability thinking. The life and work of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was in part a reaction to the birth of the Early American Industrial Era (1760-1840), which radically transformed the way we think and live. He had written numerous essays and books, as well as given many lectures at the Concord Lyceum,6 including “Economy,” and he had been writing in his journal that was over 2,000 pages before producing Walden (1854). His first chapter in Walden: or Life in the Woods, “Economics” as well as articles such as “Civil Disobedience” clearly express his thoughts on the local people, nature, and general conditions of life in Concord—especially economics—as fundamentally and inextricably intertwined. Thoreau’s much later contributions to interdisciplinary and sustainability discourse came not solely from his ideas about ethics or spirituality, but they arose from his impressively distinct ability to integrate an often unwieldy and disparate spectrum of thought and values (Walls, 1995). From this viewpoint, Thoreau provides insights on capitalism, democracy, individualism, and ecology, ably using them for a wide range of practical applications. His transcendentalism is a legacy that has greatly influenced many, including the other three thinkers covered in this book (Radkau, 2008). Born in the beginning of the nineteenth century in Massachusetts, Thoreau also had an early vision of sustainability. As one of America’s most influential naturalists, he would witness the transformation of American society as it entered the first stages of industrialism, when human power and land use 5 | Socio-biology is “the comparative study of the biological basis of social organization and behavior in animals and humans especially with regard to their genetic basis and evolutionary history” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). Edward O. Wilson has fully developed this concept in theories of genetic and social coevolution in The Social Conquest of the Earth (2012). 6 | Thoreau devoted much of his life to the Concord “Lyceum,” based on Aristotle’s concept of a town hall-type lecture open to the public, and delivered by local professionals to share with the community (Mumford, 1961).

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

were first decoupled. Thoreau reacted extensively to this socio-economic and environmental transformation in his journals, essays, and in Walden, recommending a major paradigm shift in ethics, economics, and education for Americans and western culture. Thoreau’s most recognized work is, in fact, not as a scientist, but as a cultural theorist, and no more so than in “Economics” one of his longest essays and first chapter of Walden. While Thoreau’s contributions in the social sciences are undeniable, here I will flesh-out his contributions to the understanding of economics, government and corporate corruption, and forest succession—the core of ecology. A complementary thinker whose “land-ethic” was revolutionary at the time for incorporating principles from the natural world began writing and studying during the Progressive Era (1890-1925). Aldo Leopold’s (1887-1948) principles uncovered how naturalists can forward an ethic of interdependency between natural and human systems, the heart of SES thinking. Leopold’s second book, Game Management (1933), was a practical manual about the management of biological diversity across the regions of the continental United States. It was written after he wrote countless articles on forestry, wildlife management, and the examination of what today we would call socio-ecological relationships. It was not until after Leopold had a lifetime of working in forestry, on town councils, publishing in local newspapers, and working in the university, before he could fully record his mature thoughts about biological health and integrity in A Sand County Almanac (1949). In A Sand County Almanac (1949), Leopold stated “Civilization has so cluttered this elemental man-earth relationship with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it is growing dim. We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry” (p. 212). His worldview represents a holistic vision for nature and humankind, alongside a tradition of ecological-based thinking that connects polarized economic and ecologically based worldviews in theory and practice. In A Sand County Almanac (1949), he harshly critiqued the conservation movement during his lifetime as regrettably giving way to economic growth-based models of ecological productivity as well as to outdated religious convictions about humankind’s relationship with the land. Of the four naturalists covered in this book, Leopold, an ecologist, conservationist, forester, land manager and amateur philosopher, is likely the easiest to link to practical sustainability discourse (Meine, 1988). But I highlight his place in a more preservationist and restorationist tradition than many Leopold scholars. He is first and foremost representative of a twentieth century American view that accords moral status to ecosystems. His holistic worldview simply and eloquently works to solve ideological conflicts that prevent important environmental practices from being part of society and that work to integrate natural and social values. I focus on his early vision of ecological resiliency, his environmental management principles as rooted firmly in the eco-centric

41

42

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

values of restoration and preservation, and his pragmatic defense of people’s moral duty to the species of the Earth. Next, Rachel Carson (1907-1964) had published dozens of articles and received high praise for three books of nature writing (prior to Silent Spring). But with Silent Spring (1962), she took a much more serious turn as an early environmental thinker and activist, who became concerned as she observed the destruction of many of her former research sites through the applications of pesticides (specifically, DDT). As a scientist who worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (later the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and Woods Hole Naval Research Laboratory, Rachel Carson proved to be a gifted naturalist and writer who won the National Book Award for her poetic depiction of the interconnectivity of land and sea life in The Sea Around Us (1951). Carson’s first three books (1941; 1951; 1955), particularly Under the Sea Wind: A Naturalist’s Picture of Ocean Life (1941), are evidence of her authority as a naturalist and holistic thinker and her distinctive ability to present a new ecological vision for holism by focusing on the intricate but fragile web of interactions occurring at the edges of land and sea. Her fourth and final book Silent Spring (1962) is still quintessentially crucial to twenty-first century sustainability discourse. In it, she progressed significantly further than in any of her previous writings by delving into socio-economic dimensions to frame global and multi-generational environmental problems and risks. Silent Spring (1962) proved to be radically different, for the first time bringing concerns about the pervasiveness of pesticides in daily life into public awareness and discourse. It helped catapult the modern U.S. environmental movement around the world. In it, Carson integrates intrinsic and natural values with economic and instrumental values, internalizing environmental externalities and developing a clear understanding of human health and wellbeing as intimately tied to ecological health and wellbeing. By popularizing the field of human health and ecology, by first holding industries responsible for their pollution, and elevating ethics in scientific research and application, she provides a transformative worldview for national sustainability. Finally, Edward O. Wilson (1934 – ) builds on Carson’s understanding of interconnectivity while centering sustainability in global biological diversity. The only living naturalist whose work is addressed in this book, Wilson—who could be counted as a historical naturalist for the importance of his work in the 1960s and 1970s alone—has made a number of bold attempts to integrate natural, social, and human systems. It was not until Consilience (1998) that he fully links the sciences and humanities, and in the Future of Life (2002) that he engages some of our largest SES problems. Wilson’s life work in the study of animal and human social behavior culminates in Consilience: The Unity of All Knowledge (1998) and The Future of Life (2002). Both provide a broad platform for arguing that we must revolutionize

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

our economy, preserve biodiversity, and greatly improve our social systems in order to be sustainable. His quest for a contemporary consilience of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities has helped revive the tradition of linking natural and cultural knowledge, economics and ecology, science, and ethics, all elements needed for a full and productive discourse on sustainability. His work highlights the convergence of human and natural values through the transdisciplinary theories of biophilia, biodiversity, sociobiology, conservation biology, and genetic and cultural coevolution; the need for bio- and socio-diversity for stability and survival; and developing a contemporary sustainability theory for economics and transdisciplinarity. As his autobiography Naturalist (2006) attests, Wilson has inherited the tradition of Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson, as well as many other books that specifically mine their principles. Furthermore, he has extended his understanding of ecosystems to economics in important ways in a mission to preserve global biodiversity. Analysis of Wilson’s work provides a contemporary, scientific, and comprehensive view of natural and social systems together to help solve our biggest global challenges of this century: climate change, biodiversity loss, and population and consumption growth. Many narrowly focused disciplinary tracts in academia often fail to integrate key disciplinary principles from other branches (Wilson, 1998). The naturalists’ holistic approaches and syntheses provide a more creative and frontier-of-knowledge aspect as well as contribute a much-needed broader focus based on the “unity of knowledge,” (Wilson 1998, pp. 29, 35, 105) “in order to understand complex systems” (p. 292). The concepts, values, and principles of these four traditional American naturalists can guide interdisciplinary and sustainability thinking. They express a worldview that captures and integrates a considerable range and depth of historical, normative, economic, ecological, scientific, and social values for a viable and applicable discourse of sustainability. Solving wicked problems speaks to the special skills of someone with a firm grasp of ecology, natural history, sociology, and cultural history.

A n A lternative S ustainabilit y W orldvie w E mbedded in E cology Where do we even begin to solve the enormous SES challenges we face today? In pursuing a viable answer to this question, the life and work of traditional naturalists have largely been overlooked. Instead of making future projections several hundred years into the future, in this book I will look several hundred years into the past in search of sound ecological and humanistic principles derived from our rich tradition of American naturalists and nature writers. While von Carlowitz represents the common paradigm, or “received” sustainability

43

44

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

paradigm, an alternative worldview can also be found during the Enlightenment. In 1798, Thomas Malthus was possibly the first to comprehensively examine questions of carrying capacity. Malthus warned that while food production grew linearly, human populations were growing exponentially, and the unchecked growth and expansion would lead to war, famine, and destruction (as it did for most species), colonialism spread the values of industrialism and efficiency around the world. Paul Wapner (2010), an environmental politics scholar, argues in his Living through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism, Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) constituted “one of the first and foremost voices to raise the specter of sustainability” (p. 43). Malthus may be most well-known for referring to economics as “the dismal science” (Grober, 2012; Worster, 1977); but he also laid the groundwork for many naturalists such as Charles Darwin, Alexander Humboldt, and George Perkins Marsh (Wapner, 2010). Worster (1994) credits this influence for “the logic and structure of Darwin’s revolutionary ecology” and the theory behind the “survival of the fittest” concept (p. 114). Similar to Darwin, Malthus applied his ecological ideas to competitions for place within human populations. It was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s until now with documents like The Limits to Growth (1972)—which I will discuss in detail in Chapter 5—Malthusian discussions of carrying capacity and ecological footprint began to inform actual planning practices and work toward sustainability educational theory (Newman & Jennings, 2008). It is one of the premises of this book, however, that while wicked and SES problems may seem new, these problems are as old as civilization. While some sustainability problems begin in agriculturally-based societies, SES problems begin to accelerate around Malthus’s time with the transformation of the Western world to an industrial-based socioeconomic system, the foundation of which was colonialism and the heavy global extraction of environmental resources. Thoreau, as one of America’s most influential naturalists, would witness this transformation firsthand. He wrote extensively about this socio-economic and environmental transformation in his journals, essays, and in Walden: or Life in the Woods in 1854, recommending a major paradigm shift in our relationship with the environment back toward what it once had been. Much later, Rittel and Webber’s wicked problems of the 1960s and 1970s demanded the creation of a new, dynamic vocabulary. During this period, the Canadian ecologist C. S. Holling’s work also introduced the highly useful terms adaptive capacity, resiliency, transformability, and transdisciplinarity that I employ in this book (Anderies et al., 2004; Holling, 1969; 1973; 2001; Resilience Alliance, 2014; Walker et al., 2004). Adaptive capacity and resiliency regard the particular dynamics of a situation (Walker et al., 2004) —the former describing the ability of a system to prepare for stresses and adjust (Engels, 2011) and

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

the latter conveying the ability of a system to bounce back without significant changes. Transformability “refers to fundamentally altering a system” and is a neutral term that can be employed negatively, as in an ecosystem that has lost its keystone species, or in positive terms, as in a shift back toward traditional farming method (Walker et al., 2004, p. 5). Finally, transdisciplinarity as defined by leading ecologists, is the full integration of the Three Branches (i.e., the sciences, social sciences, and humanities) and the linking of theories and practices that informs sustainability thinking (Crow, 2012; Odum & Barrett, 2005). Holling (1973) observed over forty years ago that to understand ecology, we needed to comprehend dynamic and shifting stable-states that could have little resemblance to one another, with this requiring a higher level of integration among scientists, social scientists, and institutions. It is the stated mission of sustainability discourse to concern itself with the long-term, and thus in the present context, the twenty-first century and beyond (Kates & Parris, 2003). The “integrative approach to the need for unlocking cause and effect explanations across and among disciplines” has been termed consilience by E. O. Wilson (1998), sustainability science (Kates et al., 2000), and transdisciplinarity (Odum & Barrett, 2005). The adequate transformation necessary to address wicked problems like global climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising consumption rates will not be found within the limited results from compromising constraints among the three pillars (i.e., society, economics, and environment) as UN literature suggests. Rather, significant changes are much more likely to be found in the productive engagements of our ethical, economic, and educational worldviews. Moreover, such transformations will take place by both relying on historically accurate, academically sound, natural, and ecological science and by utilizing long-tested humanistic principles from our traditions in discourse in the areas of literature, history, aesthetics, philosophy, and (especially) ethics. While the concept of transdisciplinary problem solving was first advanced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1984 (Klein 1984), it has become much more developed in academia, especially within contemporary ecology which requires an interdisciplinary understanding of coupled human and natural systems. It became a promising term to unite different modes of educational theory, and one necessary to deal with the complexity of ecology. Much like the Brundtland Report (1987), OECD had an implicit mission of development (Walker et al., 2004). Howard and Eugene Odum (in search of a more conservation biology perspective) described transdisciplinarity as “unlocking of cause and effect explanations across and among disciplines” (Odum and Barrett 2005, p. 15). The levels of disciplinary thinking are illustrated in what has come to be one of the most respected textbooks in American history, Odum’s The Fundamentals of Ecology (see Figure 3). The

45

46

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

model is an expansion of the astrophysicist, social scientist, and philosopher Erich Jantsch’s (1929-80) vision of cooperation and “mutual enhancement of epistemologies” (1957, p. 7). The potentially catastrophic problems of interrelated SES problems have great demands for sustainability theory and education (also known as Education for Sustainability, or EfS). This field is distinguished from Sustainable Development Education by being much more transformational and with less concentration on economic development. EfS, contrary to SDE, has a stated focus on transforming university curriculum (Mudler & Jansen, 2006). This is contrasted with the SDE’s “bolt-on” approach which requires “minimal change to curricula in universities” (Thomas, 2009, p. 247). The mission of Education for Sustainability is to not only to integrate a spectrum of knowledge from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities—the Three Branches— but link theory and practice and provide a normative framework for sustainability. Sustainability education scholar Ian Thomas (2009) has described Education for Sustainability (EfS) as: • a systemic approach—showing a holistic perspective and accessing transdisciplinary understanding • an exploration of the effects of decisions and taking action—investigating what pressures will be placed on the biophysical environment and on society? Who or what (human and other living species) will be directly affected? What will be the positive and negative effects? • making sustainability decisions based in sound ethical reasoning—values-based exploration of the issues and options, with decisions being guided by a set of ethics derived from analysis of both human rights and ecological rights. (p. 249) While the United Nations-authored Brundtland Report (1987) has almost universally provided a model for this in the three pillars of sustainability, the elemental construction of the Brundtland paradigm neither captures the complexity of socio-ecological problems, nor does it meet the needs of Education for Sustainability. In addition, UN frameworks have been criticized as providing a basis for incremental (as opposed to transformational) change, centering theories on purely human and instrumental values (rather than reflecting eco-centric and intrinsic values of nature), and containing primarily efficiency-based approaches to coupled human-natural systems (instead of more resiliency-based principles), which often ironically work not to sustain resources but rather to diminish carrying capacity (Hallet, 2012; Newton & Freyfogle, 2005; Owen, 2012).

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

Figure 3: In Fundamentals of Ecology, trans-disciplinarity represents a higher integration than multi- or inter-disciplinary studies. In short and by example, the former requires the thinker (or student) to assemble the pieces, like in a traditional liberal arts program, while the latter certainly may be holistic but is based on the coordination of two or more. disciplines. (Odum & Barrett 2005, p. 15)

More recently, sustainability education has expounded broad-based outcome measures including critical thinking, experiential learning, environmental ethics, and transdisciplinary communication, moving away from an economic emphasis (Frederick & Pijawka, 2015; Pijawka et al., 2013). Recent UN Millennial sustainability topics have also moved sustainability away from singularly focused development topics back to more broad ranging subjects such as poverty, equity, and justice, and ecological integrity and resiliency. The difficulty in implementing interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity is exacerbated by the fact that sustainability has not been centered on ecological limits, which has greatly hindered our ability to be equipped to address wicked and super-wicked problems. Today’s naturalists and evolutionary biologists like E. O. Wilson seem to agree. The work of Wilson and other traditional naturalists suggest the need to look at SES—and the Earth—as a single, coupled system. They also suggest that local, incremental, efficiency-based, and

47

48

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

sustainable development thinking will not solve wicked and super-wicked SES problems.

N atur alists and a N e w S ustainabilit y W orldvie w We could be heading for disaster. The biologist and naturalist Rachel Carson wrote over fifty years ago in the prologue of Silent Spring: We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. (p. 4)

The work of traditional naturalists suggests the need to view SES—and the Earth—as a single coupled system. They also suggest that local, incremental, and efficiency-based sustainability thinking will not solve SES problems. This is because contemporary sustainability discourse often replicates past assumptions about knowledge and value in the Three Branches, and historical systems naturalists can help overcome aspects of these inherited mindsets and problems. Leopold saw the human and natural systems as functioning in “enormously slow, intricate, and interrelated functions among its parts.” Likewise, all of the naturalists examined here convey an ecohumanist worldview of one coupled human and natural system—one in which economic values are subordinated to human needs and environmental limits. This worldview links important principles from the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, as well as theory and practice for sustainability theory. The writings and examples of naturalists unite theory and practice among the Three Branches (see Figure 4.). They provide more robust sustainability principles than today’s widely accepted, yet constrained, sustainable development framework. Naturalist and ecohumanist principles can help solve our most challenging SES problems by synthesizing—rather than trading-off—a broad range of knowledge in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities to inform sustainability ethics, economics, and education. Most germane to sustainability discourse is that naturalists are predominately coupled-systems thinkers. Possibly because of their broad-ranging knowledge of natural history—or their view of humans as natural, intrinsic parts of nature rather than separate from it—the most comprehensive, inclusive, and far-reaching naturalists systematically applied their direct observations of the natural world to larger theories of sustainability, including many on society and economics. They used probable and creative reasoning based on a synthesis of

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability?

the general premises of the spectrum of disciplines, which can be understood as inductive reasoning (Popper & Miller, 1987; Walls, 1995; Wilson, 1998; Yeo, 2003), which Aristotle thought indispensable to the scientific method.

Figure 4: The Three Branches expressed in approach, discipline, and occupation.

49

50

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

The most influential of these naturalists have applied findings in their “specialties” to the larger body of knowledge as a whole, including such disparate fields as economics, philosophy, and the sciences, using analysis and synthesis to refine their methods and applications. A naturalist’s holism therefore is not a reductionist’s holism, nor does it tend to overly generalize toward a chosen field or set of values. Additionally, naturalist principles are often aimed at how each of the disciplines within epistemology (the theory of knowledge and its method) reinforce each other and span the Three Branches. This book puts forth an argument that the existing sustainability framework based on the three Es—environment, economics, and equity—has not been robust enough or sufficient to restore and maintain the global carrying capacity. Each of the four following ecohumanist chapters is divided into three parts. Beginning with the life and work of Henry David Thoreau, I first present the historical wicked problems and problematic ideologies, alongside advances in proto-ecological and proto-sustainability thinking during their era. Then I discuss how ecological and holistic thinking of that era challenges those views. Finally, I show how each selected naturalist and ecohumanist overcomes the ideological beliefs of his era by integrating the concepts, values, and principles from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this. H enry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Some of the work in the sciences and humanities today tends to overlook the depth and contributions of other disciplines, thereby simplifying or discounting complex data and phenomena. This type of thinking can lead to idealistic and uni-dimensional definitions of the human-nature relationship. Most American colonists and early settlers did not have a holistic worldview that included a relationship with other living species except one of domination. When Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) started to explore the woods of Concord, Massachusetts in the nineteenth century, this earlier view had just begun to change. Thoreau’s life roughly coincided with the initiation of industrialism in the United States and the reaction to the first wave of global industrialism. The spread of industrialism it permanently decoupled the relationship between manpower and wealth, and permanently altered the relationship between people and nature, resulting in innumerable consequences. A humanist or religious ethos, like many voices during Thoreau’s time, often overlooked real-world causes and conditions that drive wicked problems. At the time of the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s first major article, “Natural History,” in 1839, the word scientist had only come into acceptance two years previously; it was a moment in history in which the “ivory towers” of the natural sciences and humanities had not been so divided, when instead the interchange of concepts, values, and principles of knowledge flowed more freely (Walls, 1995). For this reason, of the four ecohumanists in this book, the naturalist Thoreau is probably best positioned to represent the most holistic and Aristotelian position during the Era of Early American Industrialism (1760-1840).

52

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

In New England in the early 1800s, factories arose in former mill towns, making the shoes, clocks, and bricks that had once been hand crafted in small villages. Americans also increasingly abandoned their farms, moving to larger cities (Walls, 1995). As America’s borders expanded west with new land purchases, the Mexican War, and a gold rush in California, farmers in New England began to migrate westward. The remaining New England farmers found they could not compete in the new global market. Reflecting upon such developments led naturalists like Thoreau to question the new factory- and efficiency-based culture and its alienating effects both on local social bonds and interactions with nature. During almost the entirety of Thoreau’s lifetime, the word ecology did not yet exist; it would not be coined until 1859, after Charles Darwin described nature as an evolutionary struggle. Also, during Thoreau’s life, there was no real term for environment. Responsible for the first taxonomy of the species still used today, Carl Linnaeus (1707-78) had largely defined the term biology to that time. The biology of Linnaeus constituted a static and striated existence and placed “Man” atop a species hierarchy that only existed for purposes designed to benefit humans. In a highly influential example of Platonic idealism and Christian dominion-based thinking during the Enlightenment (1600-1800), the naturalist Linnaeus presented a hierarchical structure that linked providence to the exploitation of nature for economic growth. Linnaeus substituted the “Supreme Engineer” for Plato’s concept of a “Spirit of Nature,” and the “Sublime” (Worster, 1977, p. 42). This worldview would eventually lead to massive environmental exploitation through colonialism and the industrial revolution (Kingsland, 2005, Nash, 1974; Wilson, 1998, Worster, 1977; 1985). Thoreau’s mentor and research supervisor at Harvard University, Louis Agassiz (1807-73), also believed in this construct, arguing to his grave against Darwin’s findings in evolutionary biology. The early environmentalist and dissenting social critic of his era, Thoreau employed both deductive reasoning and creative thought to achieve synthesis, instead of compromising when a principle from one discipline conflicted with a principle from another discipline. This is Thoreau’s greatest gift, his imaginative synthesis, applying the findings in science, natural history, and botany to society as a whole and then ascribing a role for the individual and allowing both science and philosophy to be given equal consideration. Clearly his accessibility to a multitude of disciplines is part of his appeal, like other synthesizers of this book. It is also the reason for which he is claimed to have influenced so many different schools of thought ranging from environmental science, to political science, to education and religious studies. In the last chapter, I reasoned that viable solutions to the intertwined, social-ecological—or wicked—challenges of the twenty-first century will require

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

the use of knowledge not only from the fields of climatology, ecology, and population dynamics but also from the full body of konwledge kwon as the Three Branches: the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities (Kates & Parris, 2003; Wilson, 1998; 2014). I also discussed how wicked problems have persisted over time. In order to solve such entrenched problems, a holistic worldview is needed. Traditional naturalists, given their uniquely equipped approaches to providing a capacitated worldview, most ably offer a view containing integrative principles from the Three Branches. I then presented the idea that a transformation in our understanding of how these three knowledge branches fit together is necessary for such a paradigm shift toward a sustainable world. As the first ecologists who were avid humanists and also schooled in the universal laws of logic, philosophy, physics, biology and systems produced a tradition of thinkers, American naturalists knew how to marry physics and metaphysics. With these interests, capabilities, and sensibilities, they are particularly able to examine phenomena as complex layers embedded within a larger domain. But what do all these abstract notions regarding the human-nature relationship have to do with sustainability? How can a re-examination of Thoreau’s life and work clarify their naturalist/humanist worldview to help create a paradigm shift in current sustainability theory and discourse? The naturalist Thoreau viewed natural history as a direct contradiction to Linnaean science and philosophy. As the science and technology of production began to advance alongside America’s rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Thoreau saw that people began to distance themselves from nature; and, as a result, they simply no longer had fulfilling lives. The residents of Concord had suddenly found themselves spending the majority of the daylight hours trying to determine how to fit into, and devote themselves to, an economy in which they were ultimately expendable. As farming moved west, the student of natural history Thoreau noted Concord had retained little of its original biological diversity. In this chapter, I examine Thoreau’s writing as a reaction to American industrialism and early globalization. I demonstrate that the roots of the problems and solutions to wicked problems that plagued Thoreau and his era still plague us today: ecosystem regime change, the growing human alienation to both society and the environment as the result of globalization, and government and corporate corruption. Thoreau’s type of thinking is also able to help solve the phantom “Cartesian Split” of physics and metaphysics, subject and object, obscuring evolutionary research in the natural sciences. Thoreau’s philosophy emancipates people from a corrupt society. His vision focuses on the creation of meaning in the industrial world through individual ethics. Thoreau integrates the three branches of knowledge to solve these wicked problems. But, before describing how, I first want to discuss the changes

53

54

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

in the general understanding of ecology during the Early American Industrial Era, as well as approaches of naturalists to this not yet conceived field of study.

A F l awed S ocio - ecological W orldvie w The collective worldview I examine here, and one to which all four ecohumanists of this book react, actually arises out of the proto-ecological field of natural history itself. Environmentalism as we define it today, and the need for the preservation or restoration of ecosystems, would have seemed absurd to early Americans. Massachusetts in 1700 had been described by colonists as a “dark, primeval jungle” where trees “six feet in diameter” towered at “250 feet in height” (Nash, 1974, p. 67). Yet, with the remarkably short interval of only a century later, almost no first-growth forests remained in Massachusetts. By 1830 (when Thoreau was in his 20s), the United States had reached the peak of its deforestation and land clearing in the East, which claimed 60-80 percent of the land in New England. When Thoreau assessed this “vanishing forest milieu,” he was among the first to condemn Puritan forefathers for not preserving the “primitive,” or first-growth forests of New England (Worster, 1977, p. 70). European settlers arriving in the Americas had viewed the immense tracts of wilderness with both “awe and fear,” and “utility and exploitation” (Worster, 1993, p. 14). For example, about half of the megafauna as well as ungulates were viewed as “discommodities” (Cronon, 1992, p. 28). When dangerous, as bears and wolves were almost always considered to be, significant bounties of $5-10 were placed on their heads and their numbers were quickly decimated (Cronon, 1992). Adding to this context, pioneers interpreted nature as the “antithesis” of civilization (Cronon, 1992, p. 28) by establishing a human-centric paradigm. Viewing all natural phenomena as part of intelligent design, Puritans saw “conquering and converting it to city” as a part of establishing individual salvation (Nash, 1974, p. 33, 35). As Roderick Nash (1974) illuminates in Wilderness and the American Mind: The Puritans seldom forgot that civilizing the wilderness meant far more than profit, security and worldly comfort. A Manichean battle was waged between “the cleare sunshine of the Gospell” on the one hand and “thick antichristian darkness” [sic.] on the other (Shepard, 1648; Nash, 1974, pp. 36-7).

While not all colonists viewed the natural world as an enemy, pioneers proceeded to devastate forests, prairies, and riverine systems in the nascent country, introducing hundreds of invasive species and homogenizing many ecosystems.

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

Puritan, Calvinist, and other religious beliefs fostered escape from societal constraints by finding new territory to mold to their needs. With all the implications contained in this oft-repeated motto: “A good man knows how to clear a patch of forest,” environmental exploitation continued and expanded. The distinct legacy of a European imperialist, mercantilist, and expansionist worldviews as well as overtly Christian influences is also known as the American exceptionalist worldview (McKibben, 2006; Nash, 1974; Pielke, et. al, 2007). This collective worldview affected the course of the development, as well as the depletion, of resources. Political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) was the first to write about the American individualism and exceptionalism in Democracy in America (1835). When traveling in America, Tocqueville noticed that while Europeans exhibited high regard for their forests, prairies and wilderness, Americans did not. He described exceptionalism as the notion that America’s canonical commitments to concepts such as liberty, equality, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire had somehow exempted them (in this mindset) from the historical forces that led to the corruption of other societies (Koh, 2003). Linnaeus heavily influenced this perception of the environment at the time—not yet a formal discipline. No thinker influenced the study of biology, botany, and very early ecology more than the Enlightenment thinker Carl Linnaeus, who confined ecology within economic logos already developed by his era of imperialism and global trade. This naturalist, while attempting to envision the whole of living things working in unison, instead represented Platonic and Idealist thinking. Economic growth indirectly guided the work of Linnaeus who linguistically and theoretically linked ecology to economics through key concepts like producers, consumers, equilibrium, mosaic, and metabolism in Oeconomia Naturae (1775) (Farber, 2000; Foucault, 1973; Worster, 1977). Carolus Linnaeus virtually defined the field of natural history during this time. He was the first to name and order the great variety of animal and plant species; but like Plato, he had holistic ideas that linked two distinct worlds— one spiritual and one material. Physical and metaphysical thinkers like the naturalist Rene Descartes (1596-1650) had also firmly established a dualism between “body” and “mind” as separate discourses. While Descartes described the human body as a place where physical and incorporeal realms influenced each other, Linnaeus allowed Christian holism rather than experimentation of the phenomena itself guide his writing.1 Linnaeus interpreted Nature’s “oeconomy” as the “divine government of the natural world” and as reward for Man’s work (Worster, 1977, p. 38). As environmental historian Donald Worster (1977) argues, this worldview impacted the 1 | Descartes also epitomized hierarchical thinking by arguing that animals feel no pain (Worster, 1977).

55

56

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

natural world during European expansion, conquest, and colonization, since the “fundamental assumption … was that the ‘economy’ of nature is designed by Providence to maximize production and efficiency” (p. 52). Like many Enlightenment thinkers, Linnaeus echoes Plato’s thinking in the Christian paradigm in Philosophia Botanica: All the species recognized by Botanists came forth from the Almighty Creator’s hand, and the number of these is now and always will be exactly the same, while every day new and different florists’ species arise from the true species so-called by Botanists, and when they have arisen they finally revert to the original forms. [my ital.] (Linnaeus & Ransbottom, 1751/1938, p. 197)

Linnaeus thus painted ecological systems as top-down and static, with taxonomical structures of plant and animal species that “had not changed since their creation,” much like Plato’s idealistic hierarchy of “Forms” (Farber, 2000, p. 11). This separate plane of existence reflected the spiritual laws, which could be discovered through reason (Farber, 2000; Worster, 1977). Worster (1977) writes of “Linnaeans . . .. their ambition was to establish, through the exercises of reason and hard work, man’s dominion over nature” (p. 2). Although historians have often painted Enlightenment thinkers as almost all operating under the heavy influence of a Christian paradigm that led to irrational things like burning people at the stake for claiming the Earth was flat, there were exceptions. Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) served as another major influence on a typical American’s worldview during early industrialism. Smith was driven by his belief that the individual pursuit of wealth—and the ability to manage the land to produce increasingly more—would naturally lead to the greater good of society: Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in his view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society. (Smith, 1776/1994, p. 482)

Smith thus set the stage for what is now called “classical economics,” ascribing a very narrow definition of the “individual” as a producer-consumer. Worster (1977) has argued that the “Linnaean,” Adam Smith helped indoctrinate Americans to see their wild country as “no more than a storehouse of raw material for man’s ingenuity” (p. 53). Smith also somewhat “capitalized” on Calvinistic views of the wealthy as preordained for Heaven. Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776), revolutionized economics by describing the national income in terms of

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

labor, land, and capital instead of the gold in the king’s coffers. Setting the stage for what is now called “classical economics,” this book ascribed a very narrow definition of the individual as a consumer, and a nation’s worth in terms of GDP. Settlers and pioneers quickly eliminated Indian shifting agriculture practices (e.g., “slash and burn” agriculture) and crop rotation methods—before they could understand their intrinsic and instrumental values, which restored important nutrients to the soil, such as the rotation of crops and the burning forest to add nutrients to the soil and allowing land to lie fallow (Cronon, 2003). As we will see later, many sustainability scholars have argued that only after nature has been converted to a commodity, does society then ascribe it with value. With “no effective forestry in the United States” until the Progressive Era (Meine, 2004, p. 18), forest areas, which by today’s value might be in the billions of dollars, were among the first environmental externalities, as pioneers gobbled up everything but hard to reach and non-arable mountainous regions. The US government bestowed 160 acres to pioneer farmers in the original Homestead Act (1862) that transformed the land, destroying many endemic species of plants and animals while steadily eroding the soil. Ranching practices also resulted in soil degradation and loss of nutrient-rich topsoil. It disturbed rivers with already greatly diminished flow resulting from expanding settlements. While not all pioneers saw the natural world as an enemy, they may have simply “lived too close to nature to appreciate it” (Nash, 1974, p. 31). In forest, soil, riverine ecosystems alike, capitalism in America had a systemic effect, leaving a clear legacy of irresponsibility for today. In the Northwest, for example, dams were installed as holding points for thousands of logs that were then flushed downstream in intentional floods toward a lumber mill and devastated stream ecosystems and the salmon and fishing industry (Lichatowich, 1999). While some, like Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), held an “alternative” view of nature, an ethical vision of biodiversity and local watershed-based communities, the 1800s pioneers decimated the “’inexhaustible prairies,” the forests along the Great Lakes, and the fisheries of the Northeast (Meine, 2004, p. 16). Yet, right alongside the developments in science a resistance to the applications of science began to brew within the fields of biology, natural history, and “natural philosophy”—it would one-day lead to the creation of the field of “ecology,” which had not yet distinguished itself as a formal science. As a proto-ecologist, Thoreau eventually rebelled against his mentor, Louis Agassiz, the famed naturalist and another Linnaean thinker. Agassiz still has a secure place within naturalist anthologies for his many contributions to the expansion of the natural history museums, which became the center of the field of ecology later in the century in Boston and other East coast cities (Walls, 1995). Agassiz, like Thoreau, endeavored to unlock the secrets of forest succession though the sciences of natural history and geology. But, Agassiz’s view of

57

58

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

natural history was one in which God had laid out an unchanging and perfectly interlocking natural world for Man’s use. Not coincidentally, after Charles Darwin produced the Origin of the Species (1859) and positioning evolutionary theory as a science for the first time, Agassiz became “scandalized” for having spent so many years arguing against natural selection and the theory of evolution; and, like Linnaeus, “conceiv[ing] the universe as a vision in the mind of God” (Wilson, 1998, p. 40). Thoreau also rejected the work of William Paley (1743-1805), a contemporary of Thoreau (whom he later ridiculed in “Civil Disobedience”), who represented the typical theologian who incorporated a Linnaean view of Nature into his theological concepts. William Paley’s theories in Natural Theology (1802) (and similar to Agassiz’s) are representative of Platonic and Linnaean ideals of nature in Thoreau’s time. These precepts described a static world where, through human reason and divine providence, the natural realm functions as an unfettered, limitless cornucopia to the benefit human beings (Worster, 1977). Thoreau (1849) mocked Paley’s social views in “Civil Disobedience” as well as Paley’s chapter in Natural Theology called “Duty of Submission to Civil Government.” Thoreau had originally entitled “Civil Disobedience”—in direct opposition to Paley—“Resistance to Civil Government.”

A n A lternative E cological Tr adition In contrast to the general worldview—even among naturalists like Linnaeus—a more bio-centric view and a sense of responsibility to the environment also emerged during the High Middle Ages (1100-1300), Renaissance (1300-1600), and Enlightenment (1600-1800). While subsequently most may have interpreted nature for its utilitarian purposes, never suspecting that the resources in the United States resources were not endless, throughout history there has also existed an alternative tradition, which viewed life through the lens of natural history and questioned the trajectory of human society. This alternative, and I argue, superior ur-sustainability tradition has a much more capacious intellectual tradition, drawing on such diverse fields as cultural anthropology, natural history, evolutionary biology, and integrated social and environmental philosophy—but most of all, the growing field of ecology. An alternative, “Arcadian” or “ecological” tradition (although not always working specifically on SES problem-solving) has helped build a base of knowledge that has informed our understanding of changing climates, population dynamics, socio-ecological community dynamics, and other socio-ecological interactions that began to adversely affect the health and wellbeing of both society and nature (Worster, 1977). Environmental historian Ulrich Grober (2012) traces the first use of the Latinate sustainamento (today’s sustainability, and sev-

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

eral centuries earlier than von Carlowitz’s nachhaltigkeit) to the “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” canticles of Codex 338 written by St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) (pp. 36-42), for example. Grober (2012) writes that St. Francis “makes a radical break with classical and Christian thought,” reinterpreting humankind’s relationship with nature as one of “brother” as opposed to one of “subjugation,” an idea vitally important for understanding Thoreau (p. 36). Competing interpretations of nature’s purpose existed throughout the Enlightenment. Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) also influenced naturalist literature, representing nature in more Eastern than Western conceptions of holism, as would Thoreau do later. Spinoza saw God as “Nature” in the divine sense, and as synonymous with God (Grober, 2012, pp. viii; 36-41). Common elements propagated the idea of human beings as constituents of, and equal to, nature. This idea violated more mainstream Enlightenment thinkers like Linnaeus (Foucault, 1973). Linnaean thought mimicked the Platonic thought, and first description of idealism, describing the universe in terms of eternal “forms” toward which the natural world strived to become (Williams, 1973, p. 55). Because of his more materialistic, interconnected, and practical view of God, Spinoza, on the contrary, framed Nature as demanding the use of human beings as His stewards, citing the Bible (Grober, 2012), as Leopold would much later come to defend his “land ethic.” Numerous thinkers since Linnaeus have argued that Nature’s taxonomy was “too rich and various to be fitted within so rigid a framework” as the Linnaean model (Foucault, 1973, p. 126)—a model based on a perfect order or divine economics that placed all plants and animals in service to human beings. It has nevertheless remained the fundamental tool of biologists to the present. Although not as well known today, the second most commonly found book (after the Bible) in late eighteenth-century France was a 36-volume treatise on natural history and animal behavior, Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière (Buffon & Loveland, 1775/2004) (Farber, 2000). Natural History, for short, and its author, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1749-88), often considered the experience of viewing the natural world as much more unpredictable and random than Linnaeus, a rival with whom he was almost constantly at odds (Foucault, 1973). Rather than base his theories on the Bible, similarly to Linnaeus and most Enlightenment thinkers, Buffon relied on his own observations and on Aristotle and the Roman naturalist Pliny for his understanding of nature (Farber, 2000).2 Buffon also challenged commonly held ideologies that contravened 2 | Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) was possibly the “first environmentalist” and was important for recognizing that the Empire’s ecological footprint extended far beyond its borders, making them reliant on the importation of 300,000 tons of grain per year (Solomon, 2011). Farber (2000) notes that the naturalist “Pliny claimed to have stu-

59

60

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

findings in the natural world, presenting an alternative to the Genesis story as well as calculating the Earth’s age to be about twenty times greater than that of the Biblical 6,000 years calculated by theologians. Buffon has often been considered “the father of evolutionary theory” (Farber, 2000). Buffon instead reasoned—like Thoreau would prior to Darwin—that quadrupeds were all related to one3 and based his findings on “phenomena” rather than “forms,” thus establishing proto-ecological idea of ecological roles. Some naturalists in Thoreau’s time had also just begun to move toward ideas of systems-thinking and holism and “Natural History” reflects this influence. Many scholars have noted the obvious influence of Gilbert White’s (1720-93) Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789) on Thoreau. White tied philosophy and science through direct observation and respect for nature. White’s reverence for the mundane in nature, down to the level of the humble earthworm, is mirrored in Thoreau’s detailed descriptions of muskrats, grass, cicadas—even ice. Not every thinker of early industrialism hailed the primacy of efficiency; as a rule, the best ecological thinkers abhorred it. In The Coal Question (1856) the economist William Jevons wrote that the more efficient train engines became, the cheaper and greater in demand they became. New factories also improved the efficiency of engine production, which in turn, created yet more demand, which in turn created and an even bigger market where competition necessitated more efficiency, lower prices, and ever-increasing demand. But given trains were also the best transporter of coal, this allowed for the building of more machines (often for clothing and textiles) that relied on coal, the building of more tracks, and more overall speed and efficiency on a national scale (Hallet, 2012; McDonough & Braungart, 2006; Owen, 2012). This phenomenon is now well known as “Jevons’ Paradox.” Another alternative naturalist was Prussian geographer Alexander Humboldt (1769-1859). Humboldt’s four principles—(i) explore, (ii) collect, (iii) measure—and especially—(iv) connect, would guide Thoreau to synthesize his observations of nature and tie them to Western philosophy. These two naturalists demonstrated the first hints since Aristotle of systems-thinking and the view that all ways of knowing complimented one another. Thoreau methodically applied Humboldt’s systems-thinking in science to the larger philosophical discourse of Western civilization—an innovation. But as Laura Walls (1995) died all the earlier work of Greek and Roman authors, effectively combining the information to create a comprehensive survey of the natural world,” [my ital.] in search of what E. O. Wilson has called “the Ionian Enchantment” (i.e., a unity of knowledge or transdisciplinarity). 3 | Thoreau had the benefit of reading Darwin’s early pre-evolution works like the Voyage of the Beagle (1838), and he referred to it in Walden.

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

writes, despite his command of natural sciences, Humboldt is less influential than Thoreau because “literary grace usually eluded him” (p. 102). Most significantly, the German-influenced Romantic Movement (17901830) in England and the British-influenced Transcendentalism (1825-40) in New England each decried urbanization and industrialization, the end products of rational Enlightenment thinking espoused by Descartes, John Locke (1634-1702), and Isaac Newton (1642-1726). Romantics censured “Enlightened” overdependence on science and reason, and lamented the serious social and economic side effects of industrialization. They countered the mechanistic aspirations of the Enlightenment by venerating principles such as the Lord Byron’s (1788-1824) autonomy, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) organic theory, and William Blake’s (1757-1827) depiction of alienating materialism and industrialism (as well as illustrations of its abuses to women and children). These leaders of the Romantic Movement told stories of protagonists who found freedom from mundane life through their imagination and escape into “Nature” (with a capital “N”) signifying the ideal and divine but not in traditional Christian terms (Albanese, 2012, p. 1). For Romantics, the natural world presented a mystical and subjective domain open for the viewer to interpret with passion and emotion. Many scholars have noted the influence of the Romantic Movement on Thoreau (Norton, 2003), often going as far as calling Thoreau a Romantic (Nash, 1974; Worster, 1977). German Idealists responsible for beginning the Romanticism in Europe derived part of their worldview from the holism contained in Chinese and Hindu philosophy at that time first being translated from Sanskrit to German. Thoreau himself is credited with the first translation of Eastern philosophy in America (from German), the “Lotus Sutra” (Albanese, 2012). Thoreau closes his “Economy” chapter in Walden, as Taylor (1996) notes, with a story about the only tree that could be said to be truly free, the cypress—because it produced nothing of human value. Although I found reference to this nowhere in my research, I posit this quote is most likely a reference to Chuang Tzu’s, “The Useless Tree” (circa 350 B.C.) translated in The Way of Chuang Tzu (Merton, 1965, pp. 45-6).4

4 | “The Useless Tree” by Chuang Tzu Hui Tzu said to Chuang, “I have a big tree, the kind they call a “stinktree.” The trunk is so distorted, so full of knots, no one can get a straight plank out of it. The branches are so crooked you cannot cut them up in any way that makes sense.” “There it stands beside the road. No carpenter will even look at it. Such is your teaching – big and useless.” Chuang Tzu replied, “Have you ever watched the wildcat crouching, watching his prey. The prey leaps this way, and that way, high and low, and at last lands in the trap. And

61

62

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Unlike Puritans who viewed the natural world as a “moral vacuum,” environmental historian Roderick Nash (1974) argues that Transcendentalism, “reject[ed] deist’s assumptions about the power of reason” (p. 84; 86). Human beings, according to Transcendentalism, were not separated from nature as there were in the structured form of the Enlightenment paradigm; rather, they constituted part of nature in the Romantic worldview (Emerson, 1979b). Thoreau’s writing would help form what was later termed the “American Renaissance” (c. 1846-70), the first flourishing of the humanities in “New World” to receive international recognition, which included Herman Melville (1819-91), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), and Emily Dickenson (1830-86). Thoreau and his New England neighbors became some of the first to make a significant contribution toward the continuing European literary and cultural discourse (Mumford, 1926; Matthiessen, 1941; Reynolds, 1998). As global trade flourished on a new level, with crossing the Atlantic becoming almost commonplace in his lifetime, Thoreau participated in an ongoing, though somewhat elite, European discourse on human civilization (Matthiessen, 1941; Tanka & Baym, 1998).  Although Thoreau’s writing certainly bore some of the elements of Romanticism, he was not a Romantic. Thoreau advanced further than his counterparts (many of whom similarly to Emerson, were only amateur naturalists) by diversely founding his work on biology, early evolutionary theory, and forest succession (Howe, 2009; Worster, 1977).

The N atur al S ciences : S cience and P hilosophy are C omplimentary Thoreau’s simple position still speaks to us today, as Americans become increasingly busy in their complicated lives and largely more divorced from their relationship with nature. In Walden (1854), Thoreau, sometimes humorously and other times rancorously, describes this result as a triple failure in the applications of logic, ethics, and economics. As Taylor (1996) points out, it is Thoreau’s keen frustrations with the “structure of the economy that requires us to approach nature as nothing more than raw materials to be exploited in the productive processes” that are pivotal to his writing (p. 83). have you seen the Yak? Great as a thundercloud, he stands in his might. Big? Sure, but he can’t catch mice!” “So for your big tree, no use? Then plant it in the wasteland, in emptiness. Walk idly around it, rest under its shadow. No axe or bill prepares its end. No one will ever cut it down.” “Useless? You should worry!” (Merton, 1965).

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. (Thoreau & Cramer, 1863/2012, p. 594)

When he examined nature, Thoreau “saw not a flawless Newtonian machine” of Linnaeus and his contemporaries, but (in his affinity for historical context) he “could not avoid the inescapable awareness of violent ecological change caused by economic development” (Worster, 1974, pp. 65-6). Further, Thoreau thought the transforming economic system led to destruction, lamenting that settling Europeans had extirpated most native mammalian populations. He described in his journals that people now lived in a “tamed” and “emasculated” country, and that this newly aggressive and expansive economic system degraded our view of the environment. He wrote in a journal entry soon after graduating from Harvard’s natural philosophy program: When I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here - the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated country . . .. Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature I am conversing with? As if I were to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all its warriors . . .. I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth. (p. 372)

Today, rampart ecosystem loss is the only evidence needed to dispel the dominion thinking of von Carlowitz and Linnaeus. Common to many political and religious stances is that the discontinuation of any business-as-usual scenarios of production and consumption (such as quelling greenhouse gasses or curbing coal-fired plants) is absurd. The betterment and advancement of humankind is exactly for what the Earth’s resources were intended. They also often assume, although not always explicitly stated as Senator Inhofe’s position in the Introduction, “Man” is under the protection of divine providence. This appears to be a disguise for reasons of self-interest; or, it is the result of blind, unswerving faith in a model of continuous economic growth.

63

64

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Figure 5: The original cover of Walden. Thoreau wrote Walden just a little over a mile outside his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts in the little house depicted on the cover, providing a roadmap for an alternative lifestyle that was built on necessity rather than luxury. (Ticknor and Fields, 1854)

Keystone species, particularly large mammals and predators, have a critical role in maintaining ecosystems. If keystone species are extirpated, an ecosystem is likely to shift into a new regime where the old regime can be hardly recognized (Holling, 1973). American journalist Elizabeth Kolbert (2014), population ecologist Paul Ehrlich, and a group of scientists from University of California, Berkeley, have argued that we are now in a “sixth extinction period.” Baroski et al. (2015) have argued that the coral reefs will be entirely gone by 2070, and that the extinction rate has risen dramatically since the beginnings of industrialization. We know today that such acute ecosystem-altering practices, such as annihilating its keystone members can cause wildfires and alter the course of

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

rivers, exacting a nearly catastrophic toll on ecosystem diversity of plant and animal species. Keystone species, frequently large mammals and predators, play a critical role in maintaining ecosystems. If keystone species are extirpated, an ecosystem is likely to shift into a new regime, sometimes leaving the old regime barely recognizable (Holling, 1973). Wilson (2015) asserts even good biologists and ecologists have made mistakes regarding which species in an ecosystem are the keystone species. While not having the benefit of this fundamental ecological knowledge, Thoreau was shocked, but not surprised, at the local extinctions of the endemic plants and animals in and around Concord during this time. Much of his polemic, moreover, was directed at intergenerational equity for the benefit of both the natural world and the human race. Thoreau knew the human impact of American colonists on what we would now call the “integrity” or “health and wellbeing” of an ecosystem and that it could take hundreds of years to repair itself. It could also be irreversible without the ceasing of whatever human agent was causing it. Thoreau recognized from his many walks in Massachusetts and nearby locales, that forests were not static and had not regained its original biodiversity, even in parcels of land that had been recovering for hundreds of years after being disturbed initially (Miller, 2009). Human beings have so significantly altered every ecosystem in America today that now the biotic realm is often referred to as “second nature” (Cronon, 1996). Thoreau would be flabbergasted to find that no local ecosystem exists on Earth that has not been altered by humankind. Today’s leading climate change activist Bill McKibben (1989) wrote in The End of Nature that while in Thoreau’s time, environmental impacts were local, by raising the concentrations of CO2 higher than they’ve been in 400,000 years, there remains no area on Earth that has retained its original ecological integrity. Second nature arguably extends all the way around the poles—since climate change leaves no area untouched. Climate change has made its greatest effects on what we would consider the most “remote” places such as the rainforests of the world. Temperature change is more than double at the poles what we experience in the mid-latitudes. Climate change causes both human and natural cascading effects like desertification, which lead to yet more problems. Environmental historian William Cronon (1996) argues in “The Trouble with Wilderness; Or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” that nature, “Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation—indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history” (p. 7). In digging to the historical roots of ecology, historians have found that naturalists like White, Humboldt, and Thoreau—the first ecologists and eco-critics—professed worldviews extending beyond the mere classification of object.

65

66

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

In fact, as part of their worldview, they almost always questioned “the values and institutions of expansionary capitalism,” as well as painting a picture of nature as delicate, dynamic, and the source of knowledge (Worster, 1977, p. 8). Thoreau’s major at Harvard—“Natural Philosophy”—was the product of a time when scholars still searched for a unity among all the laws of the sciences and the humanities (Walls, 1995, p. 6; Wilson, 1998, pp. 59, 73, 91-3, 292-294; Wilson, 2014, p. 38). Natural Philosophy was a precursor to most of today’s natural sciences, but it also had implications for philosophy, metaphysics, and what we might today term ontology, or the study of being. Thoreau’s journal entry from the early 1840s reads: [F]acts must be learned directly and personally, but principles may be deduced from the information. The collector of facts possesses a perfect physical organization, the philosopher, a perfect intellectual one… [the poet] generalizes the results of both—he generalizes the widest deductions of philosophy. (Thoreau & Sanborn, 1848/1905, p. 60)

For the scientist Thoreau (1854), poetry comprised the medium through which (what today we would call) coupled human-natural systems were viewed and portrayed. Like postmodernists today, he believed that as Clark (2012, p. 20) writes, “knowledge moves by metaphor,” and a true scholar was one with mastery over the then very broad fields of “Science” and “Philosophy.” Although evolutionary science and modern ecology had not yet developed, Thoreau intuited properties of forest succession and animal evolution from the study of botany and natural history that exceeded the boundaries of either at that time (Clark, 2012). While Thoreau exemplifies the rigorousness of scientific inquiry and humility in understanding the Earth, he also fully mines his philosophical side toward the development of understanding the environment. In the essay, “Walking” he writes, the “Prince of Darkness” planted fences and stakes in the way of the walker; Thoreau often called upon mythology (rather than natural history) to express his deepest sentiments. Thoreau is the first genuine American environmentalist because he represents the first complete break with Linnaean thinking that viewed the world as eternally perfect and whole. The idea of a static nature, exclusively there for man’s benefit had penetrated all the way to the universities, as the renowned Agassiz at Harvard University demonstrates. Thoreau not only intuited many facets of evolution pre-Darwin; he also, more importantly, became an early expert on ecological succession—or how forests regenerated after being cut down or disturbed, as nearly all the land in Massachusetts had been prior to his birth. Kuhn (2009) writes that Thoreau sought to conciliate “oppositions such as nature and culture, self and other, reason and feeling, in addition to science and art” (p. 3). Although Thoreau’s “science” is often criticized, his annual ob-

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

servations on the flowering of many plant species from 1851-58 have provided baselines for recent climate-change studies and the deterioration studies of ecosystems over the last 200 years in New England (Primack, 2014). Thoreau’s thinking incorporated emergent properties that develop out of particulars, but when assembled, represented something appreciably larger than any of those individual findings. Thoreau’s Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) quotes Darwin, while “A Natural History of Massachusetts” expressed the idea that all mammals come from one species: “Elasticity and flexibleness in the simpler forms of animal life are the equivalent to a complex system of limbs in the higher,” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1850/2012, p. 20), and in anticipation Darwin’s evolutionary theory in Origin of the Species. But naturalist theories and concepts would not begin to be integrated into mathematical forestry practices until the end of the nineteenth century (Romberger & Mikola, 2013). Had Thoreau not passed away from tuberculosis at middle age, he would have next published a book about forest succession, having spent his remaining days writing about minute details in the Concord forests. To understand the concept of restoration, one first has to be able to intuit that a.) ecosystems are dynamic and take hundreds to thousands of years to return to a fluctuating steady-state; and b.) this state is the most desirable one. To understand preservation, one had to understand that even in Thoreau’s time, important species were absent, and thus ecosystems looked nothing like they had when the first colonists arrived—which very few naturalists, let alone the public, understood. Although many farmers were abandoning their farms for other ventures, succeeding forests failed to return to their former glory. Thoreau was among the first to discover this phenomenon and study it in the United States, as well as the unintended changes in local ecosystems wrought by human impact.

The S ocial S ciences : A n E conomy of N ecessit y Thoreau is recognized globally for his acts of passive resistance, having influenced such leaders of social rights as Mahatmas Gandhi (1869-1948) and Martin Luther King (1929-68). His advocacy for living off the grid is also wellknown. Thoreau describes real freedom in the newly democratic and capitalistic world in basing one’s economy on necessity. Thoreau viewed the American economy as failing from top to bottom in meeting its objectives. Thoreau expresses in Walden that both government and corporations are corrupt, and that capitalist ideals are mystifying, and ultimately, unsatisfying, to most people. As Minteer (2006) writes, for Thoreau, ultimately only “unspoiled nature … offered the necessary distance from American industrial and commercial values so that the latter could be seen in their perspectives, i.e., as means, not as final ends” (p. 93).

67

68

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Mass production in major cities like Boston and former villages like Concord and Lowell dissipated their formerly rewarding community-life (Mumford, 1926). As traditional ways of life gave way to automation, the Panic of 1837 was one of the first recessions to hit Wall Street as well. These drivers increasingly led Americans to abandon their farms and former occupations and move to larger cities in the very early stages of “globalization,” a trend persisting virtually unobstructed since the beginnings of industrialism to the present. The high level of unemployment in his own hometown also commanded his attention. Sixty-four percent of Concord residents were not landowners, and half of the town controlled nearly all the wealth (Sullivan, 2009, p. 25). This was problematic both to Thoreau the citizen who spent most of his life as an itinerant, and Thoreau the philosopher, witnessing the crumbling of American pastoralism and the lack of individuality and creativity of the average citizen along with it. Why does Thoreau devote far more than any succeeding chapter—over eighty—to the subject of “Economy” at the beginning of a naturalist treatise such as Walden: or Life in the Woods? Published in 1854, Walden specifically denounces the disparity of wealth in America. Yet in the “Economy” chapter, he did not frame problems like inequity as the result of “class struggle” like Marx but rather as the result of people’s desire for material indulgence—whether rich or poor. Karl Marx (1818-83), whose Communist Manifesto had been published in 1848 (one year before “Civil Disobedience”) seated the responsibility for inequity in unresolvable oppositions in the socio-economic classes over the course of history. As in Europe, the American transition from local subsistence to national markets, the advance of the corporation, and the emphasis on efficiency in production often proved to alienate people from their product—and from the source of that product, nature—arising in part from the loss of successful local trades and farming. Thoreau, in great contrast to Marx, did not confine his reproach to rich, the wielders of power, or the owners of production, but he instead chastises “the masses” and “the majority” right alongside the government. It was not just the lower class that lived in poverty, according to Thoreau. In the first chapter of Walden Thoreau examines three general categories of people functioning within the economic system: the owner of production, the farmer, and the landless worker—all of whom fail to live autonomous and fulfilling lives by Thoreau’s standards. Thoreau wrote it was not only the poor—but also most people in America—who led “lives of quiet desperation,” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854, p. 203). To him, the wealthy comprised the “most terribly impoverished class of all” as they “spent the best part of their life,” working just in order to afford their mere dwelling (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854, pp. 210, 240).

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

In contrast to Romantic views of idyllic farming culture, Thoreau described the farm using “images of decay, lifelessness, loss and futility” (Neufedlt, 1989, p. 8). “To get his shoestrings, [the farmer] speculates in herds of cattle,” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854, p. 223)—which is not unlike the amount of land and capital needed to merely make ends meet for today’s farmer. Thoreau wrote, pointing to the inefficiency of even the heads of production, and the colossal amount of energy one could exert in the current system just to have a livelihood: By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling [sic.] habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber. (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854/2012, p. 333)

It is for this reason, Thoreau writes, “the luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another,” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854, p. 224), seeing its effect on the colonized—the slaves, the Mexicans, the Indians, the itinerant Irish, and in the people on the peripheries of the Western world, and America itself— which is being depleted through an economic system predominantly built on consumption for the sake of consumption. As in his thoughts on the individual and society, Thoreau does not blame the system—this time the institution of capitalism—as much as he places the onus on people’s constant infatuation with rare material goods from around the world. Adam Smith (1776) had defined the individual by a pursuit of wealth that naturally led to the greater good of society. Thoreau agreed with Smith, that money represented the measure of energy flowing within an economic system, not just its harvest. Thoreau’s parable for capitalism in Walden’s “Economy” chapter is the Indian who starves because although he makes a useful product, a basket, no one buys it. With his essential morality, and lack of understanding of classical economics, the Indian accuses the rich lawyer of not doing his part for society with his failure to purchase a basket. “Do you mean to starve us?” asked the Indian; Thoreau concludes the tale by writing that the Indian had only done half the work in such an economy by weaving the baskets; the other half, integrating into the fluctuating national market, was beyond that particular Indian’s awareness, but the larger part of the current system (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854, p. 212). Worster (1977) writes that in Thoreau’s time, the building of the Fitchburg railroad had “invaded Concord, and would never again be a self-sufficient world, independent of national markets and influences” (p. 63). The shanties lining Walden Pond illustrated how society valued people who constructed its infrastructure (e.g., people who built the local railroad, former slaves, failed farmers) without reaping its benefits. The problem, as Thoreau saw it, was that the economy of his time was not based on necessity but “lux-

69

70

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ury.” The universal pursuit of the luxury desired by the masses, whether under the rubric of utopianism or capitalism, reduced the entire natural world to nothing more than raw materials to feed the system. The mercantilism eclipsing feudalism throughout the world, when combined with the beginnings of a global trade, funneled raw materials to the European-originated superpowers of the times in the form of colonialism. Yet, even in Thoreau’s time, when America would triple in land expanse—and there seemed to be an unlimited supply of raw materials—the current economics did not provide an easy, fulfilling, equitable, or profitable source for most people of any class in America, according to Thoreau. Because luxury rather than necessity governed the economy, people ultimately served the economy rather than vice versa. Because of its capacity to do the opposite of its intention—and like government, have people serve it instead of vice versa—it could potentially turn into a dangerous and destructive force. In going to Walden Pond to live, Thoreau pulled all his resources to demonstrate how a low-impact niche, not outside but within the free market, freed himself from a way-of-life that he perceived as futile, illogical, an inequitable. Economics thus drove Thoreau to Walden Pond. Thoreau thought his economic environment offered little choice, and several times in both “Civil Disobedience” and in Walden he equates men to “machines” and “slaves” (pp. 202, 242, 254, 258, 282). This simultaneous attack against both the state and the wealthy may have been spurned by his own economic situation: because of his choice of career as a writer and “Artist,” Thoreau would spend the great majority of his life finding creative ways to pay his bills. As today, even someone as popular and well respected in the world of letters as Emerson could not at that time survive financially on the publication of his articles. Unlike Emerson, Thoreau was not considered a gentleman, “in part because New England had no tolerance for the idleness implied by unemployment, and in part because Thoreau had no regard for affluence or the trappings of respectability” (Worster, 1977, p. 62). Thoreau’s public lectures on the economy started early in his career, seven years before the publication of “Economy” in Walden in 1854. So it is not necessarily out of pure altruism—concern for nature, and the plight of the common man—that Thoreau embarked on a mission to balance his personal economics. “My purpose in going to Walden,” he said, “was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business there with the fewest obstacles” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854, p. 212). He therefore plainly tells us that he chooses to build his own house and live in it at Walden to obtain a good financial deal and avoid the trappings of the relentless daily grind then emerging in Concord. Given that presently so many today are choosing to live “off the grid,” Thoreau’s principles can be interpreted as providing an early pathway to

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

freedom from routinely expansive consumption habits that can enslave people and nature alike. Thoreau’s use of the term “luxury” loosely translates to today’s “affluence” as described in sustainability literature. Thoreau viewed ours as an economy built on the trade of rare goods and in the service of material indulgence. He did not suggest that everyone participate in self-denial, only that a more satisfying life could be achieved through voluntary simplicity within society as it was. This necessarily involved a more complete understanding of nature through direct observation, as well as conservation-based use of it as a resource. “Demand management” and “voluntary simplicity” have become contemporary integral concepts in the relatively new study of sustainable consumption (William & Jennings, 2008). Sustainability scientists Peter Newman and William Jennings (2008) describe today’s America as one in which very high GDP has produced an unusually low level of happiness. Our current society of overconsumption has been described as a physical and mental illness. The “affluenza” of America is described by sociologist Jessie O’Neill (1997) as a “dysfunctional relationship” between members of society and wealth, characterized by “a false sense of entitlement,” “low self-worth,” and a “preoccupation with externals,” which “seem equally compelling for rich and poor alike” (Newman & Jennings, 2008, p. 192). The high level of schizophrenia and domestic terrorist attacks in this country illustrate that not only industrialism is to blame. Three-fourths or more of Americans today are actually in the service or knowledge industries; so even though most of us have graduated from factory life, so to speak, as a whole we are still not happy. As for the middle class, although the American economy has demonstrated continued growth from 1979 to 2005, the average real dollars earned by American workers fell approximately $1,500 annually during that time (McKibben, 2006, pp. 9-10). In the last decade disparities in equity at both the national and global level have only grown. The environmental activists Bill McKibben (2006) writes in Deep Economy, in agreement with Thoreau, that “growth simply isn’t enriching most of us” (p. 14). Equity is not just about the redistribution of wealth. Recent work in sustainability, especially indicator-based studies, have stressed equity means well-being, social governance, justice, and quality of life—not just money. Sustainability theorists have also widely recognized the destruction of the environment as a source of poverty. While a lack of economic growth in America has, at times, demonstrated a need for education and training for future jobs, it is not the only cause of poverty. The economics of current sustainability theory is based in great part on equitable development, especially the development of third world cultures. Yet, great inequities exist within borders of the United States, as well as globally. In a competitive system such as capitalism, it is our own development with

71

72

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

which we are most concerned. Though not mentioning Marx by name in “Civil Disobedience,” (which as stated earlier, came out a year after The Communist Manifesto) Thoreau would have likely agreed with Marx that the development of the wealthy is predicated on the underdevelopment of the poor, known today as dependency theory. Contemporary opponents of environmental legislature that hinders production, often say their opponents have a “Luddite” or even “socialist” agenda for America. However, leading sustainability thinkers who are also naturalists like Thoreau do not propose the end of democracy and capitalism. Thoreau actually tried being something similar to a real Luddite. Thoreau had received an esteemed invitation by Transcendentalist and early women’s activist Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) to live and work at Brooks Farm, one of America’s first communes. Like the trip to Walden, an “experiment,” Brooks Farm was designed to mix the toil of farming with enlightened philosophy. This experiment failed so miserably that Nathaniel Hawthorne (1846) would write an entire novel called the Blythesdale Romance to ridicule it. Members reportedly were too tired from farming at the end of the day to discuss anything. The farm also did not make a profit, and the members slowly drifted back to their former abodes and occupations. Unlike the tenants of Brooks Farm, Thoreau luxuriated in free time at Walden Pond. Because of his profits, and “strict business” practice, Thoreau had most of the summer and winter to devote to his many avocations and even to pursue other economic interests (Thoreau, & Cramer, 1854/2012, p. 212). Thoreau saw economic emancipation through the lens of using less, both as an individual and as a country. He witnessed not only the frustration of his Concord neighbors who participated in the global economy at great societal expense, but with the advent of poor quality of products as well. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the floor does not give way under the visitor while he is admiring the gewgaws upon the mantelpiece. (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854/2012, p. 227)

The American in Thoreau’s time who had actually owned his farm or his home outright was “so rare that every neighbor can point to him” (p. 223). Alongside his harvest profits, Thoreau diligently calculated the months of free time from his labors that he could use for his avocations that both enriched his life qualitatively and made it economically successful. Thoreau knew the natural resources on his small lot could produce more than enough materials to provide a subsistence living. It was with the prospect of succeeding in the free market, rather than fleeing it, that Thoreau conducted his two-year experiment on Emerson’s property and investment on Walden Pond, “enhancing the value of the land by squatting on it” (p. 249). Though

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

Thoreau’s ideas are pragmatic and moral, he also saw the bigger picture, as American mercantilism devotes more and more time to, and exhibits an increasing dependency on, globalization. Thoreau chose to work within the confines of capitalism. But unlike Smith, Thoreau also did not buy into the belief in an “invisible hand” of the market that guided individuals to advance the good of society by furthering their own bottom line. One must instead find his own special niche as in nature, which Thoreau did, by efficiently relying on all his own personal capabilities. Thoreau applies his skills as a builder, a surveyor, a farmer, a socialite, and an artist as well as aforementioned attributes, to bring Walden to success. To the farmer who tells him Walden Pond is “good for nothing but to raise cheeping squirrels,” Thoreau responds with a profit larger than any of the farmers in Concord that year (Thoreau, & Cramer, 1854/2012, p. 240). Thoreau diligently calculates his harvest profits, alongside the months of free time he can use for individual development and avocation—for reading, visiting his neighbors, and conducting scientific experiments, to which the rest of his book is devoted.

The H umanities : N ature as the F ountainhe ad of M or alit y and H appiness Since Thoreau, countless writers have addressed “Nature” as a source of morality. In Walden, Thoreau specifically discusses the alienation and dissatisfaction resulting from globalization and the rise of cities. He described in detail how escape was in Nature and the human integrity that could be found there. He found the source of ethics not in religion or government but the nature both outside and within oneself. Individualism was not a written word in the English language before the translation of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America in 1840 (Claeys, 1986, pp. 81-93). But individualism had already played important roles in Adam Smith’s economics and John Stewart Mill’s utilitarianism. And, early American iconoclasts like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) exemplified individualism. Abroad, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Johann von Goethe (1749-1832) had developed naturalistic autobiographies that located the universe in the individual. These ideas inspired both Thoreau and Transcendentalism (Kuhn, 2009). Thoreau, however, would define his own unique individualism that placed absolute authority in the individual’s conscience. For Thoreau, individuals were capable of a possessing conscience that governments and corporations could not; further, for Thoreau, it was the individual who effects change and reform. The 1840s saw the waning of the Romantic Movement in England, succeeded by Transcendentalism, which ushered in an “American Renaissance”

73

74

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

in literature and philosophy.5 Transcendentalism formed in New England as an extension of Romanticism but with an emphasis that one could “transcend” the Cartesian dualism between mind and body, subject and object, spirit and nature that had been problematic in Western philosophy and science to that time. Whereas the Romantics stressed mystery and awe in a sublime nature which often defied explanation, Transcendentalists rather believed in an achievable union of these dualities from which to draw their principles. Still, Thoreau did not latch onto ideologies, and he advanced Transcendentalism in his own, unique direction out of the contrast between the Romantics and the understanding of “science” as they knew it then. While Transcendentalism rejected purely objective and rational observation, it nevertheless reflected a set of principles induced from philosophy and science. Unlike the Romantics, Transcendentalists found science a useful tool to answer the biggest questions in Western philosophy regarding whether man had the ability to discover and interpret the laws of God and nature. To their detriment, the Romantics had largely shunned the methods of Enlightenment thinkers in their poetic retreat into nature. In contrast, Thoreau found the sciences to be of great importance. The Romantics viewed nature primarily as an object of awe, inspiration, and mystery. Human beings according to Transcendentalism were not separated from nature, but part of nature (Emerson, 1836a), and Thoreau held them both in equal esteem. Thoreau believed that “to the extent a culture, or an individual, lost contact with wilderness it became weak and dull” (Nash, 1974, p. 88). This ethic of resistance would be a part of ecology for the next 150 years, in part because of Thoreau. For one to have an effect at the societal level, the individual must be creative and nonconformist. Thoreau originally entitled the article “Resistance to Civil Government,” and intended it as a verbal counterpoint to William Paley’s (17431805) book Natural Theology published in 1802, and specifically a chapter called “Duty of Submission to Civil Government.” Thoreau openly criticized Paley in the 1830s and 1840s. Such ideas helped to form the tenets of the Transcendentalism movement that Thoreau developed into a revolutionary new eco-/ anthro-worldview. Thoreau argued against Paley’s premise that “so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency [sic], it shall be called the will of God,” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1850/2012, p. 79), stating 5 | See Mumford’s (1926) The Golden Day: A Study in American Experience and Culture. New York: Boni and Liveright; F. O. Mathiessen’s (1941) American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Oxford University Press; and D. S. Reynolds 1998 Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. New York: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

that Paley had reduced morality to one merely of convenience and expense. “Heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers,” Thoreau said on the other hand “necessarily resist [government] for the most part.” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1850/2012, p. 78). Only the individual possessed the conscience required to make changes to society. He wrote that the masses as a whole were “as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.” (Thoreau & Cramer, 1850/2012, p. 78). Thoreau wrote: There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet do nothing to put an end to them; who esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say they know not what to do, and do nothing.

Thoreau saw social problems as both normative and practical, both national and local. In “Civil Disobedience,” he directly protests slavery and the Mexican War. Since both were actions legally conducted by the American government, Thoreau saw it as his duty to distance himself from slavery and wars by withholding his local Concord poll tax, an act that spawned “Civil Disobedience.” When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public tranquility, the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it. (Thoreau & Cramer, 1850/2012, p. 87)

Thoreau believed all American citizens were complicit with slavery and war by participating in the system economically, despite the fact that most Northerners felt superior to the inhabitants of the South and West, who defended their institutions and further conquests with economic rationale. William Paley’s theories in Natural Theology (1802) (like those of Agassiz) are representative of Platonic and Linnaean ideals of nature in Thoreau’s time, which described a static world where the natural world functions as a limitless cornucopia to human beings through human reason and divine providence (Worster, 1977). For Romantics, the opposite was true, and the natural world presented a mystical and subjective world open for the viewer to interpret with passion and emotion. While both the North and the South in America benefitted from the economics of slavery, Thoreau claimed Northerners lived in denial: I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of

75

76

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. (Thoreau, & Cramer, 1839/2012, p. 84)

Government corruption and collusion with corporate interests, though not usually well-documented, may pose the biggest obstacle to achieving sustainability. Wherever there are failed states and war-torn areas today, it seems, one can find a corrupt government willing to sacrifice the good of the general populace in order to line the pockets of a ruling few. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that never before has the world been so tightly interconnected, interdependent, and vulnerable to socio-economic and socio-environmental collapse. While there are dozens of examples in of national collapse in the modern era due to corruption, greed, and brutality of a handful of leaders, in places like Syria, Iraq, the Sudan, Egypt, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela; and going further back, Russia, Central America and Southeast Asia, we seem to have gleaned few lessons. In these places, it is often the case that “big finance,” “big energy,” and the leaders’ personal bank accounts seem to be one, unified thing. Helping to support them, in most cases, American companies working overseas are under no obligation to enforce minimal environmental and working regulations. Over the last 70 years, democracy in America has stunted the abilities of government and corporations to corrupt the nation en masse in local, state, and federal government; but over the years, the ties have grown stronger and stronger, and we now face a situation with corporate leaders now firmly seated in the highest positions of the executive and legislative branches. So far, our current president has sought to slip the deregulation high finance and big energy into almost all his policies, and is under suspicion of colluding with arguably the richest man—and most corrupt country—in the world, according to a 2015 United Nations report. In addition, our president seems to actively undermine the ability of congressional and intelligence community attempts to investigate the relationship. Though it might not always make us feel better Thoreau argued over 150 years ago in Walden that we should expect virtually nothing good to come from government or corporations. Corporations by nature are self-absorbed entities concerned with gaining maximizing financial profit, and capitalizing on any possible “externality,” or “side effect or consequence of an industrial or commercial activity that affects other parties without this being reflected in the cost of the goods or services involved” (Oxford, 2017). Nations thrive on growing their every growing GDP, tightly tied to the success of corporations. Today, Thoreau’s passive resistance of not participating in the corrupt system—and publicly dissenting against it—remains one of the most viable means to alter the direction of a government or corporation. But, it also concerns internal, rather than external influences. Though Thoreau was an individualist,

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

and claimed no personal responsibility for “the working of the machinery of society,” he nevertheless believed an individual should “do something” for society, and he did not support extremism in his time like communism or anarchy (Thoreau, 1850, pp. 90-1). The last paragraph of “Civil Disobedience” expresses Thoreau’s vision for a just and mutually beneficial relationship between the individual and the state: I please myself with imaging a government that will . . . recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived . . . treats the individual with respect as a neighbor; which would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, not embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. (Thoreau, 1850, p 97)

Thoreau instead had great faith in a single person with real character. Voting for people, who vote for other people with vague ideals of how to protect the health and well-being of the Earth—whose fate with which America is hopelessly and inextricably intertwined—is not the same as acting on behalf of concrete values. Thoreau believed in actively protesting injustice, instead of  voting for a candidate who was, say, opposed to slavery, while at the same time daily reinforcing and benefiting from it. This is why he claimed to go to jail for not paying property tax. “Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already,” Thoreau said, giving the individual complete autonomy while issuing a call for non-conformity (Thoreau, 1850, pp. 84). Thoreau suggested a single person could bend the entire government to his will—as a handful of entrepreneurs in the West were currently doing, as Thoreau thought, in the Mexican War. As stated earlier in this chapter, for Thoreau, individuals were capable of possessing a conscience that governments and corporations could not, and it is the individual who effects change and reform. While he criticized local and federal governments in America as stagnant, and society as compromised and depressed, the responsibility for change resided with “the masses,” i.e., the mass of individuals, who had failed to instill their institutions with conscience: “in their sacrifices to humanity, [most people] ran no risks, not even to their property” (Thoreau, 1850, pp. 92). Thoreau did take risks: his simple act of refusing to pay his taxes landed him in jail, an act that separated him from, as well as captured the attention of, society in Concord and beyond. Throughout Walden, Thoreau’s transcendentalism, as well as his transdisciplinary nature, underlie his deepest concepts, values, and principles including that of passive resistance. This is why he addresses a range of topics including economics, individualism, conservation, forest management, ethics, religion, literature, botany, and geology. In his first article, “Natural History,” Thoreau (1842) expresses himself with metaphor in many cases where the scientific term

77

78

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

had not yet been conceived (Walls, 1995). Throughout his work, he describes nature and society in complementary terms but framed with great concern, as when society gravitates away from its connections to the natural world—which he considered to be the balm for hostility and tension found in everyday society. Thoreau’s morality, science, and overall aesthetic ultimately lay between the logic of reason and the ecstasy of the poet, requiring him to develop his own ideas through philosophy and ethics in order to express his worldview.

Figure 6: Portrait of Thoreau in the last few years of his life. (Parlow, 1962)

Literary scholar Laura Walls (1995) relates this attribute in Thoreau to his ability to utilize both rational holism, which stemmed from Platonic and Enlightenment principles and could only be comprehended by meditation upon the divine and its complement, empirical holism, “which could only be understood through interconnections” (p. 6). While Thoreau, similarly to the Romantics, largely turned his back on the methods of Enlightenment thinkers in the poetic retreat into nature, he nevertheless was a Christian and on a quest for spirituality. Thoreau believed that a philosopher-scientist-artist could unite object and subject, surpassing the proto-ecological worldview of the Romantics, who

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability

considered nature primarily as an object of awe, inspiration, and mystery; and, further, they rejected the idea of a God that was separate from nature. “[A] fact;” he wrote, “… will one day flower into a truth” (Thoreau, 1893, p. 9), Thoreau wrote in this journal how one could derive ethical and abstract laws from observations in nature. In Walden: or Life in the Woods, he constantly weaved between scientific observation and historical philosophy, knowing that ethics can change the understanding, as easy as a change of facts might drastically alter one’s ethical response: We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. (Thoreau & Cramer, 1854/2012, p. 271)

By living a simple, humble, and ethical life, and actively resisting corruption, one might accomplish something that coalesces into a great act but also changes intangible qualities that allowed one to see clearly, thus changing the day.

C onclusion American exceptionalism, which has its foundation in Enlightenment principles, has interpreted the “New World” or “American West” as qualitatively different than past European civilizations and as the product of God’s providence (Bacevich, 2008; Koh, 2003; Worster, 1977). American exceptionalism consisted of idealistic and non-scientific holistic ideologies that are not grounded in real-world problems and scientific findings from the natural world (McKibben, 2006; Nash, 1974; Pielke, et. al, 2007). Thoreau’s coming of age in Concord, his education in natural philosophy at Harvard, and his professional career as writer, lecturer, biologist, surveyor and factotum occurred in the era of Early American Industrialism and expansion. During this period, Thoreau encountered ideological, religious, and non-scientific views he believed hid the truth and that were both the result of contemporary changes and long-held beliefs. The general worldview would not avail society of general health and wellbeing. By shunning and eradicating the forests, human beings alienated themselves from the very processes of nature; and in eradicating and overlooking forests, they limited the ability of society to probe deeper scientific and ethical knowledge being discovered in his time.

79

80

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Prior to the formation of the field of ecology, Thoreau’s study of natural philosophy helped him see the world in an early interpretation of coupled systems. His ability to combine physical and philosophical knowledge and to exercise both inductive and deductive reasoning as complementary and necessary parts of his reasoning (rather than separating them in a paradigm of Cartesian dualism), allowed him to witness and report on the impact of industrialism onto the environment in its full severity of ecosystem regime change. As a result, he was able to reject both Romanticism and Linnaean ideologies that detracted from the real interdependencies of coupled human-natural systems. Thoreau illustrated how unregulated capitalism had not historically provided health and well-being for people or ecosystems. Moreover, he established the neoclassical economic system has alienated humankind and nature alike; building an economic system by creating an economy which uses less, and is need-based, is more fulfilling than classical and neo-classical economies. Thoreau suggested by changing one’s own daily life, an individual ethic could restore a meaningful existence, even in the face of widespread institutional corruption. By refusing to participate and resisting commonly held notions of progress, one could be liberated. Thoreau’s life corresponded with the end of the Enlightenment, when thinkers who were experts on Science and Philosophy composed comprehensive theories of being. But it was also the end of a time when amateur scientists could contribute their “backyard studies” to the progress of science. As today’s rare natural philosopher, Edward O. Wilson, argues in his book Consilience: The Unity of all Knowledge, Thoreau was among the last of the generation of thinkers. After the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species in 1859 and the death of Thoreau, education became highly specialized and segmented (Klein, 1990). Wilson asserts that the Enlightenment’s complimentary system of physics and meta-physics which, however flawed, retained the sense of a holistic understanding of knowledge and supplied an intellectual arena in which science and ethics reinforced one another. After this, it became appreciably more difficult for naturalists to contribute to anything but biology and ecology: Natural Scientists, chastened by such robust objections to the Enlightenment agenda, mostly abandoned the examination of human mental life, yielding to philosophers and poets another century of free play. In fact, the concession turned out to be a healthy decision for the profession of science, because it steered research away from the pitfalls of metaphysics. Throughout the nineteenth century, knowledge in the physical and biological sciences grew at an exponential rate. At the same time the social sciences—sociology, anthropology, economics, and political theory—newly risen like upstart duchies and earldoms, vied for territory in the space created between the hard sciences and the humanities. The great branches of learning emerged in their present form—nat-

Chapter 2: Thoreau, Early American Industrialism, and Local Sustainability ural sciences, social sciences, and humanities—out of the unified Enlightenment vision generated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (Wilson, 1998, p. 40)

Through Thoreau’s use of systems-thinking, his belief in the power of the individual and the economic logic of having a low impact of the environment can help transform sustainability, directing our thinking toward an enduring relationship between society and culture. Thoreau thought being a servant of our economy and institutions was neither natural nor necessary. Most Americans, then as now—or at least until relatively recently—believed in a benign American government and smart economic policies would contribute to all aspects of their well-being. Thoreau recognized the falsity of a life built on luxury and marshaled by government and corporations over 150 years ago. It would not be until after Thoreau’s death and during a second wave of industrialism in the Progressive Era (1890-1929) and within Aldo Leopold’s lifetime that America became a real competitor on the world stage and would surpass the European countries in its level of industrial and production. The examples of Thoreau—and next Aldo Leopold—both of whom were devout Christians, show how science can work in harmony with religion, art, philosophy, and ethics. While ethical viewpoints seem to produce the most controversy among environmentalists and sustainability theorists, Aldo Leopold’s proto-sustainability theory also overtly dismisses ideological beliefs. Instead of ecocentrism or anthropocentrism, the “God-fearing” Leopold argues for a “non-anthropocentric anthropocentrism” (Callicott, 1999, p. 127)—never even attempting to separate instrumental and intrinsic values, in the realization that we are inevitably only human—which I will discuss in the next chapter.

81

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.  A ldo L eopold, A S and C ount y A lmanac (1949)

During the Progressive Era (1890-1928), America displayed the inherent contradiction of trust busting and pushing for democratic values, yet spawning an efficiency movement that subjected nature, land, rivers, and the soil into higher and higher degrees of efficient consumption. During this time, America’s industrial output began to exceed most European countries and finally surpassing even England. This era also marked the end of the American frontier, where there had been unrestrained development of the land, and leadership in the United States began to form the world’s first national parks designed for public use. When the country first tried to begin to protect large swaths of land in the West, Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), the first Chief Forester of the United States, instituted a utilitarian philosophy of land use that became standard operating procedure in the management of forests, fisheries, and agriculture. Pinchot fostered a “scientific management” or “environmental management” paradigm, which promulgated a legacy of rampant resource extraction. In particular, the placement of agricultural practices within a productivity framework resulted in severe environmental consequences for the America’s Great Plains (Kingsland, 2005) and the ensuing wicked, socio-ecological problems we have today. One of the unintended consequences of the Progressive Era was what became known as the “Dust Bowl” (1934-1940). The nearly decade-long annihilation of an area that spanned eleven states of America’s Great Plains was a phenomenon that in many ways contributed to the Great Depression (1929-1941).

84

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

This destructive and devastating environmental disaster resulted from flawed assumptions about agricultural principles and practices begun a century earlier. Settlers and investors from the American East proposed the hypothesis that farming methods identical to those used in the moist climates of American East with its temperate climates could be replicated throughout the Great Plains and Southwest (i.e., the area that extends up through west Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, eastern New Mexico and Colorado, into Nebraska, Iowa and the Dakotas) with the mere addition of water. In the last chapter, I demonstrated how Thoreau identified and understood the interconnection of human beings and nature better than anyone of his time, but that in many ways, he would be the last of a generation who viewed the sciences and the humanities as a unified entity. Thoreau grounded his naturalist-humanist philosophy and ethics in the natural sciences. Aldo Leopold’s (1887-1948) philosophy instead embraces a more pragmatic and specific approach with respect to human development and the natural sphere. With the much greater base of knowledge in ecology as it first became an academic discipline, Leopold envisioned human and natural interdependencies for the practical enhancement of both in one coupled human-natural system. Like Thoreau, Leopold suggested awareness of “the wild” had the capacity to produce the “new level of consciousness,” and “change in morality” required to become a more aware human being. This more enlightened human being, in turn, would consume less and want to protect nature (Norton, personal communication, 2014). Building on Thoreau’s idea of nature as sacred, but with a refined understanding of ecology and evolution, Leopold more fully elaborated upon the implicit duty of human beings to nature in the form of environmental stewardship—a topic widely discussed over the last fifty years of environmental philosophy. Leopold’s experience as a land owner and community planner; his extensive work in graduate school at the heavily Pinchot-influenced Yale School of Forestry; his leadership in the United States Forest Service (USFS) and other conservation efforts across the Midwest, Great Plains and Southwest; and his experiences as a Professor of Game Management at the University of Wisconsin, all led him to propose the expansion of traditional roles of conservation for both individuals and governments (Minteer, 2006; Norton, 2005). It was after participating in helping various levels of government in solving many regional level problems during his 40-year career that Aldo Leopold wrote A Sand Count Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (1949). During the Progressive Era, the United States as a whole seemed to lack any avowed duty to the environment whatsoever other than fencing off some of it for recreation, according to Leopold. As ecological principles slowly began to be recognized in the form of scientific management—and especially “environmental management” university programs—only the biologists hidden away in

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

departments amidst a growing movement of ecological studies seemed to understand the full impact of human beings on the land as society “progressed.” Few could grasp the immensity of the field of ecology, as it set out to discover and document the plethora of species and interactions in nature. When groundbreaking ecologists like Frederic Clements (1874-1945) did begin to discern the principles of ecology, they were generally ignored by governments and methodically abused by industries seeking to make the land more productive. And, throughout the Progressive Era, Great Plains farmers received continual pressure and incentives to create more agricultural output with less soil and water. In this chapter, I will examine the causes and conditions of the Dust Bowl as a result of compartmentalized thinking that did not adhere to holistic and ecological principles. This disaster resulted in the temporary destruction of a socio-ecological region of the United States with resulting far-reaching economic repercussions. Leopold's lessons learned during this period helped him to develop a normative sustainability theory that outlined a pathway for social integrity via ecological integrity and resilience. His “land ethic” also linked theory and practice as well as united the Three Branches. As I discussed in Chapter 1, academic scholarship has linked Leopold’s principles to sustainability, and in this chapter, the most pertinent discussions of recent Leopold scholars and environmental philosophers (e.g., Callicott, Meine, Minteer, and Norton). Leopold’s philosophy wove Biblical values with Peter D. Ouspensky’s (1886-1947) abstract theories on ecosystems and the universe, melding the idea of the world as a living thing through the Christian idea of God and the Earth being “indivisible” (p. 95). Ouspensky’s definition of the Earth as a living being, portent of James Lovelock’s (1979; 2005) Gaia Theory, described the Earth as a single, self-regulating organism. Like these other important ecological thinkers, Leopold (1949), often highlighted the relatively short time that man has been on Earth in the face of geological time, placing human beings more directly in the space of temporary leasers of a land (Callicott, 2014). In agreement with a number of environmental historians (DuPisani, 2006; Radkau, 2008; Worster, 1985; 1994), I continue my discussion on Western, idealistic, Christian, mercantile, capitalist, and expansionist worldviews that have historically promoted environmentally destructive behavior and continue to exploit ecosystems and human beings alike (Cronon, 2003; Merchant, 2007; Nash, 1973; Worster, 1977). I examine how Leopold’s ethic of interdependency found in A Sand County Almanac (1949) expressed his awareness of the inherited ecological constraints of von Carlowitz-type forestry. Environmental philosophers Ben Minteer (2006) and Bryan Norton (2005) maintain that A Sand County Almanac (1949) was Leopold’s method to ameliorate theoretical polarizations between conservationists and preservationists. Further, he founded

85

86

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

his goals on new breakthrough principles in ecology and geared almost entirely toward preservation and restoration of what was just then being defined as “ecosystem.”

“S ustainable Y ield” and R egional C oll apse in the G re at D epression In the last chapter, I discussed colonialism’s destruction of the environment in the formation of the Americas and how Carolus Linnaeus and Adam Smith helped legitimatize the “new factory society” (Worster, 1977, p. 53). Indeed, in America we have often defined ourselves by our rugged individualism and the fierce competitiveness that emerged from a collective pioneer spirit with the mission and intent to tame the savage land (Nash, 1974; Turner, 1894). Military metaphors, such as “conquer,” “subdue,” and “enemy,” also commonly described land-clearing objectives and terminology (Nash, 1974, p. 27). Environmental history scholarship over the last century, however, has revealed the stark reality of this ideal; it highlights that an enormous abundance of once bountiful natural resources has been damaged or depleted beyond immediate repair. Ideals of dominion (i.e., sovereignty, control) (Oxford, 2017), providential mindset, hierarchical thinking, and theories of continuous economic growth accompanied a Linnaean framework of nature (Worster, 1977, p. 24), promoting the strict Christian eighteenth-century view of the Earth as a “well-oiled machine” (Worster, 1977, p. 39). This worldview continued well into the twentieth century. As discussed in Chapter 1, two of the most influential “sustainability” thinkers contributed to this long-standing legacy: Carl von Carlowitz and Gifford Pinchot. Many historians have revered them as sustainability thinkers, but these writers have failed to demonstrate how their concepts, values, and principles led to unsustainable systems in America. In Chapter 1, I briefly traced the direct influence Carl von Carlowitz (an accountant who first coined the noun form of sustainability for the management of forests) had on Gifford Pinchot. Here I discuss the latter further, as Pinchot becomes the premier shaper of sustainability in America in the twentieth century. During the Gilded Age (1860-1890) and between the death of Thoreau and the birth of Leopold, the country had leap-frogged ahead of the rest of the world becoming the largest industrializer, augmented by Westward expansion and the help of the first transcontinental railroad. Yet, the country failed to provide adequate living services for the huge influx of immigrants arriving for the relatively high global wages during that time. As money poured into large corporations of building, railroads, steel, iron, the extraction of natural resources (like trees, fish, cattle, corn, coal, cotton,

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

oil, animal hides, and many other materials) escalated; this built the wealth of emerging cities and states around the country, while also feeding more industrialism and trade. Thomas Edison (1847-1931) and others also made America a leader in technological applications, lighting up New York City with the financial backing of J. P. Morgan (1837-1913) in the 1890s. During this era, moguls such as the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies, and corporations like Standard Oil, established vast empires of wealth before the advent of antitrust legislation passed during the Progressive Era. At the outset of the Progressive Era, one of the most famous American historians of the time, Frederick Jackson Turner (1894), expounded on the cultural concept of the “end” of the American West and elimination of a frontier in newspapers, books, and journals. The generally interpreted “taming of the American West” had become one of the age’s defining characteristics. The progressive idea of “improving” natural areas with the addition of “society” was central to such thinking. During the Progressive Era, the national park system was established, laying aside almost half of the land of the West—albeit land that was entirely un-farmable of the West—for the disposal of the federal government. Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the USFS, brought the word “sustainable” into widespread use in America during Theodore Roosevelt’s (1858-1919) presidency. Roosevelt was an amateur naturalist, who, similarly to the thinkers described in this book, was among the first environmentalists in America. Roosevelt had remarkable ornithological skills and an earnest interest in the long-term conservation of wild places but fancied naturalists as an adventurers, explorers, and conquerors. Gifford Pinchot introduced European management principles to America in the form of “sustained yield” and “wise use.” He learned these concepts while studying forestry in Europe. He based on the Colbert’s (and other European) forestry management approaches and the von Carlowitzian tradition. Pinchot, a wealthy American aristocrat, would establish not only the bulk of the national park system framework in America but also the first school of forestry at Yale University, which continues to be one of the major forces in forestry in the United States. During his tenure, Pinchot’s department began using the term “sustainable yield” as a guiding objective in the long-term commercial management of American forests. The goal involved ensuring largest harvests without degrading long-term productivity. In 1905, he published “The Use of the National Forest Reserves,” a manual dedicated to applying the neoclassical concept of supply and demand to forest management, delineating how to apply economic and managerial concepts to immense tracts of wild forested ecosystems.

87

88

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Figure 7: Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, California, in 1903. John Muir was a friend of President Roosevelt’s but when it came to the management of our national forests, Roosevelt eventually sided with Pinchot in an effort to increase the wealth of the nation. (Library of Congress, 1903)

For this reason, his anthropocentric, or human-centered and instrumental perspective, is often contrasted with the naturalist John Muir (1838-1914), who advocated that preservation of natural resources be defined in non-anthropocentric, or nature-centered, terms. In other words, the environment should be valued intrinsically and for its own sake (Minteer, 2006). Despite anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric differences being primarily ideological terms in environmental discourse, they have resulted in disparate, real-world outcomes. Muir did not ascribe to the belief that Pinchot’s concept of maximum sustained yield was sufficient to protect the ecological integrity of wildlife. Muir, understood the workings of machines almost as well as the interdependencies of ecology. He knew that if the government had enforced more democratic property rights and mandated a much simpler preservationist platform, they would have greatly reduced the future, uncompensated environmental effects of production and consumption associated with the agricultural, logging, mineral resource extraction, and salmon fishery booms in the West (Worster, 2008). Muir’s advice was not heeded, and the maximum sustained yield approach predominated, resulting in today’s significantly lower productivity (Duffin, 2007; Hirt, 1994; Lichatowitz, 2009). Roosevelt’s decided to side against Muir to use national forests, as Pinchot suggested, for increasing the wealth of the

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

country. This resulted in an outcome that forever separated preservationists from conservationists: the decision to flood the entire Hetch Hetchy Valley in California to create a giant reservoir for the growing metropolitan area of San Francisco in 1914 (Oravec, 1984). At least in part because of Pinchot’s influence, since the very seeds American forestry, the USFS goal became to “establish a system of publicly owned forests to be managed by scientific experts” for “providing a sustained yield” (Hirt, 1994, p. xix). This vision of conservation, which arbitrarily set values of sustainable yield, has promoted the long-term constrained homogenization of many ecosystems all around the world as many countries began to mimic this approach by the U.S. National Park system. Meanwhile the mass production and consumption philosophy of another efficiency movement in the 1920s—Fordism—made national parks much more accessible for the many new car owners, and the building of roads allowed industry to access to all areas of parks. While Pinchot did have naturalist sensibilities, basing some of his philosophy on George Perkins Marsh’s (1801-1881) Man and Nature: The Earth as Modified by Human Action (1864)—who depicted with sobering caution of humankind had become a geologic force during the Civil War (Kingsland, p. 8-9)1 —Pinchot instead promoted a progressive and economic growth-based model for the management of America’s forests, rivers, and farms. The Dust Bowl illustrated how farmers and institutions failed to follow the findings of modern ecological theory discovered during the Progressive Era, especially that which set limits on agricultural production (Kingsland, 2005). As mentioned in the last chapter, individual farmers and ranchers had been given 4,000-acre parcels in the original federal Homestead Act (1862). In the aggregate, they transformed the land through enormous cattle drives that destroyed many endemic plants and animals, eroded nutrient-rich topsoil, and disturbed riverbeds whose flow was already greatly diminished due to expanding settlements (Worster, 1979). In 1909, Congress had passed the “Enlarged Homestead Act” that granted settlers 320 acres of “dryland farming” and brought thousands of “sod-buster” settlers to the main area from 1910-1930, whose practices would irrevocably alter the biotic community of the West. Vast irrigation networks eventually diverted the flows of the West’s major rivers. Only a handful of independent farmers, however, were successful on these dryland farms in the long run (Worster, 1979). 1 | Marsh had written something completely different: in 1864 Marsh wrote of American civilizations in their environmental and social decline, and argued that the “nomadic” people of America could mirror ancient civilizations if they were not careful. Marsh was one of the first to see humankind as a “geologic force.”

89

90

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Although many university disciplines had identified science-based, sustainable, land management practices, they were not implemented in regional agricultural policies and practices (Kingsland, 2005; Worster, 1977). From the outset, many western resources were framed solely within the context of the wealth they could provide a homesteader or the government. Later, within emerging “environmental management” programs in universities, Pinchot-style, “scientific management” for national commodities was regularly applied “not only to forests but to other ‘useful’ components of the landscape: river systems, agricultural soils, rangelands, sport and commercial fisheries, and scenic areas . . . as new laws, policies, and bureaucracies were created to promote sustained yields . . .” (Meine, 2004; Worster, 1979, p. 20). “Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes,” writes the great American novelist John Steinbeck, illustrating the pervasive presence of dust in his Grapes of Wrath (1939, p. 3). The novel opens by portraying farmers staring numbly at a wasteland of dying crops. As the farming families looked fearfully to their leaders, believing if they and the community could remain “whole,” there was still hope in their own work ethic, and that later the federal government would come to the rescue. But day after day, thousands of tons of topsoil flew into the air and as huge gusts of wind carried the miasma all the way from the Southern Great Plains to the Atlantic, completely displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their livelihoods and homes. To compound Dust Bowl problems, “progressive farming” accelerated after the 1929 U.S. stock market crash. This drove machinery-intensive farming practices to increase national wheat production from 112 to 375 million bushels in the three years from 1929-1932 alone (Worster, 1979), which led to the widespread, nearly hegemonic practice of mono-agriculture farming. This would, in time, cause the soil and land to wholly lose its resiliency. This “progressive farming” following the stock market crash drove mono-culture, and machinery-intensive farming practices to increase national production would irrevocably alter the biotic community of the West (Worster, 1979). This helped to further entrench the philosophy of the USFS and the Department of Agriculture as one of economic expansion. Increasingly, intensified farming methods would greatly shape Leopold’s thoughts (as expressed in A Sand County Almanac) on governmental institutions and farmers who failed to learn from the Dust Bowl. Since Pinchot’s era, private interests have increasingly applied a multitude of pressures on the government that has fundamentally altered ecosystems for the worse, diverting the USFS further from its more “idealistic” roots (Hirt, 1994, p. xix). When thoroughly reviewed, European efficiency-based practices also failed to account for biodiversity and soil loss and the constrained homogenization of most of

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

Germany’s forests into spruce and pine stands. This has presented a considerable challenge for forest sustainability in the twentieth century, as Leopold would discover first-hand, and it remains a problem today. Traditional forestry approaches have subverted much of the progress in the field of ecology (Meine, 1988). After visiting Germany for the first time in 1936, Leopold began to question American forestry principles, with the singular focus on increasing the “output” of forests (Meine, 2004, p. 36). In Germany, Leopold saw first-hand the impact of intensive forest management that he considered “as disastrous for wildlife as it had been for forests” (Meine, 1988, p. 354). During the Depression, under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (18821945), these same natural resources became a means to bail out mistakes in the U.S. stock market. In large measure, the New Deal (1933-8), designed to relieve farmers, managed to make things worse environmentally. While group projects (like the Civilian Conservation Corps, Soil Erosion Service, and Tennessee Valley Authority) provided thousands of Americans with employment, by Leopold’s standards, these efforts were not well executed. With haphazardly planted trees in a “stampede of public ownership” (Meine, 1988, p. 320) and as the federal government began to take over what Leopold thought was the responsibility of the individual land owner, Leopold commented on the passing off of local, state, and regional responsibility to the federal government: “It is easy to side step the issue of getting lumberman to practice forestry, or the farmer to crop game or conserve soil, and to pass these functions onto government. But it won’t work” (Meine, 1988, p. 320). The U.S. “Sustained Yield Management Act” (1944), based on precedents set by Pinchot, which would result in significantly depleting forests and riverine systems by the end of the 1950s (Hirt, 1994), and ultimately resulted from the employment of German tree-farm practices greatly discouraged Leopold. Instead, he argued in favor of (as well as exemplified normative sustainability over weak economic and efficiency-based models) centering such management policies and practices in ecological science and social and ecological integrity. Leopold’s philosophy, based in sound concepts, values and principles of the emerging field of ecology, which he taught at the University of Wisconsin, had little to do with “trading-off” in the way the current sustainability paradigm suggests. As economists continued to ratchet-up yields scientific management, Leopold saw advances in environmental management as mired in efficiency and short-term payoffs. After the World War II—when environmental regulation was at a standstill—the USFS would resume a scientific management paradigm in agriculture and forests, but on a greatly accelerated level (Hirt, 1994; Meine, 1988; 2004).

91

92

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

F ounding the D iscipline of E cology Although biologist and naturalist Ernest Haeckel (1834-1919) coined the term “ecology” in 1860 as a description of the struggle Darwin portrayed, Laura Kingsland argues in her book The Evolution of American Ecology that the field of ecology was American born in the 1890s in the natural history museums in New York and Boston. By the time Leopold began what he thought would be a career in the USFS in 1909, even popular literature in biology, nature writing, and ecology presented ideas scarcely dreamed of by those in Thoreau’s time. For instance, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) revealed how humans had descended over eons from primates through the process of natural selection; as a result, philosophers, as well as all kinds of thinkers, questioned the established order of God, humankind, and nature in the universe. Evolution threw some new kinks into the field as species were now to be considered dynamic. It would not be until the Great Depression that Alfred Tansley (1881-1966) coined the term “ecosystem” in 1935, an essential concept for understanding ecology today, and one that certainly gained Leopold’s attention. During the Progressive Era, ecologists still struggled to define the parameters of ecology. If the scope of study included the natural history of the environment that would be one thing; but, if it were to include human beings—and their increasingly apparent impact on the environment—then that would be another and considerably larger field of study. In its formative stage as a field, ecology experienced a split between two types of ecologists. One group of ecologists at the center of ecological studies thought humans as part of ecology and were having a growing effect on it. The other group held that ecology would remain a “pure” biological field of plants and animals. Many thought the field of ecology as a collection of the Earth’s environmental phenomena presented a more than adequate basis with which to work. Along with the human insertion into the fields of natural history and ecology, came an “experimental” side of ecological studies with the intent to manipulate them for utilitarian purposes. Their perspective held that in understanding the natural environment, they could predict it; and, to predict it was to control it—a vision of the Enlightenment not yet realized (Kingsland, 2005). Daniel MacDougal (1865-1958), for instance, set out to make ecology a formal science by experimenting on vast areas like the Salton Sea and compelling region-sized mutations in the Desert Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. Like many others, this research facility tried to keep its growing patronage happy with an interest in economic expansion and development. This special site eventually began to produce the leading magazine Ecology, still one of the most respected journals in the field today. Environmental historian Sharon Kingsland (2005) argues, however, that this research facility also abetted the forming of a long-standing “spilt between experimental and field science” (p. 125).

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

Many ecologists preferred to keep the field more “observational” rather than experimental, asserting the need to take a humbler approach to natural history. Those ecologists found themselves in direct conflict with captains of industry and the general expansion of the American economy to make all of its resources profitable. As a university professor, Leopold kept current on many of the evolving publications. A number of monographs from outstanding naturalists influenced his understanding of scientific contextualism and his initial interest to focus on ecology as a holistic field. Leopold thought the field of ecology must necessarily include the ecology of human civilization as a subset. The publication of Our Vanishing Wildlife: Its Extermination and Preservation (1913) by William T. Hornaday (1854-1937) had a profound effect upon Leopold, inspiring him early in life to work to preserve his hunting and ornithological haunts from boyhood. The Russian ecologist P.D. Ouspensky’s (1878-1947) In Search of the Miraculous (1923) influenced Leopold’s thinking by revealing the “interdependent function of the elements” in nature and a vision of relationships between the inhabitants of the natural world that well exceeded their past characterization in ecology (Meine, 2004, p. 214). Next, the leading ecologist Fredric Clements (1877-1971) went so far as to describe ecosystems as “complex organisms,” as well as in terms of delicate and almost infinite number of interactions and functions of biotic and abiotic life —the concept that eventually comes to define ecology as a science (Kingsland, 2005, p. 148). The change in the ecological paradigm brought about by Frederic Clements and other leading ecologists contributed to the shifting away from a hierarchical view of species to a view of species’ interactions within ecosystems as a web that did not imbue preference to human beings (Kingsland, 2005). For instance, it was found that what were considered minor species often actually had cascading effects on ecological regimes and interdependencies that frequently determined the health and longevity of an ecosystem’s regime (Worster, 1977; 1985). Clements’ research in particular steered Leopold in defining the relationships between human beings and nature, as ecological systems failed to reach what Clements called a “climax state” or full integration of species that achieved a certain level of stability. The facts demonstrated the output of regional agricultural systems—although desperately reaching to attain previous yields in the century—was growing less and less, which often motivated ecologists like Clements and Leopold in their research. Clements had begun by debunking the myth and the actual belief being taught at universities at the time that planting vegetation would cause rainfall in “Rain follows the plow” idealism (Kingsland, 2005, p. 143). He did eventually discover in the succession of plant-life, a “climax state,” (or most mature and developed stage of an ecosystem) was determined by climate. Like Leopold,

93

94

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Clements also had a philosophical side though that easily understood human mismanagement, usually as the result poor ethics, had the straightforward effect of ecological destruction. It also resulted in a new climax state with greatly reduced biological diversity. Many leading ecologists therefore began to view Progressive Era efficiency as theoretically incompatible with the functioning of ecosystems. With the establishment and institutionalization of natural history museums and exploration of America’s western territories, America became known as a leader in ecological studies (Kingsland, 2005). Kingsland (2005) concurs with Worster (1977; 1985) that America’s rise to world leadership in the field of ecology enabled the field itself to develop, and it also led to massive exploitation of the land. Leopold recognized this exploitation early on. Likewise, the naturalist Muir, in opposition to national efficiency-management schemes, advocated a clearly defined bio-centric view toward the rights of nature, and originally supported federal control of the many remaining firstgrowth forests and last remaining primeval places in the United States (Minteer, 2006). Experiencing pristine wilderness when first arriving in California, John Muir (1838-1914) wrote, “Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe" (Muir, 1911, p. 11), a thought Leopold would often echo. One of the first people to write about the Central Valley of California, Muir dedicated a large portion of his life to documenting its biological diversity. Muir (2015) also traveled as far as Alaska, giving him a well-rounded perspective: When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty. (p. 5)

While a poet, a proto-ecologist, and early environmentalist who appealed to people’s spiritual and aesthetic considerations in the press, Muir also documented many species before they were extirpated by urban development, agriculture, and hydrological projects (Worster, 2008). Muir also offered an early and sustained public critique of the US government’s policy of permanently destroying ecosystems to increase the wealth of the nation as became standard practice in the large federal tracts of the western United States. In the Mountains of California (1894), he wrote, “[i]f the importance of the forests were even vaguely understood, even from an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government,” initially placing the responsibility on government (p. 140). But Muir later found although private interests and governments would espouse good intentions to arrive at a perfect system of sustainably harvesting resources, big business under a permissive government repeatedly annihilated

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

successive pristine wilderness ecosystems in America (Worster, 1977; 2008). Muir thought the reason for the destructive power of industrialism was the absence of regulation, and with the right type regulations, and proper management under the USFS, the sale of natural resources within national parks could be used for the benefit of the forests, not industry. Muir pleaded with President Roosevelt on several occasions to support his view over Pinchot’s—especially with regard to the grazing of sheep on the public domain. Roosevelt chose to side with Pinchot, whom he had named Chief Forester. With the damming of Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, Muir lamented not resisting the Pinchot-style notion of utilitarianism earlier as well as the idea that government management schemes would be able to preserve the wild environment more deliberately (Worster, 2008). As an accomplished forester, Leopold worked during the Progressive Era in the wildest part of the country seeing firsthand the concept of interdependency. As he worked with many branches and divisions of the national forest management system, as well as side-by-side with local farmers, he gained the ability to understand the wide range of human-natural relationships that could either help or harm ecosystem integrity. Leopold’s historically simplistic concept of the ethical evolution emerges out of his understanding of ecological interdependency, but it is a value system Leopold was also determined to place within the context of Western and Christian traditions. Among the wave of progress in the field of ecology in the 1930s and 1940s, especially with regard to climax states, equilibrium, and what Leopold (1935) called “ecological integrity,” he seemed to realize a dashed hope that ecology would not be the basis for uniting all disciplines: One of the anomalies of modern ecology is that it is the creation of two groups, each of which seems barely aware of the existence of each other. The one studies the human community almost as if it were a separate entity, calling its findings sociology, economics, and history. The other studies the plant and animal community [and] comfortably relegates the hodge-podge of politics to “the liberal arts.” The inevitable fusion of these two lines of thought will, perhaps, constitute the outstanding advance of the present century. (Meine & Knight, 2006, p. 272)

Ultimately, the “scientific management” promulgated by Pinchot would dictate US conservation policy. In an age where forestry, fisheries, and agriculture became increasingly mechanized, and ecosystems were becoming obviously over-taxed, Leopold promoted combining science and ethics in our education for land and community health; and as I will reveal shortly, he asserted a normative sustainability-based paradigm where ethics were indispensable (Norton, 2005). This great social and ecological thinker has helped introduce new interdisciplinary fields linking the three branches (the natural sciences, social sci-

95

96

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ences, and humanities); theory and practice; and academia to the community to provide a strong foundation for transdisciplinary education. Leopold also demonstrated environmental ethics—like the sustainability paradigm—have not yet developed in a manner congruent with the complexity of socio-ecological system (SES) problems (Walker et al., 2004).

The N atur al S ciences : L and R esiliency In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold presented a greatly simplified view of the sustainable relationship between humans and the environment. More than any of the eco-humanists of this book, he tried to consolidate the values of ecology, economics, soil science, and environmental ethics into real-life policies. But the theories expounded on in A Sand County Almanac have endured, and it is those I will explore most deeply. Similarly to Thoreau, Leopold developed his understanding of ecology, largely based on the science of forest succession and the progress of naturalists in their effort to define a mature ecosystem (Meine, 1988). As a practitioner of ecology and a well-respected academic at the University of Wisconsin, Leopold expanded upon—as well as challenged—many of the principles he learned from the Yale School of Forestry. Leopold also mastered an understanding of local and regional conservation issues, serving in leadership roles on many boards, committees, and councils designed specially to protect wildlife and agricultural soils and employ proto-sustainability principles. Like his views on ethics, his views on ecological health have greatly simplified the concepts for those without a foundation in in the field. Unlike almost any of his predecessors, Leopold demonstrates what we would today call a transdisciplinary approach as it applies to sustainability; or as Norton (2005) puts it: “the full range of values as projected into the indefinite future” (Norton, 2005, p. 339). Although Leopold initially espoused Gifford Pinchot’s vision of intensive scientific management, his later views embraced simplicity and the preservation of the wilderness (Callicott, 1988; Minteer, 2006). Pinchot, much to the chagrin of Muir, had embraced Progressive Era efficiency methods for the US forests and fought for the preservation of nature for spiritual and aesthetic purposes. As efficiency methods became applied to agriculture in his home region of the Midwest, Leopold saw first-hand the depletion of soils laid down over millions of years. Like Thoreau, Leopold fully seemed to understand the value and importance of the local farmer: “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm,” he said. “One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace” (Leopold, 1949, p.

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

86). Farmers not only comprised an integral part of society, they possessed a rare wisdom that was being lost along with their land. When the Dust Bowl struck the Great Plains, Leopold knew (similarly to Muir and most naturalists thirty years before) that there could be a convergence of three key, negative environmental issues—over-farming, the erosion caused by sheep and cattle ranching, and the disturbance of the cycles of natural forest-fire regimes that led to disaster (Meine, 1988). He knew the collapse of the Southern Great Plains resulted, in large part, from carelessness on a national level during the Progressive Era. He also knew this was the cause of the ecological debacle of mechanized farming, which had almost immeasurable costs to the Great Plains region and of which the Dust Bowl was only a symptom (Meine, 1988).

Figure 8: A dust storm looms toward a Kansas neighborhood. (U.S. Public Health Service, 1935)

Scientific advancements in agriculture and new practices like mass chemical fertilization contributed to the collapse of an entire agricultural region of the United States. Likewise, the fragility of biotic communities collided with conservation laws geared toward newly authenticated agricultural and ranching efficiency and the steady increase in the production of yields (Meine, 2004; Worster, 1977; 1985). Monocropping, especially of certain strains of wheat, and the mass production of agricultural equipment designed for efficiency per acre and maximum yields also contributed to the SES problem. These inappropriate practices ultimately resulted in its complete collapse. Previously, sustainable management practices had included the Jeffersonian method of crop rotation, such as rotating legumes and alfalfa with wheat to build a more sustainable humus soil, contour plowing (Meine, 2004) and allowing the rotation of significant-sized patches of land to lie fallow annual-

97

98

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ly (Meine, 1988). But these methods were rarely followed as time transpired and as yields became smaller. Moreover, even the best scientists of the time proved to be largely and overly idealistic (Leopold, 1949). They should have recognized that good scientific management alone would not ensure ecological heath (Meine, 1988). Within the span of just a few years, massive clouds of dirt, silt, and important minerals (that had been laid down over thousands of years of geological history) rose up to 8,000 feet high and filled the sky for hundreds of miles, destroying entire communities across the region. As environmental historian Donald Worster (1979) writes in The Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, the “Dust Bowl” (as it came to be known) signified “the final destruction of the old Jeffersonian ideal of agrarian harmony with nature” (p. 45). Ten million tons of soil eventually dropped on Chicago alone (Worster, 1979). For most of American history, farmers had had a progressive doctrine of reaping ever higher and higher yields—but now “Nature” struck back, eradicating viable agricultural environments and creating over 100,000 socio-ecological refugees. It was not just the Dust Bowl that presented profound environmental disruption. Leopold investigated hundreds of regions across America suffering from lack of ecological science and its applications. “Coon Valley… is one of the thousand farm communities which, through the abuse of its originally rich soil, has not only filled the national dinner pail, but has created the Mississippi flood problem… and the problem of its own future continuity” (Leopold & Callicott, 1935/1991, p. 223). Similarly to the ecologist Paul Sears (1891-1990), Leopold had foreseen the problems resulting from these farming practices would lead to the “Dust Bowl” devastation (Worster, 1975; Meine, 1988). He wrote later in A Sand County Almanac (1949) how, even after the lull in environmental initiatives during WWII, things had still not changed: Many conservation treatments are obviously superficial. Flood-control dams have no relation to the cause of floods. Check dams and terraces do not touch on the cause of erosion. … In general, the trend of the evidence indicates that in land, just as in the human body, the symptoms may lie in one organ and the cause in another. The practices we call conservation are, to a large extent, local alleviations of biotic pain. (p. 274)

Leopold proceeded to describe in A Sand County Almanac a litany of both government and private well-intentioned—but failing—conservation practices. The predominating Pinchot-type practice of intensive management may have provided jobs and wealth, but the promise of maximum productivity kept farmers focused on shortsighted year-to-year profits (Worster, 1979). Working with communities not only in Texas and Albuquerque, but also all 48 states of his lifetime, Leopold saw that sustainable yields in practice were

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

usually arbitrary and not based on good ecological science. Pinchot’s “sustainable” use of national parks for grazing and mining had likewise seemed counterintuitive. Leopold, like Muir, wanted instead to promote the dynamic use of sustainable yields to increase the productive value of American ecological regions overall and develop an understanding of resiliency (Meine, 1988; Walls, 1995). Hopefully it will not take another regional disaster like the “Dust Bowl” for Americans to appreciate the loss of soil, and next time the loss of important aquifers of the Great Plains. But areas in Western China, North Africa and the Middle East have experienced similar phenomena, just in the last twenty years. Industrial agriculture today has virtually eclipsed any hope of the restoration of pastoral life Leopold envisioned. Just prior to Thoreau’s birth at the beginning of the 1800s, nearly 80 per cent of American citizens participated in agricultural production in some way. Now, that number is under 2.5 percent. Farming in the Great Plains may soon become a thing of the past (Pulsipher, Pulsipher, & Hapke, 2005). Farm-based communities are drying up rapidly as young people move to often distant cities in search of work. Although farms and the meatpacking industry in the 1960s and 1970s used to provide a good salary, immigrant workers, who work for minimum wages and few benefits, now perform most of the work. These immigrant workers, often come from depleted and war-torn areas for these jobs, and do not integrate well socially without sufficient pay to support a family. Nearly all of the original prairie wildlife of the Great Plains has been destroyed, many endemic species surviving, ironically, in patches only next to railroads. Since the Great Plains experience more extreme weather than most places—and more tornados than anywhere in the world —erosion is still very high, up to 20 times faster than it can naturally rebound. Since the early settlers, farmers have relied on aquifers, but are finding they have to dig deeper and deeper to obtain water supplies that can take hundred to tens of thousands of years to recharge. The Ogallala Aquifer, one of the biggest in the world and one the people of the Great Plains have relied on since their arrival, is becoming dangerously low and water is still being pulled at a rate much greater than its recharge rate. These wicked problems have cascading effects throughout the entire region. As a myriad of environmental pressures increase (e.g., the need for ethanol and corn syrup products, a growing global middle class and surging exports to developing countries), the demand for more products from the Great Plains does not show any sign of slowing. Presently, no specific policies exist to protect the land and maintain its resilience in the face of untold storms and droughts to come. Other regional problems today stem from the fact that we often do not ascribe value to ecosystems or create protective environmental policy until after

99

100

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

important socio-ecological systems (SES) are destroyed. The combination of the BP Oil spill and Hurricane Katrina ultimately devastated socio-economic as well as environmental systems along the Gulf Coast. Maintaining ecosystems also avails the goal of more social options; the destruction of ecosystems limits them. Ask the common voter in post-Katrina New Orleans or post-Sandy New Jersey today, for instance, if a candidate’s stance on economic or environmental vulnerability (resiliency’s flip-side) will affect their ballot. Schooling for Americans on developing resilient coasts has unfortunately comes from Hurricanes themselves. Hurricane Harvey devastated portions of the state of Texas in the United States in August of 2017. Up to one hundred thousand people were displaced by the Category 3 hurricane, over one hundred people died, and its flood waters distributed toxic waste throughout the city of Houston. The total cost of estimated clean-up is now estimated at $180 billion. As a result of relentless expansion this mega-city, with over ten million people in the metropolitan area, it was incapacitated for nearly a week. Just two weeks later Hurricane Irma, a record-setting Category 5 storm, blasted its way up Florida peninsula. Then, in just two weeks Hurricane Maria—another Category 5 hurricane—hit Puerto Rico with ferocity resulting in the almost total destruction of roads, electrical grid and lines, ships, airports and harbors impeded aid causing a humanitarian crisis. Being that federal emergency management teams still aided families in New Orleans over a decade after Hurricane Katrina, we cannot yet estimate the full cost of these events, nor the potential cost of future events as global climate change promises to increase the frequency, intensity, and ocean temperatures that lead to increased moisture being delivered mainland resulting in ever more destructive weather events occurring with unprecedented frequency. Though little has been done so far to establish resiliency planning (Pijawka, 2015), the new educational field of resilience, a key element of normative sustainability, often includes restoring old methods that allowed areas to be sustainable for hundreds of years. Although Leopold never addressed coastal resiliency, concepts like crop diversification, allowing land to lie fallow, and providing shelter for game in every corner of one’s property for the sake of biological diversity were all concepts Leopold often advocated throughout his career. They embody resilience and are what we would call “built-in redundancies” today for times when such management is not possible. They allow socio-ecological systems to handle shocks and blows, and then to recover, unlike what happens with many efficiency-based measures. Increasingly, interconnected and complex systems, which have not been sustainably framed and planned, despite more efficient networks, crumble when shocks occur (Walker & Salt, 2006).

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

Leopold, like Thoreau, surely would have suggested moving away from industrial farming and toward restoring private farming, as well as efforts to restore a vital, replenished soil, to America. Leopold’s vision of resilience is simple and derives from old, useful practices based on a long-term ethic of geological time (Callicott & Freyfogle, 1999). He rarely wrote without intertwining human and ecological needs, like in his (1935) pastoral—albeit largely anthropocentric—point of view, switching back and forth between ecological health and instrumental goals of human harmony with the land: When the Cows which make the butter were first turned out upon the hills which comprise the scenery, everything was all right, because there were more hills than cows, and because the soil still retained the humus which the wilderness vegetation through the centuries had built up. The trout streams ran clear, deep, narrow, and full. They seldom overflowed. This is the proven fact that the first settlers stacked their hay on the creek banks, a procedure now quite unthinkable. The deep loam of even the steepest fields and pastures showed never a gully, being able to take on any rain as it came, and turn it upward into the crops, or download into perennial springs. It was a land to please everyone, be he empire-builder or a poet. (Leopold, Callicott & Freyfogle, 1935/1999, p. 49)

Leopold views the foundation of sustainability in the restoration of old ways and methods and in the return to a more natural, balanced, and harmonious relationship with the land applies to both agriculture and forestry. While both Thoreau and Leopold have elements of a traditional pastoral or “Arcadian” (Worster, 1977) view of sustainability, I believe that this is not purely romantic but rooted firmly in proto-ecological principles regarding both the science and the ethics of land health. In A Sand County Almanac (1949), Leopold built foundational principles on ecology and the life sciences: the maintenance of resilience (including ecosystem options) and involvement with the natural community as well as with the social community. Prior to the terms of adaptive management and ecosystem, Leopold developed a theory of interconnectivity that took all the lessons of ecology and applied them to the policy science and regional planning. Leopold believed contemporary ecological science education was split between two different philosophies, one that stressed ecological integrity and one designed to reap maximum efficiency of a resource without taking into consideration longterm trends of twenty, one hundred, and even more years. I obviously see him as contributing to the former philosophy. Further, he established his philosophy within in the full range of the field of ecology at that time. Taking ecological science education very seriously, Leopold contended wildlife education, land education, and social philosophy comprised all one in the same (Leopold & Callicott, 1991/1949, p. 193). Norton (2005) at times is also very straightforward, asserting the core of Leopold’s teaching is built on

101

102

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

his own research in policy science and environmental ethics—two transdisciplinary topics at the intersection of human beings and the environment. I am more inclined to agree with environmental historian Curt Meine (2004), however, who points out that Leopold was surprised ecology had taken the course it had, personally refusing to accept “the natural sciences and the liberal arts—as separate entities” (p. 67). The bifurcated view of human beings and the land as separate eventually robbed the soil of all microbial life, in effect, killing the land across eleven states—an outcome that seemed unimaginable to most everyone who lived through it. Given current environmental problems today, Leopold, alongside John Muir, would have been profoundly skeptical of any sustainability framework that reinforced the status quo and did little to encourage the protection of the land through well-considered environmental, and what we would now call “biodiversity,” initiatives. “The destruction of soil is the most fundamental kind of economic loss which the human race can suffer” (Leopold, Meine & Knight, 2006, p. 76).  Leopold would have rallied around a sustainability theory that advocated we should prepare for current and emerging socio-ecological challenges. Leopold asserted it did not matter how much we knew about the ecological science if we did not fully account for the behavior and impact of humankind—which also need a close study, for ecological science to have any value at all.

The S ocial S ciences : P reserving and R estoring W ild P l aces Leopold’s vision of agricultural resilience extended to the management of national parks. Theodore Roosevelt (1903) had framed forests primarily as a means to increase national wealth. The theory presented in Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949), however, resisted all such trade-offs between economic and environmental values that makes up the foundation of the current sustainability paradigm. Leopold had begun his career with an environmental philosophy more in line with the utilitarian cost accounting inspired in Pinchot (see Chapter 2) and geared toward “equilibrium.” Equilibrium was not nearly as complex as Clements’s “climax state,” however.2 Ecologists like Leopold and Clements started to understand that ecosystems often transformed into to new regimes with very different elements and attributes than the original ecosystem. As time went on and 2 | This concept would not be elaborated upon until C. S. Holling in the 1970s. The ecologists Eugene Odum and William Barrett (2005) would later describe the full maturity of an ecosystem as a “fluctuating steady-state.”

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

Leopold realized ecosystems were being changed fundamentally from the results of evolution over millions of years—and for the sake of profits—his ideas evolved. As time went on, Leopold saw the simplicity of an American economic system in his era as inadequate to fuel the type of complex and viable environmental reform he knew was necessary (Goodwin, 2008). Leopold often mentioned this myopia and arrogance of private and public landholders who would not uphold land health at the sacrifice of short-term profits: Thus far we have considered the problem of conservation of land purely as an economic issue. A false front of exclusively economic determinism is so habitual to Americans in discussing public questions that one must speak in the language of compound interest to get a hearing. (Leopold, Callicott & Flader, 1923/1991, p. 94; Meine, 1988, p. 188)

Early on, Leopold questioned American forestry principles focused on increasing the “output” of forests (Meine, 2004, p. 36). The above passage represents Leopold’s realization that European and Pinchot-type conservation approaches subverted much of the positive work in the field of ecology (Meine, 1988). In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold denounced many of these “conservationist” views still being taught at the Pinchot School of Forestry at Yale, as well as the progressive morals of both Roosevelt administrations (Meine, 1988). Unlike many ecologists at the time who focused on bending nature to its will, Leopold would see New Deal policies, although designed to benefit people and the environment, as a path to abet environmental destruction. He thought it intruded on wilderness for the sake of utilitarian values and threatened (what would be later named) biodiversity (Meine, 2004). Even as early as Game Management (1933), Leopold encouraged farm owners to manage their properties in ways that contributed to the greater good of the region. The intention entailed using the most primitive wildlife scenarios possible and ones in which everyone could participate in the stewarding of the land. National parks by then had protected and preserved some places for hunters—with the exception of predators—which even Leopold still thought should be removed from national parks to protect people at the time. While hunters have traditionally been among the most knowledgeable—as well as the biggest advocates—of biological diversity, they have often been willing to sacrifice predators such as wolves for increased game. Leopold later realized the extirpation of wolves and other predators was a violation of ecological integrity, and one that produced a drastically different forest. Yet, in A Sand County Almanac, he did not encourage protecting wolves for the sake of ecological integrity but instead portrays a spiritual experience he claimed to have as a young boy:

103

104

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then and have known ever since that there was something new to me in those eyes, something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. (Leopold, 1949, p. 179)

In the now-famous A Sand County Almanac essay entitled, “Thinking Like a Mountain,” Leopold recanted this idea, turning his support toward restoration and preservationist initiatives geared at true ecological integrity. Leopold establishes roots for the relationship between humans and the environment in a long-term sustainability ethic (Clark, 2012), where only geological time has the wisdom to see the scale of the long-term and witness the damage caused by damaging or annihilating parts of the whole ecosystem. Leopold captures his principles on ecology, economics, science, and ethics in the following journal entry: The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering (Leopold, 1991, p. 76).

He applied this concept throughout A Sand County Almanac, proposing an answer to the complex SES problems caused by “progress” and “the economist” as a change in worldview and the adoption of a new ethical stance of stewardship (Leopold, 1949; Clark, 2012, p. 82). As environmental historian William Cronon (1992) and others have written, there was a virtual war on natural predators at the turn of the century that rivaled, or surpassed, the subsequent war on insects in Rachel Carson’s time. Many have interpreted Leopold’s largest life-lesson romantically and as the result of looking into a dying wolf’s eyes depicted in his “Thinking Like a Mountain” (1949). I believe his trip to Germany in 1935 brought him face-toface with the long-term, diminished results of Pinchot-style and European-forestry management practices. It is at this point Leopold develops his mature view of ecological integrity we see in A Sand County Almanac. “I do not imply that this philosophy of land was always clear to me. It is rather the end result of a life journey” (Callicott, 1987, p. 282).  We can understand the metaphor “Thinking Like a Mountain” as representing long-term socio-ecological health and wellbeing achieved by respecting the biological integrity of ecosystems. The metaphor of seeing the “green fire” in the dying eyes of a wolf was something that he observed but did not fully

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

understand until much later after witnessing the lack of biological diversity in German forests. After returning, Leopold wrote in 1936 that while the Germans had succeeded in managing their forests to produce maximum and short-term economic yields, they had failed—miserably, in Leopold’s view—to attend to the diverse forest ecosystem as a whole. When seeing the aftermath of these “sustainable” forestry practices for the first time, he described these habitats as “slick” and “clean”—in other words, very poor representations of robust ecological health (Leopold, 1936; Callicott & Freyfogle, 1999, p. 23). Upon his return to America, Leopold questioned the sustainable conservation practices that Pinchot had adopted, raising issues with the term sustainable and recanting many of the ideas prevalent in Game Management (1933), especially regarding predators such as wolves. The extirpation of most of the endemic wolves in America, and severe loss of ecological integrity in what Leopold had considered to be the showcase of contemporary European forestry methods, changed his views on forestry management completely. After this time, he did not compromise but leaned far more toward Muir’s preservationist camp, by then a minority in federal management services (Meine, 2004). This is the way Leopold, in fact, is generally viewed as a preservationist like Muir (Callicott & Freyfogle, 2012). Leopold realized in Europe that the term “sustainable” in Pinchot’s definition reflected not a robust ecosystem, but one that was a shadow of its former self, greatly diminished in biodiversity and wanting of the highly variable fruits of millions of years of natural selection. “As the ‘inexhaustible’ pineries [of the Northeast] were, in due course, exhausted” during Leopold’s lifetime (Meine, 2004, p. 15), he must have seen history of “sustainability” repeating itself from von Carlowitz to Pinchot, as he had seen for himself same results in Germany (Grober 2012). Since the Progressive Era and the Great Depression, private interests have increasingly put a multitude of pressures on the government that has fundamentally altered ecosystems for the worse and driven the USFS further from its more “idealistic” roots (Hirt, 1994, p. xix). “We yearn for more deer and more pine . . . do we know that to get them, as the Germans have, at the expense of their wild environment and their wild enemies, is to get very little indeed?” he wrote after he returned from Germany (Leopold, 1936, p. 102). Clearly, this experience, (rather than the dramatization of a youthful hunting experience many years before) influenced the writing of “Thinking Like a Mountain,” an essay he wrote shortly after his trip. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, American forestry has been a world leader in setting aside space for National Parks and managing them for recreation. But even the most pristine American spaces are but shadows of their former selves. Today, in places like the Everglades, Adirondacks, and the Rocky Mountains, hunters and developers have permanently altered

105

106

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

them through the extirpation and extinction of keystone species. Invasive species (although not nearly as vast as in the twenty-first century) have also contributed to the greatly homogenized ecosystems to a fraction of their original species and populations. In the Everglades, for example, most mammals are at about 10 percent their original populations, due to robust, predatory or expansive species of snakes, rats, and crocodiles—just to name a few—that have moved into the sanctuary from South America and Africa. But the real threat to the National Parks comes from those who wish to expand their “productivity.” On 26 April 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rollback protection of 27 of the largest monuments in the United States. Since most of the land in the West as federally owned, when past presidents (like President Obama) tried to permanently protect some of them—like 1.3 million acres of southern Utah the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, Trump called it a “massive federal land grab.” The largest, Sapahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawai’i—the state that claims title of the most extinctions—designated as a monument by George W. Bush, is also in jeopardy. The Natural Resource Defense Council (2017) has responded: Never mind that the president’s statement betrays his profound misunderstanding of what a national monument even is. All the lands in question were federal lands before their designations, meaning that they were already owned by “the people.” Returning them to Americans isn’t what Trump’s ordered review is about, anyway. It’s actually about opening up these areas to mining, logging, and drilling interests—either by greatly reducing the amount of land under protection or by doing away with the national monument designation altogether—and trying to pass the decision off as principled rather than greedy. (p. 1)

The management of Yellowstone, however, has become an example of forest management best practices for the whole world. Despite having some problems with killing homeowner pets and cattle—and stiff competition for harvesting resources—the reintroduction of wolves has restored the ecosystem much closer to its original steady-state. Because of the intricacies of the food web, the reintroduction and protection of timber wolves has restored plant-life that were being destroyed by deer and other species whose populations had grown to ten or more times beyond their populations after its “scientific management.” Leopold’s “Thinking like a Mountain” in A Sand County Almanac (1949) represented a scientific understanding of an ecosystem as much as it does one of respect for what we do not yet understand. Further, it reflects on his former immaturity as an ecologist. In it, he denounced the many trade-offs between preservationist and conservationist worldviews, which he had espoused when

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

he wrote in the past that predators should often be extirpated as a threat to ecological integrity. Because of Leopold’s long view on the history of conservation, A Sand County Almanac (1949) focused primarily on the benefits of often unexpressed ecological values for society. Was Leopold truly arguing for the compromise between social and environmental needs, as Norton and today’s sustainability paradigm suggest? As literary scholar and eco-critic Timothy Clark (2012) argues regarding Carson and Leopold, [I]n order to be heard at all, campaigners must speak in terms accepted within existing structures of governance and economics, the very things they may consider ultimately responsible for environmental degradation in the first place. This is a recognised [sic.] syndrome in environmental politics: radical environmentalism in theory often turns into merely reform environmentalism in practice. (p. 77)

One reason scholars most often cite his most significant “sustainability” trait as his ability to help different (and often divergent) groups achieve compromise. His had extensive active participation in community and regional government and planning. Thus, many scholars have expounded on Leopold as someone who could trade-off between anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric values. Yet, both Thoreau and Leopold’s ideas are anthropocentrically grounded only so far as they can accomplish their non-anthropocentric goals Leopold (1949) writes in A Sand County Almanac: The mouse is a sober citizen who know that grass grows in order for mice to store it as underground haystacks, and that snow falls in order that mice may build subways from stack to stack: supply, demand, and transport all neatly organized. To the mouse, snow means freedom from want and fear. (p. 4)

Like Thoreau and the other naturalists, in A Sand County Almanac, it is clearly Leopold the poet—and not the scientist—who had the strongest environmental rhetoric. Unlike the others (except for Wilson however), Leopold oscillates between the psychology of both humans and non-humans to produce an equally amusing arrogance in mice whose future plans are dashed by a fluctuating ecosystem. The mouse’s energy budget and the “moonshine economy” in A Sand County Almanac express the fundamental relationship between ecology and economy—that of supply and demand. What is particularly important is his solidification of the connection between the welfare of the human and natural economy. He describes a system of energy exchanges in the ecosystem and an economy that is in harmony with evolutionary and ecological principles. At the same, time he expresses respect

107

108

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

for (what most people consider) vermin, as members of his fellow community, recalling White and Thoreau. On many instances in A Sand County Almanac, as well as in community and university meetings, Leopold (1949) used virulent language (Meine, personal communication, 2013; Norton, 1999). Irritated at the general misunderstanding of the relationship of humans with nature and their embeddedness in a larger ecosystem, he states, “mechanized man, oblivious of floras, is proud of his progress in cleaning up of the landscape on which, willy-nilly, he must live out his days” (p. 50). An oft-repeated theme in A Sand County Almanac, he refers to the stress on ecosystems due to the destruction of biodiversity and the subsequent consequences to society.

The H umanities : A S ustainabilit y E thic The historian Lynn White (1967) would later argue something with which Leopold might possibly not have agreed but definitely to which he would have responded. White said that the Bible “has inherent tendencies toward environmental exploitation” (Minteer, 2011, p. 40). The spread of industrialism and more efficient machines throughout the first half of the twentieth century made the disruptions to ecological harmony much more apparent than in Thoreau’s time. Norton has maintained that Leopold’s worldview is essentially anthropocentric and that Leopold developed his sustainability framework around ecosystem’s instrumental values for human beings. Norton has publicly debated J. Baird Callicott, an eco-centrist and one who asserts Leopold’s worldview is non-anthropocentric. While Minteer (2003) and Norton (2006) have theorized Leopold as uniting with preservationists and conservationists (Minteer, 2003; Norton, 2006), Leopold exhibits a lack of confidence in conservation practices and asserts a predominantly restorationist and preservationist agenda when his theory in A Sand County Almanac is further considered, despite having preferred “conservationist” theories and practices early in his career. However, Leopold (1949) often interpreted, as well as critiqued Christian ethics, devoting preference to the stewardship of what he considered to be the sacred creation of God. Leopold chastised those who construed vague or superficial environmental ethics from the Bible: Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability us to reap from it the aesthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture. (p. viii)

Leopold attacked typical exceptionalism that he detected in contemporary conservation ideals securely fastened to the value of continuous economic growth. He framed the human evolutionary trend and notions of progress as counter to an ethical obligation to protect the land. Leopold described humankind’s ethical dilemma in A Sand County Almanac: The complexity of co-operative mechanisms has increased with population density, and the efficiency of tools. It was simpler, for example, to define the anti-social uses of sticks and stones in the days of mastodons than of bullets and billboards in the age of motors. (Leopold, 1949, p. 238)

While some people at least began to understand the dynamism and complexity of the environment, how could one know with certainty what is good or bad for it? Leopold saw our ecosystems—and our own wellbeing—in perpetual jeopardy from lack of stewardship, and having witnessed the loss of healthy ecosystems on a much greater scale than Thoreau, often criticized it as poor the conservation movement of his era (Callicott et al., 2011). In response, he specifically developed a preservationist and restorationist ethic that incorporated Christian philosophy, with strong influences of Darwin and contemporary ecology. The environmental philosopher Baird Callicott (1993) has argued Leopold fundamentally based his ethic on the synthesis of evolutionary biology and the teachings of the Bible, as Leopold seemed to demonstrate a deeper understanding in both than most. Instead of using the Bible, as many American statesmen have, to defend reckless mining, drilling and fracking techniques, Leopold employed the values of the Bible to help counter ideologies of dominance and arrogance. Today, The Brundtland Report and follow-up United Nations literature suggest sustainability ethics should play a large role in sustainability theory and practices. Yet, its contribution has yet to be delineated in any practical or policy-relevant sense; in other words, it only seems to include ecological values in the most superficial sense. Most American citizens have not fully considered humankind’s ethical obligation to nature in its creation of land-use policies. Today, we still often expect government departments and private owners to turn land into a source for food or fuel, a fact of which Leopold was acutely aware (Worster, 1979). In addition, Aldo Leopold scholar and ecologist Curt Meine (2014) and other sustainability scholars concur, “Ethicists haven’t said much about sustainability.” Meine (personal communication, 2014) said that despite sustainability discourse being replete with inter- and intra-generational ethical decisions central to the stated

109

110

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

mission of the Brundtland Report, the long tradition of environmental ethics does not contribute to most sustainability decision-making. Minteer (2011) likewise argues that although most environmental ethicists have mined the American environmental tradition ontologically, “a candid appraisal of environmental ethics based solely on its public policy and management impact would likely conclude that it was something of a failure” (p. 1). The lack of engagement by environmental ethicists in real-world sustainability problems likely results from environmental ethicists’ philosophical and intensely disciplinary-specific methodology (Minteer 2011), which demonstrates the need for natural philosopher and generalists who can interpret difficult ecological principles and translate them into ethical policies, like Leopold dedicated his life to doing.

Figure 9: Aldo Leopold Sits on the Rimrock above the Rio Grande. Leopold was an avid hunter, his original motivation for preserving biological diversity. (U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1938)

It should be noted now that there are many churches that work to raise money for the environment in the United States. Alongside other non-profit groups, they also provide monitoring and reporting. Contemporary ecologists such as William Rudy also evoke the New Testament’s references to “responsibility” toward the land, which included a deep, inherent sense of responsibility in the governorship of the Earth. He specifically evoked the passage “let nothing be wasted” (Bible, 2002, John 6:12). Instead of being polarizing, Rudy sees religion as a uniting force, “spiritual ideas can be less complicated . . . Mormons believe that everything is living.” For instance, a “traditional Mormon village was one of communal practices,” Rudy (2014, personal communication) said.

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

Historian Donald Worster (1985), however, paints a picture of exploitation from these same practices, relating their ideas back to ancient ideas of building a “hydrological empire” based on exploitation of the land (p. 24). Some Mormon voices today favor America’s disbanding of Utah’s national monuments for gas, oil, and coal. Ecologists like E. O. Wilson, Lester Brown, and others have argued that both ethics and economics require a paradigm shift commensurate with SES problems like global climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising consumption rates. That this problem is rarely addressed has become an inherent part of sustainability education and discourse. As the naturalist Edward O. Wilson writes today, oblivious the fact that the concept of carrying capacity may be the single most important and overlooked concept in the history of human civilization, the twenty-first century is still buried beneath religious dogma: “I have found it hard to believe that our deepest beliefs were set in stone by agricultural societies of the eastern Mediterranean nearly two thousand years ago” (p. 6). He writes in Consilience (1998): Among the most virulent of all such cultural parasite-equivalents is the religion-based denial of organic evolution. About one-half of Americans (46 percent in 2013) most of whom are Evangelical Christians, together with a comparable fraction of Muslims worldwide, believe that no such process has ever occurred . . .. Evolution is a fundamental process of the Universe, not just in living organisms but also at every level. (p. 183-4)

Like Thoreau, Leopold also had a wide background and devoted much of his life to living a profoundly intimate relationship with a dynamic Earth (Meine, 1988). But, while Thoreau and Leopold both viewed nature as providing the necessary experience of self-actualization required to internalize an ethic, Leopold more clearly articulated the moral duties to the environment once an individual, or a culture, reached a higher level of consciousness through the very knowledge provided by ecological science. He derived these duties largely out of respect for the field of ecological science, calling it “the outstanding scientific discovery of their twentieth century” (Leopold, 1947, p. 190), therefore integrating it with Christian teachings and reinterpreting the ethics of the Bible into one of stewardship. Leopold believed if we could better understand nature, we would see it as a valuable resource and testing-ground for human ethics within the much larger value system of ecosystem. “An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence” (Leopold, 1949, p. 238). As human systems grew ever more complex, however, the environmental ethic also became harder to decipher. Leopold developed this philosophy early on in his career in “Fundamentals of Conservation of the Southwest” (1923), quoting the Bible’s book “Ezekiel,”

111

112

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson Ezekiel seems to scorn waste, pollution, and the unnecessary damage of something unworthy—as something damaging not only to the reputation of the waster, but to the self-respect of the craft and the society of which he is a member . . . It is possible that Ezekiel respected the soil, not only as a craftsman respects his material, but as a moral being respects a living thing. (p. 133)

I assert in reaction to such views such as the idea of God’s Providence as containing the worldview that one’s country and people do not need to conform to nature’s rules, norms, or standards (Koh, 2003). Aldo Leopold challenged the notion that our economic and security needs are significantly more important than our—or “the land’s”—health and wellbeing, and he helped overturn persisting hierarchical views of the Enlightenment paradigm of God over Man, and Man over nature. As stated in the last chapter, Thoreau’s transcendentalism more closely resembled the providence of Spinoza’s, who “declares that God and nature are one in the same thing,” and who subsequently reinterpreted providence as the duty of humans to be the “guardians” of nature (Grober, 2012, pp. 53-5). Leopold similarly revered nature as a source of personal and community knowledge and spirituality while remaining overtly Christian (Norton, 2003). Leopold did not compromise between anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric worldviews as Minteer (2006) and Norton (2003) purport, but instead he synthesized the principles of non-anthropocentrism and anthropocentrism. For example, in Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (1949) and other works on conservation, he proposed a theory of restoration and preservation of the landscape that refuted the compromise between Muir’s preservationist and Pinchot’s conservationist views. In sum, Leopold did not trade-off between economic and environmental values, but instead created a sustainability ethic that favored restoring and preserving biodiversity as most beneficial to humans and nature alike. Leopold did not only rely on the Bible, but pulled from an interdisciplinary set of knowledge and employing Greek myth, for example. Leopold begins his famous essay, “The Land Ethic,” by explaining how in the time of Odysseus, slave girls were considered property and could be hung for being disobedient to their master. Since then, we have come to abhor such clear violations of human rights. Leopold argues that a similar ethical evolution may be “described in ecological as well as in philosophical terms” (p. 202), extending to the rights of the people—and here the rights of women—to the land itself: Politics and economics are advanced symbioses in which the original free-for-all competition has been replaced in part by co-operative mechanisms with ethical content … Yet there is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus’ slave-girls, is still

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability property. The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations. (p. 201)

According to Curt Meine (1988), the leading national authority on Aldo Leopold, “the word ‘land’ itself says a lot. Leopold probably picked it because it was something simple to understand and something bipartisan that everyone could get behind” (Meine, personal communication, 2014). In the “The Conservation Ethic,” where Leopold (1933, October) wrote: If our present evolutionary impetus is an upward one, it is ecologically probable that ethics will eventually be extended to land. The present conservation movement may constitute the beginnings of such an extension. If and when it takes place, it may radically modify what now appear as insuperable economic obstacles to better land-use. (p. 634)

Leopold’s hope was for an ethic to evolve on its own within our collective consciousness as we began to understand the land better. But, again, this hope seemed to dissipate by the time he published A Sand County Almanac, where the word “conservation” was dropped for the most part, except to be critical of the conservation efforts as he observed during his lifetime. To me, this stands as further evidence he no longer wanted to be associated with the term. Leopold, with the benefit of the knowledge gained through many breakthroughs in ecological science subsequent to Thoreau’s era (including the theory of natural selection), produced an ethic reinterpreting the Christian worldview of nature as typified by Linnaeus into a comprehensive and contemporary human/nature ethic, coupled system worldview. Although decidedly working within American institutions, Leopold went much further than Thoreau in challenging the lingering remnants of Enlightenment principles. He replaced the hierarchy of man over nature with an ethic of interconnectivity, of which humans constituted but one of many pieces. He replaced the idea of God’s providence and the Enlightenment’s cornucopian view, with a value of humankind’s duty to stewardship. He replaced scientific management based on “increasing the wealth of the nation” with practices based on socio-ecological health and integrity. Further, he replaced abstract ideologies, with clear and measurable ecological functions. This approach culminated in America’s first real sustainability ethic.

113

114

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

C onclusion As an accomplished forester, Leopold worked during the Progressive Era in wildest part of the country and saw the concept of interdependency firsthand. He worked within many branches and divisions of the national forest management system, as well as side-by-side with local farmers, giving him the ability to be aware of and to understand the wide range of human-natural relationships that could either help or harm ecosystem integrity. But, it is out of his understanding of ecological interdependency that Leopold’s historically simplistic concept of the ethical evolution emerges, and it is a value system Leopold determined to place within the context of both scientific and Christian traditions. Leopold’s views do not compromise ecological and social integrity with trade-offs but see them as one in the same. Leopold, who had a much more advanced understanding of biology, ecology, geology, and environmental management than Thoreau, had an even more developed, albeit simpler, holistic view. Leopold’s worldview reinterpreted inherited ideals of dominion and provided an authoritative voice for preservation and restoration in the United States. European efficiency- and productivity-based forest sustainability tradition directly influenced Gifford Pinchot, who studied in Europe, and as stated earlier, brought scientific forestry to America at the turn of the twentieth century (Grober, 2012). Pinchot’s ideas would be further applied to rivers, prairies, and oceans in the United States. Pinchot’s legacy, in turn, would guide the concept of sustainability until it least the Post-WWII era, when the contemporary sustainable development discourse began as a discourse predominantly based on national economic development. A paradigm that emphasizes trading-off is inadequate to preserve the ecosystems of the world. The UN’s Brundtland Report (1987) has promised a “new era of economic growth” for all (WCED, 1987, p. xiii) that both developed and developing countries initially embraced, since they did not have to tighten their belts. They have encouraged economic growth as the central premise for both development and environmental issues. Based on the old paradigm in which capitalizing on environmental externalities meant more individual profit and more national wealth, we have exploited natural and social capital alike for the development of economic capital. More soil was lost between 1914 and 1934 than in all of human history (McNeill, p.42). It was the “progressive farming” and Pinchot’s principles, which were applied to forests, fisheries, and agriculture alike, that drove mono-culture, machinery-intensive farming practices to increase national production that would irrevocably altered the biotic community of the West (Worster, 1979). Legislators and farmers alike failed to understand the ecology of the Great Plains. The utilization of mono-agriculture produced an agricultural culture that, in time, wholly lost its resiliency. Nutrients set down over millions of

Chapter 3: Leopold, the Progessive Era, and Regional Sustainability

years were quickly depleted by these intensive, widespread farming practices, which were fundamentally ill-suited for the lands on which they were applied. When prolonged drought occurred, vast quantities of dirt were lifted by seasonal winds. The drought and loss of agricultural lands led to widespread poverty and hunger, as well as mass migrations to places more inhabitable. Rather than keep pace with the “bewildering growth of biology” (Wilson, 2006, p. 13), religious dogma and ideologies have often produced a reductionist’s oversimplification of ecological systems to one of supply. Ideals on “dominion” have often encouraged an alarming ignorance toward our position in the universe, obscuring the necessary stewardship of the Earth, and thwarting a fuller understanding of human-nature interdependencies. Kingsland (2005) records that during Leopold’s time, the field of ecology becomes a “niche” among academic disciplines. Synthesizing the science and philosophy of Clements, Ouspesky, the ethics of the Bible, and most importantly, his own experiences as a naturalist, professional forester, university professor, member of local and regional planning commissions, Aldo Leopold formed a comprehensive sustainability worldview. Leopold’s linking of science and ethics for long-term ecological and societal sustainability reversed Platonic and Linnaean worldviews that still persist, presenting obstacles for more ecologically-minded perspectives. This chapter has placed Leopold within the context of ecological and sustainability issues of their eras through a coupled-systems worldview by being rooted in science and ethics for both the benefit of nature and society. While Thoreau lamented the local effects of American Industrialism with the advent of mass agricultural planning, Leopold’s economic critique focused on schemes of agriculture and forest productivity, capitalism and “mechanized man.” Leopold recommended stewardship of both government and landowners on a regional level. Had he not died in 1949, Leopold would have likely been outraged at post-World War II era’s use of Pinchot’s principle of maximum sustainable yield as scientists, industry, and government alike applied it to agriculture, rivers, land management, and National Park management, as industrial research, development and expansion almost invariably took priority in nearly every aspect of human life. In the next chapter, I examine Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) and how, by examining the pollution of such industries, she creates a comprehensive environmental platform that exposes the industrial world’s multi-pronged assault on the environment in nearly every corner of the United States.

115

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself. R achel C arson , S ilent S pring (1962)

What has been termed the “Green Revolution” (1940-90) began during the advent of World War II (WWII) and vastly increased agricultural production over the next 50 years—about ten-fold; but it would also greatly diminish the productivity of most arable land worldwide through monoculture. Government and industry research and development in technologies escalated rapidly during WWII; after the War, it seemed to develop a momentum of its own. During the Department of Agriculture’s in the “Post-War Era” –also known as the Baby-Boom Era (1945-1965)—massive use of the insecticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) would quickly disturb many ecosystems beyond repair, illustrating the entropy (or irreversibility) of converting “natural capital” or real resources to dollars. As industrial agriculture and individuals alike began to spray a plethora of new pesticides, rodenticides, and insecticides indiscriminately, American cities, farms, roadways, forests, prairies, and oceans became universally polluted with synthetic substances. This third wave of industrialism accelerated the extraction of natural resources of timber, fuel, water, and agriculture in America at an unprecedented rate. And, while today we still discuss fusion energy as potentially being “right around the corner,” even the most arrogant of scientists today do not seem to have the blind confidence in progress held by those during the Baby-Boom Era—where prosperity and other factors led to a massive increase in births of people who make up about 30 percent of the U.S population today. As described in the last chapter, the concept of maximum sustainable yield promoted by Pinchot would guide the formation of resource management in America, as ecological principles were continuously appropriated into schemes designed to ratchet up production, and for expansion and development of all

118

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ecosystems (e.g., prairie, desert, and mountainous regions) (Cronon, 2003; Kingsland, 1995; Worster, 1977; 1985). But among historians of ecological science, this era is marked by misinformation as the result of a virtual conspiracy of industrial benevolence, especially in the heavily government-involved sectors of military and agriculture. During this time, another iteration of the environmental polarization developed among many scientists, techno-optimists who sought to harness the power of nature in creation of a new, technological culture not handicapped by inconveniences. The other side of this polarization were environmental-pessimists, who were shocked by the level of global destruction during the past two world wars, and were led by ecologists who could find few places remaining in the United States that had not been disturbed or destroyed by human impact. These arguments often took place in public debate but within the context of a public wholly unaware of these impacts. Rachel Carson (1907-1964) is among the first scientists to criticize this new scientific ethic developing the concepts of polluter-pays principle, as well as the precautionary principle, before the fact. Carson resisted this new collaboration among unrestrained corporate interests, the unfettered use of new technologies, and leaders in government and science to create almost incalculable costs and risks for both nature and society. Unchecked activities in the American economy and military would demand a heightened normative role for scientists, economists, institutions, and consumers alike. Carson would go further than her compatriots, however, educating the people of the United States from all walks of life about the existence of a hegemonic voice in government, industry, and narrow economic-driven sectors that sought unabated environmental change solely to serve the purposes of production. As many others also have, I interpret Carson as the spark of the American environmental movement. When we consider the Love Canal, Environmental Justice, Animal Rights, and Occupy Wall Street movements, all of them seem to spring from the informed boldness with which she set out to write Silent Spring (1962). Having so many people in our lives today who suffer from cancer (one in five Americans would have it in future generations, Carson correctly projected in 1962), many have remembered her courage in the face of accusations from respected scientists—even though she herself was afflicted with the terminal disease. In the acts of researching and writing Silent Spring, Carson stood up to the most powerful forces in America at a time. And as any civil activist well knows, it was almost unheard of during the Baby-Boom Era to point the finger at government and corporate corruption without being labeled as an agitator and a Communist as Carson eventually would be. After spending five years becoming an expert in chemistry, Carson developed a comprehensive theory about how chemicals traversed through an ecosystem, leaving highly detrimental reminders of their presence. Silent Spring

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

would initiate a call for more transparency in government and industry, providing the general public with a clear and scientific critique of unchecked industrialism. Most importantly for sustainability, Carson demonstrated the need to link science and ethics in decision-making. Silent Spring, as well as her greater body of work (including her letters and four other books) presented a new ecological vision for holism, focusing on multi-generational environmental problems and risks. This novel thinking marked a break from some of the earlier naturalist-conservationist writers and a transition to what would soon be called “environmentalist.” At that time, many of the strongest voices in science, government, and industry had neither the knowledge nor the inclination to understand the complexities of the newly understood fundamentals of ecosystems. But just how does a book about bug spray really contribute to a twentieth-first century sustainability paradigm? A better question to ask might be, what did Carson (1962) mean by declaring that science should come out of the “Neanderthal Age of biology and philosophy” as she did in Silent Spring (p. 297)? Carson intended to make a case by providing an ideal example of the Neanderthal thinking she observed, and its attendant harm, in the form of pesticides. She saw pesticides (in their unfettered development and ubiquitous application) as a technology pitted “against the Earth”—and in the United States, she viewed this as resulting from of federal and state policies that encouraged development at any cost (Carson, 1962, p. 297). As a naturalist, Carson knew that the more holistic and systems properties discovered within recent ecological studies needed to be respected by those who impact the environment. Like Aldo Leopold, Carson saw ecological studies as the trans-disciplinary discipline. Carson (1960) writes in “To Understand Biology:”  I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life—past, present, and future. To understand biology is to understand that all life is linked to the earth from which it came; it is to understand that the stream of life, flowing out of the dim past into the uncertain future, is in reality a unified force, though composed of an infinite number and variety of separate lives.

In this chapter, I first highlight the rapidly emerging science and technologies thrust full-force on the American public in the post-WWII Era as well as the advances in ecology that put ecology and technology at odds. Then I examine the introduction of non-point-source pollutants in what Carson preferred to “biocides” as they threatened all life with which they came into contact across America, converging in Carson’s portrayal of “human ecology” in Silent Spring. Focusing on the state of America’s water systems, I examine how a blind faith in technology contributed to the incipient destruction of American ecosystems reflected in enormous environmental externalities, which have generally not

119

120

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

been calculated throughout the economic system. I conclude with Carson’s very early indictment of the crumbling institutional ethics in government, industry, and especially, scientific research in America.

The A cceler ation of S cience and Technology the B aby -B oomer E r a (1945-1965) After WWII, environmental regulations—many of which had been dropped to serve the purpose of the war—were at a standstill as the United States Forest Service (USFS) resumed Pinchot-type and utilitarian stances regarding consuming forest resources but now on a greatly accelerated level (Hirt, 1994; Meine, 1988; 2004). Still following Theodore Roosevelt’s lead from the turn of the twentieth century, Harry Truman stated, “the task of conservation is not to lock up our resources but to develop and improve them” (Truman, March, 1949, p. 1) in what amounted to yet another iteration of American progressivism and exceptionalism. This helped to further entrench the philosophy of the USFS and the Department of Agriculture as one inextricably rooted in economic expansion. As we saw in the last chapter, Leopold, who had witnessed three decades of tepid conservation initiatives, did not express much optimism in A Sand County Almanac (1949) regarding the future of the conservation movement in the United States. While the amount of time between the end of WWII and the publication of Silent Spring in 1962 may seem relatively brief, major changes transpired in America and around the world. In 1945, the United Nations was created to insure nothing like the “Second Great War” ever happened again. More significantly, a new American worldview emerged, one built on the American “success” during WWII, as well as after it with the creation of brand new global markets. Science and engineering had begun producing timesaving conveniences and new attractions like modernized versions of cars, refrigerators, washing machines, and a new coast-to-coast highway system. America pushed manufacturing output at the international level and developed a favorable balance of trade. Technology had accelerated during wartime at a nearly unimaginable rate and fueled a post-war economy. The acceleration of scientific discovery, followed by a dependency on ever-rising levels of technology to meet daily needs during the second half of the century, further compartmentalized sciences. This occurred in education as well as industry, specialization, and university disciplines in science and technology proliferated in response to industry and government needs and enhanced science management techniques. From 1939 to 1969, the budget for scientific research would increase 200 times, greatly increasing from $50 million to $500 million in the space of five years (Egan,

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

2007, p. 25). As I will demonstrate shortly, ecologists often served as an important part of discovering just how severe and widespread the damage to the environment had become. Each successive year, construction, recreation, grazing, and all other instrumental uses of national forests during the decades following WWII—or the “Baby-Boomer Era (1945-1965)”—surpassed the last as far as production and output. United States Forest Service resources competed with Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Department of Defense budgets in 1950, which received 80 percent of the federal budget in 1950. Resource extraction greatly surpassed resource rehabilitation (Hirt, 1994). All federal monies allocated were geared toward the building of roads and extraction of timber lots rather than placing any emphasis on accumulating natural resources. From a policy perspective, such actions treated the environment as a resource with only a past and a present; its future was completely ignored. What we know of today as “the interstate” that connects U.S. highways was created in 1956, as America spawned a car-based lifestyle and culture. In 1939, Americans had four times as many cars on the road as Europeans. By this point, American factories exploded as the manufacturing in two of America’s greatest automotive competitors—Germany and Japan—had been almost entirely decimated during the war. Peace talks with Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill set the terms and boundaries for the post-WWII world. In a secret meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia, Truman met to discuss a new relationship between America (which had spent a third of its reserves during the war) and this oil-rich part of the world. The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highway was created, a system conceived primarily as a defense strategy as it increased the ability to move planes, tanks, and armored personnel across the nation quickly should the need arise. The design intent of the interstate entailed providing a layer of protection from a Russian invasion as well as to launch a new era of economic prosperity. The Eisenhower years (1953-61) inaugurated the first Republican president since Theodore Roosevelt. With many more people able to use the national park system than ever before, ecosystems became fragmented on a much larger scale. The rebellious On the Road culture, based on Jack Kerouac’s (1956) book about crisscrossing the continental States, began, and the culture of back American dirt roads separating cities by in terms of days and weeks (with the help of commercial airlines, of course) disappeared once and for all. While warning of the dangers of the growing military industrial complex came from Eisenhower himself, he had built the infrastructure for a booming economy based in part on the domination of the automotive industry. America touted the ideals of democracy, showcasing the American lifestyle and enabling the world to see how all could live should they choose to live by

121

122

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

democracy’s principles. With economic globalization advancing quickly during the 1950s and 1960s, foreign aid became “an American narrative” (Weiskel, personal communication, 2014). William Rostow (1916-2003) promoted “economic takeoff” based on a development discourse, identifying four stages of growth (traditional, transitional, take off, and drive to maturity) that led to the ultimate goal of “high mass consumption.” As cultural anthropologist Timothy Weiskel states, “. . . the problem was that he didn’t tell anyone where to land. This is precisely the kind of thinking,” he said, “that led to the high and unsustainable energy use we have today” (Weiskel, p.c., 2014). In part, Truman’s shoring up of massive petro-reserves for the indefinite future allowed for the petro-intensive Green Revolution to take place. This act of globalization was dependent not only on oil for the machinery but also for the seeds and chemicals themselves, very petro-intensive in their production. Today’s dominant system of pesti-, herbi-, and insecti-cides working in concert with and the patenting of genetically modified seeds, began during this time. As chemicals were transferred to developing countries, they changed the culture in those places on a more rapid pace than America itself had been changed since early industrialism. (This manifestation of science and technology transpired only shortly following the lessons of the Dust Bowl.) The Green Revolution became an idea based almost entirely on economic and technological growth—and the mastery of the natural sciences, especially by America. Such thinking grew to identify the United States as the breadbasket of the world. Americans, as the recent “conquerors of evil” in Europe (with the implicit ideal that it had also become, in some respects, a “conqueror of nature”), would propel the world toward the notion of a utopian society where all wants and needs are satisfied by the omnipresent flow of technology and economic development. The Green Revolution contributed to the largest scale of growth the world has ever seen—and will likely ever see, since another tripling now (resulting in a world population of 21 million) would far exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth. This could not be foreseen and in 1970 the scientist known as the “father” of the project, Norman Borlaug (1914-2009), won the Nobel Peace Prize. During the post-WWII era, the seeds of the contemporary sustainable development paradigm also emerged. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED, 2014) dates the first contemporary usage of the adjective ‘sustainable’ to the postWWII era to 1953 and 1956, just prior to the new research on socio-ecological systems (SES) by Holling, Rittel, and Webber. The OED (2014) refers to two business articles discussing “resource development” and “economic growth” define it as “capable of being maintained at a certain level,” and firmly establishing the term’s roots in economic theory. Some economists who understood the implications for human society echoed Malthus’s concerns about the world’s rising levels of population and con-

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

sumption. People might soon exhaust the very energy supplies that consisted of (and remain) the main drivers of economic growth. For instance, M. King Hubbert (1903-89), who then worked for Shell Oil, coined the concept of “Peak Oil” and predicted rapidly diminishing reserves after reaching Peak Oil, which was projected to be near the end of the century. New discoveries of oil-rich tar-sands and other remote reserves have presently put this idea on hold (Hubbert, 1956). The concept of “sustained yield,” not unlike “sustainable development” today, became known to signify different things to varied “multiple-interest” groups fighting for their own interests: grazers, miners, energy companies, timber companies, hunters, family recreation, water-use, and in some cases, wildlife areas. All the while, industry produced literature claiming cutting timber benefitted recreation, and making the false claim that it actually improved wildlife populations—despite Leopold and other ecologists having already demonstrated otherwise. Baby Boomer Era scholars often took deep-rooted and theoretical views, which ultimately played out in real-world practices. One view employed a cornucopian and technocratic approach, market- and growth-driven, emphasizing risk and technological innovation but not fundamentally challenging or changing the way major socio-ecological systems operate (Kates & Parris, 2003; Conway, Keniston, & Marx, 1999; van der Hamsvoort & Latacz-Lohmann, 2006). The other view held that business-as-usual systems and practices would one day make the world “uninhabitable” (Dryzek, 2013). A vague United States Congress “Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act” (1960) set up conflicts between stakeholders competing for forest use, while America’s Gross National Product tripled during the Baby-Boomer Era, and America became full of techno-optimists. People like Lewis Strauss (1896-1974), chairman of the US AEC, for example, predicted: “Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter;” Atomic “furnaces” would supply this power in five to fifteen years, he said (Canadian Nuclear Society, 2017, p. 2). After the fighting of WWII, and the dropping of atomic bombs, the enormity of the impact of human beings gained a new (and much more realistic) level of recognition within ecological studies. As more nuclear tests occurred, it became very clear the dangerous fallout would affect all levels of the food chain. From this point on, many leaders in ecology studies would hold the positions that science needed to be monitored, and that physicists, chemists, and biologists, who, depending on motive, could be working at cross-purposes. Nuclear explosions and fallout were not the only environmental problems the post-WWII world presented. Toxic events began to be recognized around the world. Deadly smog episodes  killed thousands in Donora, Pennsylvania (1948), London (1952, 1956), New York (1953), and Los Angeles (1954), demonstrating all this progress and growth would not come without cost to humans.

123

124

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Global warming was also reported on in the first time by the International Geophysical Year projects in 1957. A clear division between techno-optimists versus environmental pessimists developed in response to serious non-point source pollution coming from diffuse sources and transferred by air and water. No matter what technology science produced during the Baby-Boom Era, it seemed to be viewed in a predominantly beneficial light by most people, including many of America’s most important institutions. Technological pioneer Walt Disney (1901-66) helped introduce ideas from science into the home. Pop science thinkers did not concern the dangers of disturbing ecosystems but instead promoted futuristic possibilities such as atomic cars, cities run on a grain of uranium, and vacations to Mars. In 1953 President Eisenhower would propose the “Atoms-for-Peace” Program, an international agency to develop peaceful nuclear technologies. It was not until 1954 that the consequences of nuclear testing became available to the public. In contrast to the common perception of it, when Carson (1962) depicts a post-apocalyptical America, she initiates what environmental literature scholar Lawrence Buell (2009) calls the “Toxic Discourse:” Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, the cattle, and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but also even among children who would be stricken suddenly while at play and die within a few hours. There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. (Carson, 1962, p. 2)

Some have interpreted this passage as the biblical “Fall of Man.” For Rachel Carson, rather ironically, chemical pollutants also constituted a window into the answer of how human and natural systems fit together. Carson’s fourth and final book launched the environmental movement in America and around the world. Silent Spring is still pertinent and relevant to twenty-first century sustainability discourse. In it, she delved into socio-economic dimensions to frame national and multi-generational environmental risks so important for sustainability science today. Silent Spring took a distinctive path by bringing

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

concerns about the pervasiveness of pesticides in daily life into public awareness and discourse. Concerned with the destruction of many of her former research sites through the applications of pesticides (specifically, DDT), Carson challenged vast and almost entirely deregulated industry practices in America with a single, careful, and measured voice.

Tr ansdisciplinary, H uman E cology It becomes apparent to many scientists during this period that capitalism and ecology seemed to present themselves as fundamentally opposing forces. Nobel-prize winning physicist, Albert Einstein, had said the concept of achieving national security through the build-up of nuclear weapons was “a dangerous illusion.” He also said that “radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities” (p. 56). As many have pointed out Carson was not the very first to discuss the seriousness of science and how it affected every living thing; but she may have been one of the first to coalesce and present these ideas in a comprehensible manner. While the earlier understanding of ecology acquired many attributes of its mature and present-day form, ecology had to compete for attention as the natural sciences demonstrably grew into a great number of subdivisions and specialties. Like the U.S. economy, ecology after 1945 would drastically change its appearance. From that point on, the science of ecology would be much more centered on “preservation” than the Pinchot-type, utilitarian “conservation” of the past (Worster, 1977, p. 258). Increasingly, ecologists viewed it their duty to protect the environment from those who wanted to exploit it—in other words, practically everybody else. But this did not mean that those outside of the field of ecology became any more sympathetic to the fragility of America’s ecosystems; in fact, they seemed less so. Malthusian in nature, scientists started to make observations that transcended human systems to demonstrate how the exponentially growing and natural resource-intensive economy was a poor match for the finite ecosphere. The leading ecologist Paul Sears would also be one of the first to point out where the United States fit within long-term cycles of production and consumption. In 1955, Sears made the telling comparison showing that while Americans being “less than a tenth of the world’s population,” we were “consuming more than half of the mineral production” (Worster, 1977 p. 343). The study of ecology had expanded and become much more holistic: cultural history, geography, and anthropology now were included to supplement the natural history and biology of ecological studies. However, at the same time, ecology as a subversive movement evolved, as a critique to the economic sys-

125

126

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

tem or “the system” in general. Holistic thinkers sowed the seeds of coupled human-natural systems and transdisciplinarity, beginning to unite principles from the all the physical sciences now employed in the study of evolutionary ecology, while searching for ways to curb the unrestrained economic aspirations that ignored basic biological and physical facts. Carson took a novel and transdisciplinary approach, marking a break from some of the earlier naturalist-conservationist writers like Leopold. In 1953, brothers Eugene Odum (1913-2002) and Howard Odum (19242002) produced one of the world’s most reproduced and seminal textbooks, Fundamentals of Ecology (subsequent editions contain the definition of transdisciplinary thinking, used in this book—see Chapter 1) which remains among the most influential textbooks in the field for over 60 years. The Odums were quite aware of the concepts of holism and the importance of a holistic energy strategy to fortify ecology as a science; their theories contribute part of the basis of theory for this book. To Fredric Clément’s climax studies, the Odums added a measurable metabolism for ecosystems, based on nutrient cycling. Howard Odum notably would also later publish a book called Environment, Power and Society (1971) that demonstrated how the energy of ecosystems and economies flow in opposite ways and how the current economy could therefore never be harnessed simultaneously to extract, and benefit, ecosystems. The Odums introduced the concept of abiotic cycling and how the biogeochemical units of an ecosystem are not created or destroyed as in thermodynamics but are instead cycled; this latter concept did for ecology what the study of macroeconomics did for economics by interpreting the ecosphere as a whole. Although radioactive materials were, of course, a problem for ecosystems, watching them travel through the energy systems of an ecosystem was “illuminating,” to say the least. Funded by the AEC to investigate the radiation damage in the Bikini Atolls had when the first Hydrogen bomb exploded, the Odums would redefine ecological systems and the flow of biotic and abiotic energy as in terms of systems research in the 1950s. Fundamentals of Ecology supplied a lasting and a comprehensible structure to the web of all life, from genetics to the ecosphere. According to history of ecology expert Sharon Kingsland (2005), the field of ecology changed the most significantly between the publishing of A Sand County Almanac (1949) and Silent Spring (1962) through the work of transdisciplinary thinker Carl Sauer (1889-1975). Sauer in some ways had fulfilled for the first time the visioning of the ecologist Ellsworth Huntington (1876-1947), who founded the Ecological Society of America, and who had always sought to incorporate the human aspects of medicine and health into the Society’s concepts. Like Leopold, the pace of technological advances between the two world wars both fascinated and repelled Sauer. With a spirit of sustainability in mind, Sauer aspired to take the “longest possible view” (Kingsland, 2005, p. 167). When looking at natural history and

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

questions of human impact, he, in fact, insisted on following the historic arc back to the invention of fire in order to understand the long view. Ecological studies had begun to favor mathematics and statistical analysis, while evidencing little regard for natural history. Sauer had tried to revive natural history and mold it into a “real science” grounded strongly in deductive reasoning with testable hypotheses, just as other leaders in the field were trying to move beyond the stigma associated with having their reputations misrepresented as amateurish bird-watchers and bug-collectors. During this time, ecology experienced a revolution itself, part of which felt the duty to resist this status quo as part of being a serious scientist (Worster, 1977). American authors also began to speak out as a result of the hubris displayed by scientists during the Baby-Boom Era. William Vogt’s (1948) Road to Survival showed the growth of population would eventually prohibit future generations from having the same standard of living possessed by earlier generations. Government worker and official Stewart Udall (1920-2010), who brought Leopold’s work into public discussion, wrote The Quiet Crisis (1963), outlining the destructive power of relentless economic growth especially on the soils. Around the same time, the authors of Our Plundered Planet (1948), Science and Survival (1964), and the economist E. F. Schumacher (1911-77) who wrote Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1968), all issued early cries for awareness regarding endangered species, pollutants and pesticides, and humanity’s nearly relentless exploitation of the global environment (Hay, 2002). The urban ecologist and historian Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) also fulfilled ecology’s dictum to include human beings as part of the system and studied the natural history of urbanism. Mumford’s The City in History (1961) provided a deep, culturally- and anthropological-based history of cities from the first civilization to the present. He also studied his front yard plant communities, as Thoreau had. Jane Jacobs in her 1961 Death and Life of American Cities demonstrated how cities are like an ecosystem, and represent “organized complexity” (Kingsland, 2005, p. 264). Other ecologists like James Malin (1893-1979) instead looked away from natural history and to the destructive forces of human beings again, quoting doomsday scenarios, and pessimism that one could return to an “equilibrium” that “never existed” as the answer. Malin “challenged the crude environmental determinism” (Kingsland, 2005, p. 165). Unlike most of today’s ecologists, especially Wilson, Malin argued not to return to the design of older systems but instead to adapt to the Atomic Age (although in many ways, like Mumford, Malin also despised technology). Other than Carson, Barry Commoner may have had the greatest impact on ecology (recognized in 1970 during the first Earth Day as the “father of ecology”). As early as 1947, as a big critic of nuclear technology, Commoner began to bring important scientific debates of high risk out into the open, as well as press the American Association for the Advancement of Science to begin to play

127

128

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

a more ethical role in a wide range of scientific matters that merited such attention (Egan, 2007). Atomic agencies that evolved out of the Manhattan Project actually propelled the progress of the field of ecology by funding many largescale ecological studies, the largest of which was funded by the AEC. Although his perspective would not be similar to Carson’s aesthetic appreciation of nature, Commoner likewise concluded a year later in Science and Survival (1966) that “The age of innocent faith in science and technology may be over” (p. 14). Commoner’s first experience with DDT literally took place in the trenches. Commoner served as part of a team that researched the Allied forces 1942 torpedo bombers with DDT designed to clear a path for soldiers during the Normandy Invasion at the outbreak of WWII (Commoner, 1966). Like Carson, Barry Commoner, although having no formal training in ecology, devoted several pages of his book Science and Survival (1966) to the use of pesticides: “any change on [ecosystems] imposed from some economic benefit has a price. The benefits of powerful insecticides we pay the price of birds and insects” (p. 27).

Figure 10: A U.S. soldier is demonstrating DDT-hand spraying equipment while applying the insecticide. The use of DDT increased enormously on a worldwide basis after WWII, because of its effectiveness against the mosquito that spreads malaria. (Center for Disease and Control, 1944)

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

In the same way that Eugene Odum ironically discovered the importance of systems in modern ecology in part by watching traces of atomic radiation travel through plant and animal communities, Carson would study chemical pollution to enable people to understand how human beings nested within ecosystems. Silent Spring would go much deeper than authors both preceding and following her by providing a 300-plus page “case study” and by using the nation of the United States as the case—regarding how toxics traveled through ecosystems. She illustrates Odum’s theories in laymen’s terms for the consumer and scientific community alike, which is the reason Silent Spring and has been called one of the early contributions to ecosystematics. In “Essay on the Biological Sciences,” from Good Reading  (1958), Carson stressed the importance of ecological science to the larger body of sciences: Only within the 20th Century has biological thought been focused on ecology, or the relation of the living creature to its environment. Awareness of ecological relationships is—or should be—the basis of modern conservation programs, for it is useless to attempt to preserve a living species unless the kind of land or water it requires is also preserved. So delicately interwoven are the relationships that when we disturb one thread of the community fabric we alter it all—perhaps almost imperceptibly, perhaps so drastically that destruction follows.

Though it might have been difficult to see at the time, more than 50 years after the publication of Silent Spring, it is easy to see now how its general thesis is both correct. Despite the controversy her book caused and the outcry from other scientists alleging that Carson wanted to return to the Stone Age, after the publication of Carson’s book, many other scientists from an array of fields came forward, seeking to hold people of authority responsible for the consequences of their decisions and actions (Lytle, 2007). The wide platform of Carson’s attack on an extensive range of irresponsible behavior of both government and industry in America reflects her knowledge and would legitimize her in the eyes of Americans as well as President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), who publicly acknowledged her importance (Lytle, 2007). Her message quickly spread around the world.

The N atur al S ciences : H uman E cology and Tr ansdisciplinary R ese arch How did this even larger understanding of ecology by naturalists and activists like Rachel Carson translate into an integrated ecological, economic, and very human worldview? How can it inform sustainability thinking today? Furthermore, why is this perspective critical for rethinking our national sustainability strategy?

129

130

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

As an employee of the Fish and Wildlife Service for the U.S. Department of the Interior, it was one of Carson’s tasks to oversee the effect of nuclear tests and the dumping of radioactive waste into oceans—standard operating procedure for the Americans and Russians at that time. Before Rachel Carson’s death, the United States would conduct more than a hundred nuclear tests, with problems resulting for humans and ecosystems alike. “In the atomic age, [Carson] grew ever more uncomfortable with the power of science and technology to undermine or even destroy that ecological independence” (Lytle, 2006, p. 8). Carson seems to explain that everything we can see has been corrupted— both literally and figuratively. Carson went through air, soil, and many other viewpoints, while placing a large focus on the American waterways that connect ecosystems. With Fundamentals of Ecology, the Odums had exposed some of the dangers of pesticides. In their revolutionary, new systems-ecology, they called for restraint for the same reasons as Carson: because it killed “good” insects, birds, and fish as well as the intended culprits of human discomfort. Persistent chemicals also sometimes made their way into the human body where they never left. But even in their immense wisdom of ecological processes, the Odums failed to elucidate on the ability of insects to resist pesticides and give birth to generations insects immune to the chemicals, hence requiring more and different chemicals to control. Carson (1962) on the other hand, reports: As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life—a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no "high-minded orientation," no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper. (p. 259)

Carson viewed industry as having declared “war” on nature. She saw technology’s failure to control nature through unnatural, even violent changes rather than applying science to work within the boundary of what was safe. “Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus, he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds,” she wrote in Silent Spring (1962, p. 10). Today’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of being dismantled, and the United States is cutting back on regulations for dangerous chemicals. For instance, researchers at Columbia University have concluded the pesticide chlorpyrifos causes developmental problems, as it contains nerve gas properties. An authority from Duke University has said that no amount of it is safe (Volkoff & Thorsos, 2015). But the current head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, is quoted as saying, “there continues to be considerable areas of

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

uncertainty” (Rabin, 2017). Since there is uncertainty as to its lethality, Pruitt reasons it does not need to be regulated Non-point source pollution in American waterways and airways is rampart throughout the American eastern seaboard and its vast conurbation. The Eastern United States will grow to 80 million people by 2050, but with existing levels of air pollution being already challenged. A recent study conducted by the American Lung Association (2009) reported that nearly 40 percent of Americans live in areas with unsafe levels of particulates and ozone. Much of the pollution has come from Pennsylvania, Appalachia, and areas of the Midwest. Congress recently lifted the mountaintop removal ban, and the ban on dumping of toxic ash into rivers; such regressions now threaten many of the environmental gains as far back as the 1960s. While Leopold would be astounded to learn that, in our national parks no less, there is a mass campaign of fracking that not only has caused formerly inert places like Oklahoma to be actively seismic and pollutes groundwater, Carson would be horrified that companies employ literally hundreds of chemicals used in those projects that are not required to be identified and released to the EPA—and this was true long before the Trump Administration. Literally every region in America has pollution issues, but they are usually much more pronounced in places of low economic income and dominated by people of color, illustrating just one way the socio-economic system fails to be equitable. In E. O. Wilson’s most recent book (2017) he rather pessimistically, like Carson, discusses the impact: “The effluents from human activity are killers of life, especially in rivers and other freshwater ecosystems, the most vulnerable of Earth’s habitats” (p. 58). Had we the desire and ability to “bend” nature as Baby-Boomer scientists believed they had, we would have by now waved our magic wand and restored these areas to drinkable waterways, teeming with all our favorite catches of the day. Carson’s apt description of bioaccumulation and the illustration of how human pollutants and poisons relentlessly migrate up the food chain and into human beings brought attention to the dire need for restraint. When she set out to win the hearts and minds of American government officials and scientists—and the American people, from housewives, to experts and intellectuals within academia and industry—Carson knew she could not merely make a generalized rant about the awful, hegemonic power of industry. Hence, she explored a wealth of scientific disciplines, such as endocrinology, epidemiology, hydrology, and industrial practices, and by collecting thousands of manuscripts and corresponding with authors for verification (Lear 1997), each chapter of Silent Spring (1962) comprised another layer of the complex problem pollution presents. The book’s first two chapters began with a broad overview, then a chapter on nuclear, air, water, soils, and rivers—all demonstrating that every chemical

131

132

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

released into the air, water, or soil becomes universally distributed around the globe. Chapter Three of Silent Spring (1962) discussed chemical pollution; Four discussed groundwater pollution; Five discussed soil pollution; Six discussed adverse effects on the biosphere in general; Seven discussed the lack of political transparency; Eight focused on the destruction of bird habitats; Nine on the pollution of riverine systems; Ten, air pollution, and so on. The discoverer of the Gaia theory, James Lovelock (1919- ) describes Carson’s approach as attorney-like, as she methodically laid out her case like a series of well-developed arguments within the context of the fundamentals of ecosystem studies. Carson has been only rarely recognized for her ability to draw from a larger understanding of the yet to be created fields of biogeochemistry and systematics. Carson devoted a good portion of her life to understanding the intricacies of ecosystems. Further, and crucially for the environmental and social benefits that ultimately resulted from the publication of her book, she began educating herself in 1957 on something outside of her field of marine biology: American industrial practices. In Silent Spring, Carson (1962) sounded like a lawyer presenting a well-reasoned argument before a high court: How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind? Yet this is precisely what we have done. We have done it, moreover, for reasons that collapse the moment we examine them (p. 8).

While the evidence had been broadly present for a while, Carson’s message collocated this information and married it to an understanding of the new ecology of her era, therefore demonstrating her role in achieving a new level of transdisciplinary and holistic thinking. The other salient component of her book was its well-depicted and sweeping vision of destruction that canvassed the United States: Alabama, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, California, Colorado, Michigan, New York, Florida, New Mexico, Mississippi, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Oregon, and more. So this encompassing vision of America as one thing under attack by biocides was very compelling to Americans, especially those able to see the devastation from coast to coast and yet also identify with the pollution problems resident within their own states or regions. It was not only the “environment,” per se, but also the field some have called “human ecology” that Carson brought under the microscope of her analysis. Like Thoreau and Leopold, Carson spoke to United States scholar and layperson alike. She presented difficult concepts, making them comprehensible to several levels of readership. Her book signified science should be no longer limited to the elite bureaucrats and imported specialists in the nearly cloakand-dagger atmosphere of the post-WWII Era. Before Carson (1962), it would

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

have seen inconceivable for one marine biologist and nature writer bringing a halt to the unrestrained forward progress as America led the contemporary global economy (McKibben, 2006). Her solution for the wicked problem of non-point source pollution involved several components: 1) educate on ecological holism 2) cease using some toxic pesticides indiscriminately and 3) stop using others altogether. Environmental measures were soon afterward promulgated though the 1969 National Environment Policy Act that had a global influence and provided a process regarding assessing important ecosystems and protecting against environmental impacts. Carson was not opposed to all kinds of technologies, only technologies applied in such a way that they destroy ecosystems. Like E. O. Wilson in the next chapter, Carson describes biophilia, biological technologies, and biomimicry as not only solutions for saving ecosystems and aiding human development but also as economically valuable. Like the Odum brothers had in Fundamentals of Ecology, in Silent Spring, Carson (1962) discusses the use of biological controls in large scale such as in California with the Vedalia beetle, or Lady beetles (Ladybugs) (p. 256). These controls are available at a much lower cost (p. 257) than chemicals whose costs, both in terms of money and impacts, continue to rise. Carson instead perpetuates the concept that long-term ecology must exist separately from and be protected from a long-term economy, by appealing to arguments regarding human ecology and by illuminating the relationship between ecology and economics.

The S ocial S ciences : P recursor to the P olluter Pays P rinciple Carson exposed many of the significant environmental costs (i.e., what we would today call environmental externalities) of our system that negatively affected and threatened the air, land, and sea of the planet and eventually those who inhabit those spheres. In a case study on agricultural products in the United States, Silent Spring highlighted economic costs as one of the most important legs of her argument. Carson (1962) showed Americans for the first time that such economic externalities—externalities likely equal to the size of the economy itself as Robert Costanza first calculated in 1991—were the result of rapid, unrestrained economic growth without oversight or attention to ecological impacts. In describing the brush spraying in Maine, she writes: Once it had been a joy to follow those roads through the evergreen forests, roads lined with bayberry and sweet fern, alder and huckleberry. Now it was brown desolation. One of the conservationists wrote of that August pilgrimage to a Maine island: “I returned . . . angry at the desecration of the Maine roadsides. Where in previous years, the highways

133

134

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson were bordered with wildflowers and attractive shrubs, there were only the scars of dead vegetation for mile after mile. As an economic proposition, can Maine afford the loss of tourist good will that such sights induce?” (Carson, 1962, p. 70)

Carson appealed to Americans by describing the costs in terms of dollars on many occasions in Silent Spring. As early as 1962, American taxpayers were paying more than a billion dollars a year to “pay farmers not to produce” (p. 9). During the mass-use of DDT by the Department of Agriculture in the 1950s and 1960s, many ecosystems were disturbed beyond repair, illustrating the entropy (or irreversibility) of converting “natural capital” or real resources to dollars. She also deeply examines the incalculable expense of losing our cultural and pastoral roots, “Roadside sprays, they may have cost the farmer his cow and killed uncounted numbers of wild creatures” (p. 35). Carson wrote of the growing cancer rates in cities taking their drinking water from American rivers polluted with agricultural runoff, citing documented examples. Very little research had been conducted on the research of mixing these chemicals; probably less is being done today. The loss of birds, as Carson observes in Silent Spring, represented only the tip of the iceberg. Carson cited examples of waterways so polluted they were no longer fit for human contact, also discussing cases where people died from exposure. Whether purposely or accidentally, waters were being polluted in America. In Clear Lake, California, for example the authorities attempted to kill off all bugs and gnats, which resulted in contamination of the whole lake, and at concentrations of insecticide higher than ever prepared originally. Carson wrote in Silent Spring (1962) that hers was an “era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged” (p. 13). The “cost” to which Carson (1962) referred could today be called environmental externalities. Like then, today’s sustainable development practices did not recognize the true value of ecological loss. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has defined environmental externalities as “the economic concept of uncompensated environmental effects of production and consumption that affect consumer utility and enterprise cost outside the market mechanism” (OECD, 2003, p. 1). This definition is not only completely instrumental (or human-centered), it neglects ecological and societal health beyond this quarter’s economic balance sheet. In contrast, population ecologists William Rees and Meidad Kissinger (2010) define the slightly different ecological externality as “accelerating ecosystems degradation . . . associated with over-exploitation as global market forces increasingly assert their influence” (p. 2616). This description is much more aligned with the purpose of SES problems, and it more precisely captures what systems naturalists view as threats to local-to-global ecological sustainability

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

and ecological costs as centered on “global market forces” (Rees & Kissinger, 2010, p. 2616). Environmental externalities in Carson’s time included the pervasive toxic pollution of land, sea, riverine, and air ecosystems that were the very real byproducts of economic progress (Rees and Wackernagel, 1996). Hence, it could be seen that more than there were more than a few costs associated with the U.S. being the “bread basket” of the world developed in the post-WWII era. These costs included the impacts of the extensive use of toxic pesticides that enabled the massive agricultural production. This national agricultural activity, in addition to producing an abundance of grain, also globally distributed toxic and ecologically destructive chemicals. Further, it had enormous and profound environmental externalities such as devastation of wildlife habitat, loss of species, mutated fetuses, and the poisoning of drinking water (Carson, 1962). It is now estimated today that 40 percent of the rivers in America are not safe for drinking and swimming. Detergents, pharmaceuticals, and invasive species make 90 percent of riparian areas in America degraded waterways. From coast to coast, the greater continental United States has been drastically altered. The Ohio River has been reported as recently as 2010 to be the most polluted river in America due to one source, Du Pont Chemical of Cincinnati. The depressed and neglected town of Flint, Michigan has had high volumes of lead in the water band will cost at least 9 billion dollars to clean up, if it is cleaned-up, since the EPA cuts since the Trump White House have left their offices at skeletal levels of staffing. Even within what is considered by most sustainability scholars to be the most successful level of sustainability planning in America—the local level— initiatives frequently center on a common set of “low-hanging fruit” endeavors (such as recycling, municipal operations, green buildings, etc.) and have been foregrounded in efficiency-measures and proven economic paybacks (McDonough & Braungart, 2006; Owen, 2012; Svara, 2010). While such practices certainly can contribute to sustainability planning, they cannot be considered the center of an overarching strategic sustainability discourse aimed at solving SES problems, given the considerable scale and inherent complexities such problems present. David Owen (2012) has recently engaged in public debates with the author of Natural Capital, Amory Lovins (1999), who contends all growth can be obtained with efficiency measures. Owen (2012) says, on the contrary that the only way to maintain or reduce consumption is by raising prices. While Owen further observes that we still do not know how to make the world more equitable, we do know how to prevent people, and nations, from exploiting natural resources: charge more money. Were we to pay the true costs of the destructive power of gasoline, for example, Americans would pay 12–15 dollars (or more) per gallon. Owen (2012) and others (Picketty, 2014) have pointed to a global tax

135

136

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

aimed at multinationals and the highest earning individuals. “Any truly effective strategy will soak the rich” (Owen, 2012, p. 248). Environmental externalities, particularly in terms of efficiency, have long been a part of the enviable U.S. economic growth since its inception. This is because efficiency policies have in fact historically increased national use and overall consumption of natural capital (Hallet, 2012; McDonough & Braungart, 2006; Owen, 2012). Models of efficiency are also frequently oblivious to any changes in the environment, such as future damage due to climate change (Costanza, 1997; Daly & Farley, 2004; Rees & Wackernagel, 1996). As a consequence, there are enormous environmental externalities in the market (Costanza, 1997; Daly & Farley, 2004; Rees & Wackernagel, 1996). Sustainability theorists—as well as concerned citizens, advocates, and scientists—often demand the recognition of the correct valuation of ecosystem resources. But efforts to locate such economic valuation schemes that are accurate and well grounded— as well as information that is not used to further market interests—have often proved elusive (Daly & Farley, 2004; Lynn, personal communication, 2014). Carson went much further than Leopold and almost all of her contemporaries by clearly illustrating the multifaceted consequences regarding the human health trajectory ranging from the global level to genetic level. As old and new chemical-laden, industry-driven by-products continually surged into land, rivers, seas, and the air, no efforts were made to calculate their inherent, diverse, and wide-reaching environmental risks before Carson’s work. Carson (1962) wrote, “until the process has become embedded in a vast economic and political commitment, and then it is virtually impossible to alter it” (p. 232). Carson did not see the problem as solely originating in science—the breakthroughs of which she often reveled in—instead finding fault in schemes of unregulated industrial practices: federal, state, and local governments and fast economic growth that examined neither the long- nor short-term consequences. By the late 1960s, Carson’s nearly 35 years of experience as a writer, government worker, field biologist—and naturalist—made her privy to what was then popularly unknown information on the health of ecosystems, as well as making her an authority on deciphering government rhetoric. Carson began to focus on the studies of public health, the chemistry of herbicides and pesticides, and bioaccumulation to reveal the specific and cumulative human and environmental costs resulting from the American industrial-based lifestyles down to how people cleaned their homes and took care of their lawns. “Were the true costs entered not only in dollars but in many equally valid debits . . . the wholesale broadcasting of chemicals would be seen to be costlier in dollars as well as infinitely damaging to the long-range health of the landscape and to all the varied interests that depend on it,” Carson argued further (p. 69). This is a strong facet of her argument—the one designed to appeal to American wallets. Yet, her most compelling arguments were aimed at the hu-

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

man costs. As noted above, Carson indicted state after state, Louisiana, Texas, and so on, “US Department of Agriculture did not do minimum research” (p. 162) and in fact recommended (as incredibly toxic and ill-advised as this may seem now) that people to apply DDT directly on their clothing (p. 175). Although the validity of her research was initially questioned, Carson would be later vindicated by economic costs resulting from cleaning up from chemical contamination. For example, just the subsequent human costs in the Love Canal, and Cuyahoga River cleanups were estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars each. We now have over 1300 comparable superfund sites, contaminated by hazardous waste, in our country, and an estimated 450,000 industrially contaminated brownfields. Carson demonstrated that, in actuality, the costs were incalculable as the losses to human and ecosystem health that would have the greatest impacts (Lear, 1998).

The H umanities : The E thics of P recaution Like Thoreau and Leopold, Carson also demonstrated that stewardship and capacity-building at the local level are essential for a vision of sustainability—for more reasons than this book has space to address. In brief, the federal government was never intended, nor designed, to solve complex and diverse environmental problems; sustainability solutions in the twenty-first century will require action at many different levels. While American leaders such as presidents like Roosevelt during the Great Depression, and Carter during a major economic and oil crisis in the 1970s, espoused limits to growth (McKibben, 2006), leaders rarely, if ever, win campaigns on no-growth platforms; therefore, it is up to the ethics of scientists and input from a well-informed society. Carson demonstrated prior to the environmental movement the power of bottom-up leadership, stirring the country to force their representatives to act. Carson focused on a diverse range of studies on topics such as public health, the chemistry of herbicides and pesticides, and bioaccumulation. Her research into these varied fields revealed the danger to human beings and ecosystems alike resulted from our industriall-based lifestyles, right down to household chores. Capitalists, industrialists, and bureaucrats, all of who wanted a tighter control over public behavior (but who did not want public control of, or oversight over, their policies and actions) attacked Carson’s (1962) work. The public endowed chemists, at work in their starched white coats in laboratories and factories, with almost divine wisdom. The results of their labors were gilded with the presumption of beneficence. In post-war America, science was god, and science was male. (p. xii)

137

138

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

As ecologists began to view human beings as mere members of ecosystems and transmit this knowledge to the public, it also shaped the humanities, the arts, literature and especially ethics, as these fields grappled with how to address new relationships between humankind and the universe. For example, no one except for a handful of scientists were questioning that bomb-making plants were turned into fertilizer stations as large chemical corporations captured the emerging post-war agricultural markets. Nuclear testing, as I mentioned, also eventually spiraled out of control with the U.S. conducting thousands of tests and even annihilating entire ecosystems in the Pacific (Wilson, 2006). Carson addressed these crumbling institutional ethics now that government and industry were working more intensely together. The discoveries of science and technology began to appear at an incredible rate, faster than the average person could track, or they were hidden from the public altogether. For the first time, many people began to view the discoveries of science (as well as human nature) in regard to how these discoveries would be used—as an “existential threat.” But at the same time, an Enlightenment-like belief that “Man” could, and should, control and dominate nature seemed to gain credence given renewed vigor the remarkable recovery from the stock market crash and the Great Depression. At this time, America now had the world’s most burgeoning economy, allowing many people of its nation to enjoy a standard of living, and a slice of nature right in their own backyard. However, as history has revealed, this period comes right at the time societal health was becoming sacrificed for economic prosperity and its accompanying ideological beliefs in the unquestionable benevolence of U.S. scientific and technological advancements. Carson (1962) wrote in Silent Spring: All this has come about because of the sudden rise and prodigious growth of an industry for the production of man-made or synthetic chemicals with insecticidal properties. This industry is a child of the Second World War. In the course of developing agents of chemical warfare, some of the chemicals created in the laboratory were found to be lethal to insects. The discovery did not come by chance: insects were widely used to test chemicals as agents of death for man. (p. 16)

Scientists like Carson and Commoner asserted the decline of science, both in prestige as well as giving rise to new, serious social concerns (Egan, 2007). “To many scientists, the integrity of the genuine search for knowledge—and the freedom to engage in that pursuit—had been irredeemably compromised by the lopsided financial support for science related to weapons research and nuclear physics” (Egan, 2007, p. 43). Commoner (1972; 1975) viewed scientific and technological advances as violating old established norms without the recognition of the public ‘infatuated’ by the advances, determining that

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

scholars and scientists must take on an important normative role of dissent in science. Even when scientists did examine the effects of chemicals, they looked only at those effects that were nearly imminently fatal instead of looking into those causing cancer or many other toxic conditions that only manifested in the subject much later. Carson (1962) asked, “Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal” (p. 12)? The established ethical systems of the Baby Boom Era had yet to consider most environmental issues, although philosophers sometimes decried the alienating effects of technological advances. In the early 1950s, Carson was just setting out to write a book on evolution, knowing that an “ecological crisis was brewing and that pesticide poisoning was the major factor” (Lytle, 2007, p. 122). But by the late 1950s, Carson had also read a worrisome number of reports of widespread pesticide spraying destroying entire ecosystems. Instead, she applied her considerable abilities and energies into a book called Man Against Nature. Her main impetus involved showing what human ecologists would call the deleterious effects of the technosphere on the ecosphere and how to counter this by elevating ecology. She believed that a more informed public could engage in the interface of science and technology with government. To accomplish this, she explored the ecology of both nature and the human body to reveal to the public its “slow poisoning” (Lear, 1998, p. x). Ecologists like Carson and Commoner scrutinized scientists who were not taking moral responsibility for the application of their findings. Carson and other ecologists inspired a wave of activism that persisted through the 1950s and 1960s, directly influencing Albert Schweitzer in his Nobel Prize Winning Peace Prize speech to ban nuclear testing (Egan, 2007, p. 23). Carson (1962) and Commoner (1966) realized that scientific progress came at previously unforeseen costs. For instance, both ecologists, contrary to popular opinions of the era, asserted that as a result of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and other pollution that the world was indeed warming (and not cooling) by the early 1960s. By 1990, the Green Revolution resulted in a 1,000 percent increase in food production, but it provided only a 20 percent decrease in famine, worldwide. And as a legacy 75-85 percent of our food grown in America now contains Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). While GMO seeds and accessory insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides have the built-in advantage of pest resistance, most of these products are banned in Europe, where testing methods have not been approved. Now countries all over the world, and especially in Asia and Africa, are locked into deals with corporations, and thus they have abandoned traditional shifting, slash-and-burn cultivation methods. Because

139

140

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

of globalization, many cultures can no longer grow their traditional foods locally, and import seeds with built in herbicides and pesticides. Carson devotes a chapter just how these chemicals can also repel pollinators, absolutely essential to plant development. These products are under the tight control of a few multinationals like Monsanto—criticized when it was still just a national company in Silent Spring— whose prices fluctuate because of their own economic pressures, not on any global need-based method. While America still gives nearly trillions of dollars in subsidies to farmers each year, the rare farmer in our time—less than two and a half percent of the American workforce—still can barely make a living. Like Thoreau said, “they make their shoestrings through heads of cattle” (i.e., a small payoff for an enormous undertaking). Scientists in America today, as described earlier, are being given an extended leash to conduct their business outside of the public eye and under little regulation. A recent report found that glyphosate “probably carcinogenic,” which Monsanto vehemently denies. Beginning in Carson’s time, Monsanto and other companies began to take over the agricultural industry, lock stock and barrel. Up to 80 percent of the U.S. corn market and 93 percent of the U.S. soy market are owned by Monsanto, which now has a virtual international monopoly. In fighting with Monsanto, it has been clear that bottom-up movements that hold them accountable comprise one of the only viable forms of resistance. Collaborations at universities now often include government and industrial ties to resource extraction companies and resource use companies. For instance, Arizona State University (ASU) has established a relationship with Wal-Mart (a company with the net worth the size of the GDP of Belgium), which pays minimum wage to a good portion of their own employees and offers few benefits for its majority of part-time workers. Further, it has a history of often squeezing out scores of existing local retailers. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) now helps guide research at the “new interdisciplinary university” in the name of “use-inspired research.” While claiming to have sustainable initiatives, Wal-Mart, which constantly opens only in brand new retail locations, has a strict policy about its buildings. It never occupies a second-hand building but always builds a behemoth stores from scratch, and it exhibits no disinclination to simply abandon this newly built site should it prove to be economically unproductive. ASU has relationships with hundreds of businesses that in turn provide services to the university and help it be cost-efficient to a higher degree than almost any university of past generations. Two generations ago, Carson questioned the influence of “use-inspired” research that was not only infecting government and corporations, but also beginning to taint university research:

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability . . . [W]hereas wealthy families once were the chief benefactors of the Universities, now industry has taken over this role. Support of education is something that no one quarrels with—but this need not blind us to the fact that research supported by pesticide manufacturers is not likely to be directed at discovering facts indicating unfavorable effects of pesticides. (Carson, 1962, p. 208)

Rachel Carson, like Thoreau and Leopold, alerted human beings as often as possible to the huge gaps in our knowledge, the danger in such thinking, and the moral duty to the environment and human beings, an approach she forged through making an integrated understanding of human ecology and humankind’s place within ecosystems. Carson’s eloquence as a writer provided the great contrast between the healthy, natural world of her prose, and the onslaught of a seemingly unabated stream of toxics polluting the nation. Her work interpreted the threat to the interdependence of both marine and land life, focusing on multi-generational environmental issues, problems, and risks to human and ecosystem health, and it contained a deep sense of ethical commitment to preserve these places for future generations.

Figure 11: Rachel Carson, field biologist, at work. (Eisenstaedt, 1963)

Before Silent Spring, Carson had written two detailed naturalist accounts of ocean life in The Sea Around Us (1951) and The Edge of the Sea (1955), which articulated a non-anthropocentric viewpoint from various creatures at the meeting place of land and sea and highlighted the constant change and flux of ecosystems. The Sea Around Us (1951) pointed to the surreal predicament of humankind in the middle of the twentieth century. “It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself” (Carson, 1951, p. xxv). With her no-

141

142

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

tably powerful and articulate imagery—and often becoming so philosophical (departing from strictly scientific writing)—she began submitting her work to literary journals and book publishers, eventually winning the National Book Award in 1952. Carson’s writing career had begun somewhat like Thoreau’s, in writing governmental biological inventories. Her expressive vivid and expressive prose, like Thoreau’s, often transcended the basic parameters of such assignments. Carson had been writing primarily in the vein of Thoreau and Leopold that “...natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society,” echoing Thoreau and Leopold (Lear, 1998, p. 259). But Silent Spring was a dramatic shift from poetry to a level beyond political activists—including Commoner—to delve into the details of what was truly occurring. Carson asserted that in “the age of technology, in which if we should know how to do something, we do it without pausing to inquire whether we should” (Carson & Gartner, 1962/1983, p. 1). Not only did Carson expose the lack of ethics among corporations and government, but also like Commoner would do subsequently, she went after the dearth of ethics among scientists themselves. Carson and many others who followed saw industry—the source of the problem—as infiltrating the production of knowledge, taking it to the extent to list the biggest offenders by name in Silent Spring (1962): Chemagro, Diamond Black-Leaf Co., Shell Chemical, and Monsanto Chemical as funding much of the important research on entomology (1962). Like Thoreau and Leopold, Carson did not make a statement that America should not play a lead role on the world’s stage, but instead, believed it had a great responsibility to wield its technology with precaution. Carson concluded that although technologies evolved much faster than ethics among decision-making bodies and the public, it was high time for science and technologies to cease being viewed as the supreme authority. Many of the scientific discoveries in chemical and nuclear warfare during WWII along with their production apparatus (that should have been discontinued) instead became foundational to new industrial enterprises. With industries reaping all the benefits and paying none of the costs, Carson was one of the first to point out that common industrial practices—which fueling unprecedented economic wealth—violated what today is called the precautionary principle. This concept defined by the sustainability field of risk management states, when there is suspected risk, the burden of proof of environmental safety is on the producer, possibly for the first time. Silent Spring was revolutionary because Carson targeted specific departments of the federal government and multi-national corporations, much as Thoreau and Leopold had identified as the source of societal and ecosystem

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

degradation—but it went much further by saliently “connecting the dots.” Carson placed responsibility on the average American as Thoreau and Leopold had: We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts. (p. 13).

By educating average American about what the air, water, and food they consumed daily contained, as well as how those things moved through the ecosystem people knew and loved in America, Carson (1962) rapidly challenged business-as-usual practices. If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem. (p. 12)

Carson’s work paved the way for the establishment of a number of the most well-known pieces of environmental legislation during this time including the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. These “environmental” policies were not policies that protected plant and animal species; they protected people. These first environmental regulations protecting our basic rights as human beings are now in the process of being watered-down or repealed. The contrast to the almost complete lack of regulation in 1962 to fifteen years later is quite striking. Even the ultra-conservative President Richard Nixon (1913-94) would later rank among the most environmentally progressive presidents because of the passing of environmental legislation during this era. While in the beginning of the controversy the nation became entrenched in familiar economist vs. environmentalist positions, Carson (1962) made such a compelling case that within two years laws against the application of the more dangerous pesticides were passed in over 40 states (Souder, 2012). After Carson, many scientists came forward to argue that the environmental crisis primarily resulted from the technological advances designed to achieve a more sustainable future. Ecological thinking by this time had fully matured as a discipline but one increasingly obfuscated by notions of progress (Worster, 1977).

143

144

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction. (Carson & Lear, 1962/2011, p. 94)

At the very end of her life, Carson was devoted to a very short educational book called The Sense of Wonder (1963/2011) dedicated to her nephew Roger, whom she raised after his guardians passed away. Carson’s lifetime of ecosystem analysis and description of American decay of education, institutions, and government responsibility testifies for the need to find new ways to educate the public on the importance of ecological integrity. The consequences of disturbing important ecosystems, which also motivated the four other American naturalists, drove her in part to become a true holistic thinker and find out how to apply theory to practice. But she emerged as a writer just as the American government began exponentially ramping up industrial production. In her very last days before cancer overtook her, Rachel Carson (1963/2011) returned briefly to her old prose: What is the value of preserving and strengthening this sense of awe and wonder, this recognition of something beyond the boundaries of human existence? Is the exploration of the natural world just a pleasant way to pass the golden hours of child hood or is there something deeper? I am sure there is something much deeper, something lasting and significant. Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find pats that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. . .. When he realized he had not much longer to enjoy the earthly scene, Otto Peterson said to his son: What will sustain me in my last moments is an infinite curiosity as to what it to follow. (p. 42)

C onclusion Out of her deeply seeded sense of duty to nature, Rachel Carson placed in abeyance her poetic and bio-centric prose regarding the meeting place of land and ocean to focus upon how to maintain ecological and human health and wellbeing in the onslaught of unregulated scientific and economic forces. “The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves” (Black, 2006, p. 125). When closely examined, Silent Spring, like Walden, is hardly the work of the typical “tree-hugger,” relying on sentimental appeals to natures’ beauty and “Sense of wonder” for which Carson is most often quoted.

Chapter 4: Carson, the Baby-Boom Era, and National Sustainability

In appealing to issues of justice and morality, in Silent Spring, Carson, like Leopold, always tied ecological needs to human needs. Carson read reports from various government and industry representatives that revealed the covering up the harmful effects of industrial chemicals (Souder, 2012). Agricultural industry and government departments had declared a war on the cyclical influx of insects with the widespread use of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). These battles often destroyed ecosystems as well (Carson, 1962). During the 1950s and 1960s, for the first time it became clear to ecologists and a group of people who would soon identify with the environmental movement that the breakthroughs in science and technology were none other than the direct cause of damage to the environment. Commoner thought that if the integrity of sciences was not taken seriously, science could put human and societal health and well-being at permanent risk. Commoner argued that should the integrity of science be eroded, humans would soon wield the instruments for its own destruction. Like Carson, Commoner was a harsh critic of technological optimism, conveying this message in his seminal work, The Closing Circle (1972). “In the eager search for the benefits of modern science and technology we have become enticed into a nearly fatal illusion: that through our machines we have at last escaped from dependence on the natural environment” (Commoner, 1972, p. 8). In Silent Spring, Carson showed how the mass spraying of pesticides for eliminating insects often had the unintended consequence of actually making them resistant and resilient. She discussed how undisrupted ecological systems were “biologically sound” when birds, spiders, ants, and owls controlled parasitic insects (p. 295). With the introduction and unrestrained use of pesticides, many of these natural predators were killed off as an unintended consequence. Population explosions among unwanted pests wiped out the species’ competitors (Carson, 1962, p. 257). She argued that industry needed to stop such business-as-usual practices that so drastically altered ecosystems and to get off “the treadmill of chemical control” (p. 279). Nevertheless, “by the end of the 20th century fertilizers allowed about 2 billion extra people to eat” (McNeill, 2000). Rachel Carson, like Thoreau and Leopold, was guided by a moral duty to the environment and human beings, an approach inspired by a transdisciplinary understanding of human ecology and humankind’s place in ecosystems. It was out of her sense of duty to nature that Rachel Carson would drop her poetic and bio-centric prose regarding the meeting place of land and ocean to focus upon how to maintain ecological and human health and wellbeing in the onslaught of unregulated scientific and economic forces. In addition to making the crucial identification of a number of highly damaging chemical toxicities that traversed through numerous far flung environments and the food chain, Carson also significantly taught us the transdisci-

145

146

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

plinary nature of human ecology, introduced us to the polluter-pays principle in important environmental regulations, and through public advocacy via increased transparency and knowledge, she acquainted Americans to promote the humility of the precautionary principle within American institutions. Next, E. O. Wilson drops his authoritatively scientific voice in many books and articles to adopt a humanistic point of view that complements his empirical and deductive side. Especially in the Future of Life (2002), Wilson prescribes exactly how to maintain our vital ecosystems by not only preserving and restoring biodiversity hotspots around the world but also by raising the standard of living in developing countries and appointing local people environmental stewards.

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development, and Global Sustainability

It will take millions of years to correct the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is a folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us. E dward. O. W ilson , The N aturalist (2006)

In Silent Spring (1962), Rachel Carson described the largest U.S. agricultural programs conducted during her time as pathological. The programmatic elimination of the fire ant in its southern states had been only one such program (among many) designed to eradicate certain species insects through continuous pesticide spraying. Thirty years later in 1992, Edward O. Wilson, a myrmecologist by profession, provided a telling example that vindicated what had been termed as Carson’s “environmental alarmist” viewpoint in his afterword to Silent Spring (1962): Just one surviving colony [of the red fire ant, Solenopsis invicta] missed by the poison sprays is enough to reseed an area of many square miles. When the new formal scientific name for the species was being decided . . . the logical name was invicta, meaning ‘unconquered.’ (p. 360)

Today, fire ants dominate farms in the southern United States from California to South Carolina, consisting of nearly 300 species. Wilson (1992) describes the post-World War I era through Carson’s era as the “Vietnam of Entomology” (p. 360). Although the sustained assault focused on the fire ant, it well exceeded its target and, in turn, further poisoned livestock, birds, and riverine populations. The resulting broadly far-flung web of contamination extended its deadly, poisonous reach all the way to the arctic poles. Wilson (1992), who has expressed mixed feelings on the long-term outcomes of the environmental movement, writes in the afterward to Silent Spring that “the Carson ethic spread to other countries” and “accelerated the resistance

148

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

to chemical pollution that is all but universal today—in word if not always in deed” (p. 361). But in the afterward of Silent Spring (1962), Wilson, just 25 years ago, also adds a warning: Rachel Carson, who was a quick learner, would be ahead of us still in understanding the devastating effects everywhere of still-rocketing population growth combined with consumption of natural resources, the thinning of the ozone layer, global warming, the collapse of marine fisheries, and, less directly through foreign trade, the decimation of tropical forests and mass extinction of the species. She would regret, I am sure, the sorry example the United States sets with its enormous per capita appropriation of productive land around the world for its consumption—ten times that of developing countries. (p. 363)

In the late twentieth century, Wilson has been arguably the most aggressive American voice on the issue of biodiversity, a term referring to the global biological diversity of the planet. Wilson has watched the human population triple during his lifetime and observed the impact of human beings increase even more so in proportion to that growth: since the Baby-Boom Era, American amenities like an average car-garage size that has doubled and an average home-size that has quadrupled. Since the mid-1960s, America became head-above-the-rest largest consumers in the world. The United States, the world’s largest economy, consumes more than a quarter of the world’s resources by the end of this era and extends its environmental footprint deep into the reaches of Central and South America, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia as most global manufacturing—along with abysmal environmental regulation—goes abroad. By the year 2000, Americans have recently contributed among the most to a Gross National Product (GNP) of the world since the beginning of Colonialism in 1500 has explosively grown about 150 times larger by the year 2000 (Mosley, 2010). In 2000, Worldwatch reported that seven out of ten scientists believed we are experiencing the largest mass extinction of species in history, particularly amidst the drastic changes taking place in the ecosphere at the end of the twentieth century. Presently, there is no more able American naturalist than Wilson to stretch the limits of transdisciplinary thinking defined by the ecologists Odum and Barrett as discussed in Chapter 1. What is most pivotal for this book is Wilson’s study of the evolution of advanced social behavior from a naturalist’s point of view and the application of biology to the field of ethics (usually considered a subdivision of the Humanities). Wilson describes the human race at the turn of the century as almost completely “dysfunctional” saying in The Social Conquest of Earth (2012): Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life. (p. 7)

Acutely aware of a polarity existing in our culture, Wilson does not castigate the ongoing divergences over issues like natural resource extraction or the claiming of rainforests as Republican or Democrat, nor non-anthropocentric vs. anthropocentric, nor technocratic optimist versus environmental pessimist. Wilson defines these polarities—amidst a deep discussion involving the history of all knowledge—with extraordinary simplicity. In Consilience, Wilson (1998) discusses “two opposing self-images:” The first he describes as the “exceptionalist view:” The exceptionalist believes, “ . . . our species exist apart from the natural world and holds dominion over it. We are exempt from the iron laws of ecology that bind other species. Few limits on human expansion exist that our special status and ingenuity cannot overcome” (p. 304). Conversely, the other, “. . . is the naturalistic self-image, which holds that we are all confined to a razor-thin biosphere within which are a thousand imaginable hells are possible, but only one paradise” (p. 304). For this book, I chose Wilson to represent the holistic American thinker of the second half of the twentieth century—and our time—largely because of his book Consilience. At the end of what I call the “Era of Sustainable Development” (1966-1999), Wilson produced Consilience and the Future of Life, the books on which I most often rely in this chapter. In addition, I selected Wilson because of his immersion in the changes that have transpired over the last fifty years, along with his conscious effort to break down walls (both conceptual and disciplinary) that prevent transdisciplinary thinking. Like the three previous naturalists, Wilson, at least to my way of thinking, is an undisputed hero. At age seven, while exploring an ocean bed, young Edward lost the sight in one eye and eventually 40 percent in the other. Coupled with his eyesight limitations and the fact that his father committed suicide in his college years, Wilson went on to be one of the most highly celebrated biologists of his era, earning a permanent role at Harvard with two Pulitzer Prizes; the Crafoord Prize, as the foremost proponent of sociobiology; and he is considered to be the world’s single leading authority on ants. He claims the loss of the eye caused him to look downward to the insect world, instead of beginning with ornithology, as the normal naturalist does. It is obvious this event made him also turn reflectively inward, as Wilson begins to discuss at length the genetic and environment-based evolution of human nature. Wilson, enormously prolific, has authored over 400 publications and over 25 monographs. From evolutionary theory and genetics to the evolution of social groups, his work covers topics with impressive breadth, such as, to his 300year history of the sciences and humanities that I will focus on the most in this

149

150

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

chapter. In Consilience: The Unity of All Knowledge, Wilson (1998) examines the role of disciplines such as economics, ecology, genealogy, and many more as they emerge onto the academic scene. As Wilson describes it, the book highlights “the very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic” (p. 304). More importantly, Wilson (1998) argues the new ethic will be founded in the natural sciences: “Trust in consilience is the foundation of the natural sciences . . .. We are approaching a new age of synthesis” (p. 12). Circling back to the Introduction, this book opened by providing stark examples of how the three global, human-caused, socio-ecological system problems of global climate change, biodiversity loss, and unhinged population and consumption growth will alter the ecosphere—our life-support system—as we know it in the twenty-first century. In Consilience, Wilson suggests, and I also purport, these are the three largest “wicked” problems facing humankind. In the present chapter, I will address these three one by one. But first, I review competing worldviews on coupled human-natural systems as they emerge as wicked problems for the first time during this era. Further, this chapter explores how the standard existing “sustainable development paradigm” fails to solve these wicked, socio-ecological problems. Although claiming to address such problems, beginning in the early 1970s, the sustainable development paradigm gives primacy to economic growth for developed and developing countries alike. And for that reason, I especially focus in this chapter on the international documents that codified the sustainable development paradigm, as well as those of the same time-period that chose a much more ecology-based direction. Then, I describe how Wilson applies transdisciplinary, naturalist theory to real sustainability practices to ensure the persistence of our natural life-support systems and human civilization for the long-term.

The A dvent of “S ustainable D e velopment ” Over the last 50 years, E. O. Wilson has tackled some of the most serious issues of environmental sustainability, as only someone of his considerable acumen and expertise is capable. Wilson (1998) simplifies the basis of the present need for consilience to issues of food and water. Wilson makes the important point that the natural sciences, having achieved synthesis, needs to concentrate less on individual data sets and instead should focus on “big picture” problems. Although still a minority, more scientists today see it as a duty to address sustainability questions that imperil the future of the human race. Finally, Wilson argues that while philosophy, ethics, and religion have been wrestling with the

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

“purpose” of humankind for centuries, saving itself from annihilation, Wilson suggests, is that very purpose. Our understanding of ecology as systems grew with Odum’s discovery of ecology as systems and each of his updates to Fundamentals of Ecology. In both the expansion of the ecology in the direction of a “pure” science about the environment—and also as the understanding of the human impact has grown— the field of ecology is now much better defined. It was well-known by the end of the twentieth century, for instance, that places disturbed even only by Native Americans have sometimes not fully recovered after a thousand years, validating Thoreau’s early work. When Thoreau was a child, the Earth’s population was only about a billion people; by the end of the twentieth century, it was six times that, and energy use has grown to more than one hundred times beyond what it had been, as cheap energy became permanently coupled to economic growth (McNeil, 2000). From about 1920 to 1960, the global population would increase from 2 to 3 billion people; then, it would yet double again from 3 billion in 1960 to 6 billion in 1998 in about the same amount of time. Some of the largest technological achievements ever accomplished transpired during this time, thus allowing for a good portion of this growth. Other findings came to light, for instance, that two billion tons of soil was annually being lost to desertification and erosion. Climate change has begun to exacerbate this problem with changing weather patterns, rising ocean temperatures, and additional desertification. Consumption levels also grew dramatically through the twentieth century. Coal output grew from about 10 million metric tons in 1800 to about 5 trillion metric tons in 2000, an increase of about 500 times. Water use globally has increased ten times since the turn of the century, and it is estimated that we have cleared about 80 percent of the world’s forests. Although less of a share of the forests today is being cleared for farmland in general, we have managed to destroy about a quarter of the world’s forests in the relatively short span from 1960 and 2000 (McNeill, 2000; Mosley, 2010). Despite the more recent development of environmental regulations, metal emissions have continued to grow every generation since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. By the turn of the twenty-first century, there were over 20 megacities around the globe (cities in excess of 20 million in population). To address the deteriorating health conditions of inner city residents, the social field of environmental justice captured momentum in the United States during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-89). During this time, the public generally became skeptical of what was thought to be the bio-centric or eco-centric views that placed ecosystem health and welfare ahead of problems like that of disproportional wealth and poverty alleviation, sometimes framing “environmentalism” as a luxury of the educated elite in developed countries. The environmental justice movement however also developed during this time and

151

152

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

centered on real problems, like areas within cities—and even whole cities, as in the case of Chester, Pennsylvania and Times Beach, Missouri—becoming toxic dumps and contaminated sites that threatened the health and safety of local residents. As environmental justice evolved, it also placed attention on the distribution of the environmental costs and benefits unequally between the Global North and Global South as well as disparities within both spheres as the result of growing problems like climate change. Environmental justice advocates in the UN, although viewing the depletion of natural resources as a dominant concern, instead seemed to focus sustainability on social programs designed to increase transparency and encourage pluralism in decision making as the cure, rather than the obeisance of strict ecological limits. The value of the environmental justice movement is one that sustainability can and must draw upon to be valid, and one the Wilson covers throughout his work frequently discussing the wicked problem of huge disparities between the “Global Rich and Poor.” Similar to population ecologist Lester Brown, Wilson (2002) argues that feeding the global poor is an indispensable part of his plan for preserving the ecosphere. Environmental justice was a big part of the popular sustainable development paradigm that began with the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE), the same year in which the Limits to Growth (1972) was published. This publication served as the United Nations’ prelude to the Brundtland Report (1987). Also called the Stockholm Declaration, it considered “the need for a common outlook and for common principles to inspire and guide the peoples of the world in the preservation and enhancement of the human environment” (UNEP, 1972, p. 1). This document established sustainability’s first real set of economic development principles led the authors of the Brundtland Report to develop their report and the three-pillar framework of sustainability thinking. Despite including the conservation of important natural resources, Stockholm’s predominant interest invested in the growth of economic markets for the developed and developing worlds. Remarkably, it even seemed to encourage countries to deplete resources in some of its “principles.”1 1 | For instance, Principle 8 states “[e]conomic and social development is essential for ensuring a favorable living and working environment for man and for creating conditions on earth that are necessary for the improvement of the quality of life” (UNEP, 1972, p. 2). This overtly places the two broad fields of inquiry development and environment at odds. Further, it places development (with its unwavering emphasis on the built/ managed or human environment) as the central area of inquiry. Principle 11 goes even further by placing development first, stipulating that environmental policies may not hinder growth: [T]he environmental policies of all States should enhance and not adversely affect the present or future development potential of developing countries, nor should they ham-

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

The effect of environmental justice is no more hegemonic anywhere but in the Brundtland Report. Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, which built on UNCHE principles (commonly known as the Brundtland Report) (WCED, 1987), grounded the meaning of “sustainable development” in its current usage. Named after Harem Brundtland, the woman who advanced the role of women to a new level of equality in Norway, Europe, and around the world, the report’s major strength resides in its premise that sustainable development required addressing social inequities through democratic pluralism (Boone & Modarres, 2006; Minteer, 2011; Norton, 2005; Ostrom et al., 1999). The report recognized “the changing role of women” and “the right to self-determination” (WCED, 1987: 2.51, 4.6), and women had won a hard-earned and equitable share of the sustainable development discussion. In an unprecedented manner, universal social justice has been indissolubly linked to issues of conservation as an immediate goal (Mebratu, 2001). As advantageous as it may have been for advancing issues of social justice, the Brundtland Report nevertheless only recognized ecosystems within a context of their useful instrumentality to human needs, as described by this document: “[S]pecies and ecosystems must be preserved because they have an ‘economic value’ that is deemed crucial for development and important to human welfare” (WCED, 1987, 6.5). And while opening up important normative discussions, the Brundtland Report only touched on the subject of environmental resources previously absent in discussions about development. Furthermore, it does not address SES problems of carrying capacity (Rees, 1992). In the Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination, Worster (1993) remarks, “all that is new in the Brundtland Report and other recent documents is that they have extended the idea [sustainable development] to the entire globe” (p. 144). The Brundtland Report also failed to discuss the ecological phenomena that contribute to making a SES-problem, such as positive feedback loops, cascading socio-ecological effects, ecological limits, and thresholds. Nor did its authors explicitly engage the complex web of ethical issues surrounding development (Minteer, 2011; Orr, 2002). Five years after Brundtland, the UN’s Rio Convention of 1992, also known as the Earth Summit, was a large, enthusiastic, and optimistic gathering of governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), focusing on environmental and social issues such as combating poverty, deforestation, and the transfer of technology. The Earth Summit concentrated on actual enviper the attainment of better living conditions for all, and appropriate steps should be taken by States and international organizations with a view to reaching agreement on meeting the possible national and international economic consequences resulting from the application of environmental measures. (UNEP, 1972, p. 2)

153

154

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ronmental problems such as climate change, rising consumption rates, biodiversity loss, new sources of pollution, and the depletion of tropical rainforests and the ozone layer. The resulting Agenda 21, a non-binding but important pledge, encompassed four areas—social and economic dimensions, conservation of resources in development, the strengthening of minority groups, and probably most important, the means of implementation often lacking in other treaties focused on climate change (Summit, 1992). With Agenda 21, a shift occurred from global ideals and principles to city initiatives, policies, and plans. The Earth Summit was fraught with problems from the start, however. Some saw it as a complete failure given much of the focus consisted of renewing pledges made twenty years earlier in Stockholm (Grober, 2012). The conference was “anything but a harmonious exchange of views” as the division and frustration of a growing stalemate between what became termed the global “North and South” (a.k.a. “developed and developing”) emerged (Grober, 2012, pp. 185-6). “Eco-efficiency,” central to the talks in Rio, ultimately required countries to increase efficiency by an almost impossible factor of ten, to avoid reverting to little more than business-as-usual policies (von Weizsäcker, 2014). Furthermore, many of its central ideas lost momentum over time, as the Earth Summit was not a formal treaty. Some of ideals were considered at the 2002 Rio+10 Conference in Johannesburg, but they became diluted as discussions were “almost paralyzed by a variety of ideological and economic disputes, by the efforts of those pursuing their narrow national, corporate, or individual interests” (Meadows, Randers & Meadows, 2004, p. xiii). Wilson writes that almost all of the world’s most pressing environmental problems were provided with solutions during the 1992 Rio Convention, ironically the same year that William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel (1992) declared to be the year where we exceeded carrying capacity. Wilson writes, “Agenda 21 contained procedures by which virtually all the problems of the environment can be addressed if not solved” (p. 317). However, political infighting and nationalism have prevented implementation, and the $600 billion projected by the Rio Convention (1992) to implement the program, with $125 billion designated for developing nations, have not materialized. Wilson in fact implies throughout Consilience and other works that this is the crux of the problem: if we want to save humanity from imploding in this century, we are not only going to need to integrate the Three Branches, we are also going to have to pay for the preservation of our life-support systems with a global tax and especially no more so than for the quintessential wicked problem, climate change. What most concerns Wilson is that among fish, birds, and mammals, especially in biodiversity hotspots—significant reservoirs of biological diversity that also refers to about 25 areas around the world—have lost more than 70 percent of their original habitat. Near the equator, species are disappearing

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

at 100-10,000 the normal background rate. Wilson’s environmental priority is the estimated 30-50 percent extinction of existing species around the globe this coming century. Not only does this result from the lack of protection in the world’s forests, jungles, and oceans from human impact, but it also stems from the genetic homogenization of agricultural plant and animal species. As well, the number of fish we eat seem to have risen about 100 times since 1800 and also about 3 times since the 1960s. The counts leveled off in the 1980s where ocean catches reached a standstill, and inland catches, greatly subsidized by fish farms, began to supplement about 20 percent of the fish globally consumed. These concerns deeply trouble Wilson and have led him to use the word “crisis” when describing the twenty-first century.

H ow E cologists D efine S ustainabilit y Environmental historian and scholar of environmental politics John Dryzek (2013) explains how, after the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the environmental movement quickly fragmented into disparate groups. The opposing poles during this era are characterized by a split between movements of economic development vs. an environmental preservation movement. While claiming sustainable development contains, by definition, the moral imperative to meet present and future needs of humanity, how will we accomplish this, exactly, without the existence of a thriving, intact environment? In other words, are not the two stories of societal and ecosystem health and wealth intimately intertwined? Wilson and other ecologists have queried: how will the environment be preserved without an equally earnest conviction to meet the present and future needs of ecosystems? After the Baby Boomer Era where the Odums had effectively discovered what we today call ecology, ecological studies began to focus more on resilience and the measurement of the impact of people on ecosystems, with the additional step (not lost on the Odums) to measure how well ecosystems can recover upon removal of particular human disturbance(s). As early as 1969, C. S. Holling’s work linked natural and social sciences in new fields like urban ecology as deviations from “normal” ecological conditions, and subsequent concepts like resiliency, adaptive capacity, transformation, and eventually the term transdisciplinarity. Resilience theory has been extended to human systems in new and exciting ways, especially in relation to fragmented natural areas within cities and coastal systems like the New Orleans Delta. Changes in the field of ecology over the past half century have included scientists discovering connections between ecology and highly varied fields like cybernetics, entropy studies, biomimicry, systems research, economics, and engineering. Studies in ecology have not yet able to become “pure” as Cle-

155

156

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ments foresaw. Rather, the field of ecology itself has been literally plagued by human impact. As we have seen in other eras, whenever human-centered vs. nature-centered arguments come into play in the field of ecology, the question that continues to arise is: just how human-centered should ecology remain? Is the natural environment merely there to guide land management, or is it rather something that should be largely left alone to regulate itself? The positioning of dozens of national Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites has been very important because of the absence of human centeredness, even though they often take place in areas of obvious human impact—such as sustainability scholar Chris Boone’s work in Baltimore and Phoenix. Nevertheless, the polarization between researchers (often for economic gain) conducting “pure research” vs. experimental and predictive research in the field working on real-life problems (often for economic gain) has persisted. Each sphere, human-centered (applied) vs. plant and animal-centered (pure), maintains its superiority within the “two cultures” of ecology (Kingsland, 2005). Like sustainability, ecology has not been able to reside strictly in the realm of the natural sciences. As I discussed in Chapter One, Rittel and Webber (1973) discovered and identified wicked problems at the beginning of the 1970s, which has contributed to our understanding of changing climates, population dynamics, socio-ecological community dynamics, and other socio-ecological interactions. These areas, from even their earliest examinations, demonstrated adverse effects for the health and wellbeing of both society and nature, especially as the industrial revolution progressed and transformed in the decades following World War II. During this time period, seminal articles like Garret Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) revealed how common areas naturally deteriorated as the result of socio-economic forces. When economists like Elinor Ostrom subsequently applied this idea to global commons in areas such as the world’s oceans, it revealed a terrifying scenario for the twentieth century and beyond. As mentioned above, The Limits to Growth (1972) was issued the same year by the Club of Rome (an international think tank) as The Stockholm Convention by the “United Nations; both sets of authors employed “sustainable development” as their guiding theory. With the Earth’s carrying capacity in mind, the Club of Rome employed the newest breakthroughs in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and some of the earliest computer-driven statistical forecasting (Meadows, et al., 1972). Primarily an academic document, it focused on solving the integrated problems of exponential population growth and pollution rates, limited resources, and the inadequacy of technology as a single entity to meet the demands of both natural and human systems. As first to center discussions on “sustainable development,” this document however did imply that all nations, especially developed countries, must show constraint in production and consumption—opposite the idea contained

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

in the Brundtland Report. As a result of its critique of consumption patterns, the Limits to Growth immediately received backlash from the business world and conservative think tanks for its neo-Malthusian thinking (Cole et al., 1973; Kahn & Wiener, 1969; Kahn & Schneider, 1981). Population control is another example of division within social environmentalism that is a key issue of environmental justice but remains a taboo sustainability topic today. Barry Commoner (1972; 1975) later resisted what he termed Paul Ehrlich’s (1968) fierce assault on population growth; something he called the “lifeboat ethic” through distributing birth control, coercively if necessary. The debates between Ehrlich and Commoner in the late 1960s and early 1970s serve to illustrate this ongoing ideological debate and division within human development discourse. In the seminal publication The Population Bomb (1968), entomologist and population ecologist Paul Ehrlich advocated for immediate human population control especially in developing countries or risk depleting important global environmental resources, along with such attendant impacts as greatly increased land use as well as pollution. At the opposite end of the environmental spectrum of environmental justice, as more postmodern fields began to develop, deep ecology seemed to be part of a re-centering on environmental restoration and preservation. Educators in the humanities often embraced the field of deep ecology as it enabled them to contribute findings from a deep philosophical tradition fashioned as a new “method of inquiry.” Ecocentrism defended “the ecosphere as a whole” (Næss & Sessions, 1984, p. 5). In “The Shallow and the Deep” (1973), Norwegian Arne Næss (1925-2009) introduced the term “deep ecology” in reviving Spinoza’s interpretations of all “particularity” within Nature as equal in value (Hay, 2002, p. 26). Deep ecology may be seen as an example of a contemporary “form of anti-science”—much like Transcendentalism, which broke down existing dualisms of “subject/object, self/other, ideology/science, and human/nature” (Taylor, 1996, p. 264). A number of ecologists have expressed that an ecocentric approach would help answer SES problems (Hay, 2002, p. 41). However esoteric, Næss (1973) also described concrete differences between deep and “shallow ecology,” which could have enormous differences in application. In the instance of pollution, a shallow approach would seek a technology to help purify emissions that cause acid rain, while a deep approach would attack the causal economic and technological mechanisms responsible for the diminishment of ecosphere integrity. More often than not, a transformative vision like that of deep ecology has been perceived as being unrealistic and reserved for outliers, like Edward Abbey (1927–89). Abbey sought to live “off the grid” (as we now call it) and wrote of subversive outlier groups that would lead to “Earth First!” and also wrote his famous novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975). In Christopher Stone’s “Do Trees Have Standing” (1972) and John Rodman’s “Liberation of Nature” (1977), deep ecology promoted the extending circles of eth-

157

158

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ical inclusiveness to nonhuman animals whose cognition and actions greatly resembled humans, as well as an expanded “moral pluralism” (Hay, 2002, p. 124; Light, 2002, p. 197-211). Amidst these theoretical contributions, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (also known as the World Conservation Union) authored The World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development (1980). Established in 1956, IUCN stood as the preeminent body of global ecological preservation and conservation (Mebratu, 2001). The group’s mission, as laid out in World Conservation Strategy (1980), targeted “living resource conservation for sustainable development” (p. 18), opening the door for the term’s universal use in dialogues about the environment: “[T]he separation of conservation from development together with narrow sectorial approaches to living resource management are at the root of living resource problems. Many of the priority requirements demand a cross-sectorial interdisciplinary approach” (IUCN, 1980, 8.6). Unlike the Brundtland Report, the World Conservation Strategy (1980) primarily tackled specific and difficult environmental issues such as diminishing biodiversity, climate change, natural resource depletion, and endangered species. It set sustainable development as the new socio-ecological interface to handle a score of problems threatening the survival of ecosystems around the world. The endorsement of the term “sustainable development” by biologists, chemists, and ecologists solidified it as the central term for human and environment; but, the IUCN seemed to later regret identifying with that term, and now emphasizes “sustainable development” as a subset of “sustainability.” The IUCN reaffirmed sustainability or sustainable development again in Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living (1991). This time, however, they began by very clearly stating that development was necessary and not the opposite of conservation. In this document, SES problems and biological principles seemed to be secondary in importance (IUCN, 1980). Critics like biologist John Robinson’s (1993) rebuttal in the journal Conservation Biology have characterized it however as “middle-of-the-road thinking” (p. 21). Robinson (1993) argued that the goals and principles of human development and ecological health as stated in Caring for the Earth were “incompatible” (p. 21) and that the document still lofted sustainable development on a pedestal. Not only did it privilege sustainable development, it did so without providing an analysis of how to develop sustainably. By the publication of Earth Summit in 1992, urban development had become the main forum for sustainability discourse, especially since at the same time William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel (1992) coined the term ecological footprint. Earlier that same year, Rees and Wackernagel (1992) nevertheless represented but a handful of sustainability scholars who actively answered the oxymoron of “sustainable cities.” Things have not changed much since founda-

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

tional ecologist Eugene Odum’s (1971) lamented almost fifty years ago, “Great cities are planned and grow without any regard for the fact that they are parasites on the countryside which must somehow supply food, water, air and degrade huge quantities of wastes” (p. 371). As a biologist, myrmecologist, and eco-humanist, E. O. Wilson (1998; 2002) calls for recoupling the sciences and humanities, especially within the ivory towers of universities, to solve wicked problems. Like Leopold, Wilson has an acute awareness of a polarity in American culture existing long before the present. Striving to synthesize both the bio-centric and human-centered ethic, Wilson also describes in his books a simple polarity of economist vs. environmentalist in our culture, on which I will focus later in this chapter. When examining Wilson’s oeuvre, it is not difficult to see that he has taken care to avoid terms like sustainability, environmental justice, and deep ecology, and all kinds of ideologies and –isms. Instead, Wilson has forwarded his own science-driven, transdisciplinary theories into the fields of the social sciences and the humanities with Sociobiology (1975), Biophilia (1983), and Consilience (1998) based on realist arguments illustrating connections between science and human behavior. Wilson was also was instrumental in creating and defending important new ecological terms like biodiversity and conservation biology. Each of these concepts occurs at the interface of ecological and social studies. While Wilson has been able to synthesize the immediate population crisis with Commoner’s much more nuanced ethics, he has observed these discourses play out during his now half-century within the Harvard community. As a field naturalist since age nine (like all the eco-humanists but Thoreau), Wilson had little interest in such discussions. Instead, he focused on emerging studies in biology, its applications, and many tangential fields—for instance, writing papers on the populations of neutrino’s in different galaxies in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1970s, Wilson’s study of ecosystems went to extreme measures to see how they behaved in real-life, going to the extent of fumigating tiny islands in the Florida Keys to purge them of all life to see how they would repopulate. In recent years, however, Wilson’s attention has been drawn to the global stewardship of ecosystems—and outlining how to solve wicked problems like global climate change, biodiversity loss, and population and consumption growth upon which he focuses in Consilience. Wilson makes interdisciplinary knowledge palatable in his many books of varying reading levels as well as textbooks that have become mainstream in biological and scientific education. While science and ethics have been taught as primarily separate fields since the enlightenment to the present (Minteer, 2011; Norton, 2005; Wilson, 1998), I posit that in Wilson’s many works, which have a solid foundation in the scientific method and Modern Synthesis (1920-50), he retains the core ethical worldview of deep ecology: the simple acknowledgment

159

160

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

of and reverence for all living things could be the simplest way to solve significant SES problems.

The N atur al S ciences : I nternational C limate C hange R egul ation In Consilience: The Unity of All Knowledge (1998), Wilson provides countless examples of where principles from one of the Three Branches—or “great branches” as he calls them—have been used to advance a home discipline. He begins with a history of important thinkers from the Enlightenment and then describes how the natural sciences, social sciences, economics, psychology studies in human consciousness, economics, the arts, ethics, and religion have all benefitted—and can further benefit from—the knowledge provided by the natural sciences. Wilson, who began his studies of biology during Carson’s era, made major breakthroughs in the field of ecology starting in the 1970s. At Harvard University, he remains as “Professor Emeritus,” where although he began studying ants, he has also steadily worked to the broad objectives of [bringing] "population and community ecology closer to genetics" (Wilson, 2006, p. 239). Unbeknownst to many who think of Wilson as largely a biologist, he has thoroughly examined advanced social behavior in humans in his recent work: The Social Conquest of the Earth (2013). During his early work in this field, such as the last chapter of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), Wilson’s work caused protests at Harvard by students and scholars who claimed it contained elements of misogyny and eugenics because of its assertions that human behavior and social roles were, in part, the result of genetic coding. Eleven years later, a New York Times (1986) article still reported accusations of “fascism,” but highlights how Wilson was most annoyed by claims that he was reinforcing the norms of Industrial society. Wilson slowly but surely stayed his course until today, arguing in 1986 that up to ten percent of human behavior is genetic, as opposed to his adversaries who continued to afford him zero percent influence. The debate caused one of the biggest divisions among the faculty at Harvard in the past century. Yet the controversy was over a theory now widely accepted in science, and part of Wilson’s (2012) twenty-first century topic eusocial behavior, or the behavior of cooperative societies in the animal kingdom. Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), a scientist, and a postmodernist by definition, was among several adversaries of Wilson’s. Gould, a paleobiologist, evolutionary theorist, and an historian of science (also at Harvard), became famous (for among other things) his more abstract and postmodern concepts and evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium (developed with Niles Eldredge)

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

and his extensive writings in the area of the popularization of science. Even within the constraints of the hard sciences in which he was trained, Gould saw opposition: “perceptions of truth are entirely relative, and that scientific conclusions are just another form of aesthetic preference” (Gould, 1990, p. 244). Gould also pointed instead to multitudes of human and animal behavior that are not scientific in nature and arguing that in the postmodern world, there is very little we can know for sure. Gould’s (1997) bifurcated view in “Nonoverlapping Magisteria” on the distinctness (rather than connectedness) of certain human realms describes how science and religion can certainly be intrinsically adjacent to one another but also quite distinct in their realities and impacts. This was obviously at odds with the unifying structure in Wilson’s approach. Wilson even-handedly discusses the merits of various postmodern movements in Consilience and other works as “the opposite” of the Enlightenment, and seems to applaud postmodernism’s discursive methods as a counter-culture (p. 235). But Wilson does not have similar doubt in human knowledge. As an atheist, he is resolved to cheer Foucault’s efforts to understand the power politics of varied streams of environmentalism, but he especially rebukes postmodernism’s governing dictum: “nothing is knowable:” To this Wilson responds in Consilience, “To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong” (p. 47). Wilson (2002) argues instead that there are many things that we do know and upon which we can focus. The main thesis of arguably his most important book, Consilience, is analogous to thesis of this book, having partially inspired it. First, as Wilson painstakingly explains throughout Consilience, the Modern Synthesis of evolution and genetics in the 1920s, spawned by the advent of Darwin’s evolutionary theory, began to link all the sciences. In other words, physics, chemistry, biology, astrophysics, tectonic plate movements, genetics, etcetera, united in theory and practice during the 1930s and 1940s can guide the synthesis of the Three Branches. Second, because of the success of the Modern Synthesis, natural scientists similarly to Wilson have begun to shift their research “away from new fundamental laws, and toward new kinds of synthesis— ‘holism,’ if you prefer—in order to understand complex systems” (p. 292). Wilson (1998) described how the modern synthesis could serve as a model for all knowledge: No compelling reason has ever been offered for why the same strategy should not work to unite the natural sciences to the social sciences and the humanities. The difference between the two domains is in the magnitude of the problem, not the principles needed for its solution. The human condition is the most important frontier of the social sciences and the humanities. The consilience argument can be distilled as follows: The two frontiers are the same. [p. 293; italics mine]

161

162

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Consilience (1998) has the organizing principles that connect all his research. In this most challenging of all his works, Wilson knew he held a minority view—even among scientists. Wilson was boldly suggesting that ecosystems and ethics alike, like all phenomena, arise and evolve out of material processes that can be reduced to the laws of physics. Wilson views holism and reduction as complimentary; it is through the complimentary process of taking things apart (reductionism) and putting them back together (holism) that we can achieve a picture of how knowledge fits together. Science has been, and will continue to be, reductionistic according to Wilson. But physics, chemistry, biology, and logic can “transcend cultural differences” (p. 53). While Wilson reveres the Enlightenment as a golden era of holistic thinking, he also discusses the “Ratchet of Progress” that began in the Enlightenment and a system of growth-dependent survival into which that we now seem locked despite the certain knowledge we live on a finite planet. In the last chapter of Consilience, Wilson highlights global climate change, biodiversity loss, and population and consumption growth as the three big problems coming to a head in the twenty-first century. This might be a good juncture to pause for a moment to consider climate change before going into the other two. According to Wilson (1998), as of twenty years ago, the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists, the Earth’s atmosphere is experiencing an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) at unprecedented levels over the past 400,000 years (see Figure 12). If the anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases (GHG) is not curbed, the Earth’s average surface temperature could increase from 4.3 to 11.5 ºF (2.4 to 6.4 °C) in high emissions scenarios by 2100 (IPCC, 2014). Anthropogenic increases in CO2 levels are also largely irreversible, lasting 3,000 years or more (Solomon et al., 2009). Climate change will continue to set in motion increasingly greater temperature and hydrological changes. It will also cause a multitude of cascading effects—a complex chain of events that ripples through systems undergoing change, often in unpredictable ways. “More frequent heat waves, violent storms, forest fires, droughts and flooding are the spawn of the historically unprecedented pace of climate change.” (Wilson, 1998, p. 68) Mitigating and adapting to these effects is a fundamental environmental and sustainability problem, because it amplifies so many other existing largescale, environmental challenges. Climate change exacerbates biodiversity loss, resource depletion, pollution, and population and food supply dynamics, ultimately altering the Earth’s future carrying capacity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014) notes many climate-change vulnerability studies have over-emphasized the direct impact of sea-level rise warning both coastal and inland cities will suffer major repercussions from cascading effects, including major disruptions to ecological and/or socio-economic systems (Nicholls et al., 2008).

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

Figure 12. Trends in atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperature. CO2 levels are at a 800, 000-year high here and have been estimated the highest in up to two million years. (McInnes, 2006)

In sheer economic terms, climate-change impacts have already caused billions of dollars in damage to U.S. coastlines, diminished water supplies, causing tension among the many parties reliant on the Ogallala Groundwater Reservoir of the Great Plains, the Colorado River in the Southwest and raising questions whether Southwest America is sustainable over the long term. 2017 was a costly year for both the United States, and the world. As seen in the United States, a string of hurricanes caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. Of the top twenty ports in the world most susceptible to climate change, four are in the United States (Nicholls et al., 2008). James Hanson (2016), one of the NASA discoverers of climate change, has produced an important recent paper. The subject of past papers has been both prescient and catastrophic, such as that if we suddenly stopped the production of all excess carbon and methane today, temperatures would still continue to rise for the rest of the century. But, this paper predicts sea-level rise of 6-9 meters by the end of the century. If this is true, places like Manhattan, New Orleans, and Florida will likely to become inundated with problems by mid-century. The cost of constructing human barriers in Manhattan will be enormous, and they may only be temporary. Saving Florida’s thousands of miles of coastline will be impossible because of the porous bedrock, even in Miami, that allows water to percolate up through the surface. It is with the purpose of solving socio-ecological problems—or “wicked problems” like global climate change—that Wilson wrote Consilience: The Uni-

163

164

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

ty of All Knowledge. Wilson (1998) contends the modern synthesis of chemistry, biology, and molecular physics and astrophysics can provide the model for melding the disparate fields of physical science, social science, and the humanities, or “holistic thought.” Over his many years as a biologist, myrmecologist, geologist, and student of social and evolutionary theory, Wilson has devised an environmental platform incorporating ideals of deep ecology and humility toward human capacity to change the environment, the power of socio-environmental movements as unique as deep ecology and postmodernism, and the practical applications of environmental justice just now being discerned in the larger sustainability discourse. In Consilience, Wilson (1998) realizes that cultural changes manifested in the social sciences, economics, philosophy, ethics, and the arts have been equally as important during the Era of Sustainable Development. The legacy of the Enlightenment, according to Wilson is first, to understand, and second, to “choose wisely” (p. 325). Wilson clearly states that there is only one answer has two parts: “decarbonization and dematerialization.” Wilson recommends we: • Stop all deforestation; we should be planting trees, and restoring soils help preserve water • Energy companies make the shift to renewables • Initiate carbon pricing Wilson writes of the effort to thwart climate change in Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016), “the response has been tepid, and far from adequate” (p. 65). The International Energy Agency has now reported the human race will burn only one-third of reserves of fossil fuels before 2050; this means that if we cannot learn to exhibit control, the human race has the capacity to raise the temperature of the Earth some 6-10 degrees Fahrenheit. In the final chapter of Consilience, Wilson (1998) describes how emergent ecological characteristics like global climate change and exponential growth or loss within an ecosystem (as in population and consumption growth and biodiversity loss) possibly could have positive feedback loops. … and most of the rest of us, have yet to learn the arithmetical riddle of the lily pond. A lily pad is placed in a pond. Each day thereafter the pads and all its descendants double. On the thirtieth day the pond is covered completely by lily pads, which can grow no more. On which day was the pond half full and half empty? The twenty-ninth day. (p. 313)

As discussed in earlier chapters, we could reach a “threshold,” where our Earth is suddenly overwhelmed. The ecosphere could then suddenly shift into another ecosystem regime and for which there is no turning back to the previ-

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

ous state for thousands of years. Building on Holling’s research, Walker & Salt (2006) define a threshold is “a limit in a socio-ecological system, that when crossed, the system begins to change and feedback with its component parts and a different structure so that it enters into a new regime, i.e., ‘changing too much’” (p. 11). Recalling “super-wicked problems,” we have almost no way of knowing how the Earth will respond, yet have only one Earth on which to watch this inevitable experiment take place. Next, I will examine how the example of the lily pad applies to the collapse of fisheries and loss of millions of equilibrium-sustaining species. Wilson simultaneously argues no greater discipline is capable of linking the science and social sciences better than economics; but that, “[t]he single greatest obstacle to environmental realism . . . is the myopia of most professional economists” (p. 318). Wilson writes that the most influential economists still make recommendations as if the environment did not exist.

The S ocial S ciences : S topping R ampart B iodiversit y L oss In another example of consilience, Wilson (1983) conceived the “biophilia hypothesis” that he considers the scientific expression of the humanities-based deep ecology (p. 133). Wilson (2002) argues in this hypothesis humans have an “innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes,” and in some instances, have the ability to affiliate with them emotionally (p. 135). Wilson’s work and related studies have confirmed what Romantics and Transcendentalists had intuited: to be healthy and happy, we need to interact physically and regularly with the natural world. The biophilia hypothesis has been tested among all kinds of people from cancer patients and Goldman Sachs employees. Findings have shown that people need direct contact with nature to be happy and healthy. Biophilia can have direct economic benefits with workers missing fewer work days, being more punctual, and becoming overall more productive (Kellert, personal communication, 2014; Kellert & Wilson, 1996). Biophilia is the biological description of the enlightened self-interest of Thoreau and Leopold, an evolutionary-based argument for the advancement of human ethics through human affiliation with nature. Now driven by the incentive of planetary survival, Wilson’s new interpretation of the human/natural relationship can help frame sustainability to prevent the “natural economy crumbling beneath our busy feet” as he puts it (Wilson, 2002, p. xxiv). This is but only one link between the sciences and the humanities drawn by Wilson. Wilson writes, “Half the species of plants and animals on Earth could be either gone or at least fated for early extinction by the end of the century. A full

165

166

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

quarter will drop to this level during the next half century as a result of climate change alone” (Wilson, 2006, p. 5). Loss of biodiversity is now the largest since the Mesozoic Era, 65 million years ago (Stanford, 2013). Ecologists estimate extinction levels at 100-10,000 times the background rate of historical species loss, and the increasing specialization of human-welfare outputs has resulted in the homogenization of forestry, agricultural products, and other human subsistence outputs now essential to our lives. Human impacts have caused biodiversity loss and ecosystem homogenization (often in the soils alone) that produce cascading negative effects to social systems as well. This current challenge however is often ignored on various local-to-global scales within today’s business, governmental, and industrial decision-making processes. Sustainability practices on the international level often do not recognize the true value of ecological loss while “business sustainability” programs at universities flourish. Wilson agues, “the weakness of economics is the most worrisome, however, in its general failure to incorporate the environment” (p. 318). Externalities exist because economists rarely use full cost accounting, which includes the consumption of natural resources and which traces a product from extraction to disposal. Because economic decisions usually take place in a vacuum from the natural science, they hence lack the accurate capacity to predict the future. Wilson (2002) writes that the destruction of the world’s biodiversity, of which only 20 percent has been discovered so far, is: . . . the result of a mistake in capital investment. Having appropriated the planet’s natural resources, we chose to annuitize them with short-term maturity reached by progressively increasing payouts. At the time it seemed a wise decision. To many it still does. The result is rising per-capita production and consumption, markets awash in consumer goods and grain, and a surplus of optimistic economists. But there is a problem: the key elements of natural capital. Earth’s arable land, groundwater, forests, marine fisheries, and petroleum, and ultimately finite, and not subject to capital growth. (p. 149)

“We have begun a frantic search for substitutes” of natural capital Wilson asserts (p. 150). Wilson has argued that preserving the world’s biodiversity hotspots could be accomplished with a tax on every cup of coffee. By spending just one-eighth of the world’s current military budget, we could meet Lester Brown’s famous “Plan B” goals for basic social improvements and restoring the Earth. Others have had the idea to tax trades by $.01 on the New York Stock Exchange to cover our National Debt—the basic idea is to harness the economy toward the benefit of the natural world and to an economy built around the protection of resources, otherwise risking the eventuality of perishing. As Brown (2011) points out, the population has doubled since the 1960s, but the economy has expanded eight-fold, led by American and Western influenc-

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

es—a fact of which Wilson is well aware. Like his predecessors in this book, Wilson distills his most complex ideas into concrete ideas that speak to most basic common sense. In the Future of Life (2002), Wilson transmits explicit instructions for the members of two general camps whom he calls simply “Earthfirst” and “human-first” camps—and interchangeably environmentalists and economists. He sees these opposing forces as representing deeply entrenched worldviews that inhibit the understanding of SES problems. He begins work by assuming that both economists and environmentalists are interested in preserving life on planet Earth. “No one says flatly, 'To hell with nature.’ On the other hand, no one says, ‘Let’s give it all back to nature’” (p. 182). Likewise, “the people-firster likes parks, and the environmentalist rides petroleum-powered vehicles to get there” (Wilson, 2002; p. 152). Wilson points out that everyone is somewhat of an economist since even most environmentalists enjoy technology, such as electricity, modern plumbing, etcetera (Wilson, 2002; p. 152). This is probably as true now as it was in the late eighteenth and early-tomid- nineteenth centuries when Thoreau, (1854), Leopold (1949), and Carson (1962) all lamented technological advances in the forms of trains, cars, and other machines that allowed people access to consume natural resources otherwise out of reach. However, Wilson calls the “people-first ethicist,” in contrast to the “environmental ethicist,” someone who considers only the short-term to the detriment of the long-term. His prescription for resolving the two is not as bad as one might expect, suggesting “[1] the breakup of ideological beliefs and any inherent ‘moral superiority’ attached to them; and [2] disarming” our ideological stances (p. 152), similar, again to his three predecessors in this book. But while initially trying to negotiate between them, Wilson finally condemns the people-first ethicist as fundamentally short sighted and crediting the environmentalist with seeing the long view. Wilson (1998) underscores an important social consideration: in 1950, 68 percent of humanity lived in developing countries. In 2000, it is estimated at 78 percent (Wilson, 1998, p. 197). A better standard of living for the populations of the world (and thus both human and ecological health and wellbeing) is therefore receding from reach, not expanding. In addition, it is developed countries that drive depletion of resources abroad as well as at home: A country that levels its forests, drains its aquifers and washes its topsoil downriver without measuring the cost is a country traveling blind. It faces a shaky economic future. It suffers from the same delusion as the whaling industry. As harvesting and processing techniques were improved, the annual catch of whales rose, and the industry flourished. But the whale populations declined in equal measure until they were depleted . . . Extend that argument to falling ground water, drying rivers, and shrinking per-capita arable land, and you get the picture. (p. 26)

167

168

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Wilson argues that, in order to ensure a viable future, countries must rely on “natural resource specialists” or “ecological economists” (2002). In examining key problem areas like the over-harvesting of fisheries, Wilson observes that the U.S. fishing industry dishes out $20 billion in annual subsidies to fisherman. Wilson (2002) notes, “[I]n the year 2000 alone the advantage to consumers is outweighed by the cost to fishery stocks. The subsidies are one reason that all of the key ocean fisheries are now below sustainable levels” (p. 183). While many economic schemes to price the economy have failed, Wilson argues that if contemporary scientific, socio-ecological, and ethical principles played a part in the economy, the planet could be preserved for people, plants, and animals. In Gloucester, Massachusetts, for example, subsidies designed to prolong the local economy based on fishing have saved jobs in the short term but have done more harm than good in the long run for those who earn their living by fishing. In the once thriving fishing community of Gloucester, despite millions of dollars in government subsidies, fishery managers found it necessary to enact the “most drastic catch limits ever seen in the history of New England fishing, slashing the amount of cod that may be caught in the Gulf of Maine by 77 percent” in May of 2013 (Russell, 2013). Since 2001, the number of fishing vessels that could survive in the exhausted fisheries diminished from over a 1,000 to a little over 300. Preserving jobs for the short-term thus did not result in long-term health and wellbeing for either the society or the ecosystem in which it was embedded. In 2011,they determined stocks were not repopulating, and the system was beyond repair (Russell, 2013). Were the principles of today’s ecologists employed too late? Unlike the architects of the Brundtland Report, most ecological scientists have not endorsed “trading off” between economic and environmental values. Wilson (1998) approaches are all globally scaled, like Lester Brown, arguing, “humanity must find its way to transcendent existence, solely by its own intelligence and will. Science is simply the best instrument at our disposal” (p. 68). Wilson (2002) boldly states that to protect human welfare, we must preserve most of the remaining natural ecosystems. To do that, we must put an end to poverty as well as raise human education, health, and the wellbeing of developing countries to give them the foundation and education to clearly see ecological values as the future stewards of biodiversity. Thus, ecological and human preservation become one and the same and can be accomplished through a simple preservationist understanding. Wilson offers simple, modest and Leopoldian suggestions of stewardship for achieving the environmental sustainability, on which all other forms of sustainability depend: • Raise money for local stewards • Ban hunting and fishing in areas of preservation and depleted regions except for aboriginals

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

• • • • • •

Broaden biotechnology to ramp up food production Cease all logging in old growth forests everywhere Restore and preserve all biodiversity hotspots (reservoirs of biodiversity) Increase global protected areas from 10 percent to 50 percent NGOs lobby for government buy endangered species Benefit the world economy, by making “conservation profitable” (p. 161-5 Future of Life)

Wilson (2002) stresses, like Leopold and Carson, the importance of forming partnerships with stakeholders, “Make the local people partners; give them an incentive to be stewards and guards of the reserve. Train them to be guides and resident wildlife experts” (p. 168). By 2000, the Nature Conservancy, for example, had invested $1 billion in biological reserves. Wilson’s environmentalist ultimately stands as the only logical and long-term sustainability viewpoint when considering all the values from the Three Branches together. Yet, biodiversity hotspots like Madagascar, the Brazilian forests, and the Great Barrier Reef are being destroyed before species can be named or their instrumental scientific and medical value to humans discovered. Many ecologists and environmentalists already envision the world as “exhausted” and “depleted” and one in which raising all human members of the Earth to the standard of living in the U.S. is an impossibility: If natural resources, particularly fresh water and arable land, continue to diminish at their present per-capita rate, the economic boom will lose steam, in the course of which—and this worries me even if it doesn’t worry you—the effort to enlarge productive land will wipe out a large part of the world’s flora and fauna. (Wilson, 2002, p. 27)

“For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet Earths” (Wilson, 2002, p. 23). Next, I discuss how Wilson illuminates what may be sustainability’s biggest problem, the rampart population growth among developing countries.

The H umanities : C urbing P opul ation and C onsump tion G row th Most people can understand how the natural and social sciences are essential to the humanities. But, what do we need to consider about the importance of the humanities in relation the practice of the natural and social sciences? How can the study of philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history, ethics, and language—areas that are normally referred to as “the Humanities”—contribute to sustainability?

169

170

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Continuing from the last section as it applies to population and consumption growth, Wilson (2002) argues that the people-firster or economist, in defending movements like mass-efficiency movements, believes “human ingenuity has always found a way to accommodate rising populations and allow most to prosper. The Green Revolution, which dramatically raised crop yields in developing countries, is the outstanding example” (p. 25). But the Green Revolution only went so far. Widespread starvation was avoided because of the Green Revolution during the same forty-year period boosted per-hectare yield dramatically with new varieties of rice and other crops better pesticide application, and increased fertilizer and irrigation . . . By 1996 the world grain carryover stocks, humanities emergency food supply, had declined 50 percent from the all-time peak reached in 1987. (p. 310)

Likewise, the economist most often cites the fact of the wellbeing of developing countries has risen in direct proportion to its economic growth and use of resources (Wilson, 2002). But as environmental historian J. R. McNeill (2000) points out, “Humankind has already played the fertilizer card in the Earth’s best agricultural lands, and further nitrogen and phosphate loadings no longer increase yields” (p. 45). The Green Revolution only addressed a symptom of the population problem, and ultimately contributed to the massive resource problems, mass migrations, and social upheaval in places like Africa and the Middle East. We must stop the net increase of our environmental footprint, and Wilson suggests that to accomplish this human population acceleration also must be slowed its population growth through encouraging an increase in literacy, good health, and family planning programs. Wilson details an account of ethics in Consilience, arguing human thinking and culture have evolved out of natural interactions in the physical world. Wilson believes ethics are also inspired by evolution and material origin. The scientific method and objective knowledge drive cultural ethics. Ethics are developed through the complementary processes of inductive and deductive reasoning, which are, in turn, driven by both holism and reductionism of material processes. Yet by understanding those processes, and by drawing upon concepts, values, and principles from the history of the humanities, a more transdisciplinary thinking society can arrive at a “code of principles” (p. 262). The grounds of these principles are based on the work of scientists and philosophers, who (as in the Enlightenment) have proven to aid a culture to thrive. What does this mean? Once again, and to explain his beliefs in simple terms, Wilson presents us with a polarized view of the planetary-survival discourse. The first is called “transcendentalist” (although this is not the same as Thoreau’s transcendentalist). Wilson’s “transcendental” mind is arrived at not through logic but through myth. The second, “empirical” mind instead uses

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

holistic thought and arrives at a position by using the most important knowledge available. Contending with population growth, for example, requires an empirical mind, and not a transcendental one, according to Wilson. The fact is, and as Wilson painstaking demonstrates though his analysis of carrying capacity current twenty-first century projections for the environmental footprint are that 1) we do not meet present human needs, and 2) we will be less able to meet future human needs. Three billion people currently do not have the basic food, water, and shelter to qualify as subsistence living. Wilson estimates because of the relative failure of the Green Revolution, mass starvation and conditions leading to modern warfare will be ever present through the rest of this century. It is now well-known the developed world has largely stabilized its population, while the developing world is likely to add nearly all of the next two and a half billion people within their borders. Wilson (2016) writes, “Demographic projections suggest that the human population will rise to about eleven billion or slightly more before the end of this century” (p. 58), given the continuous and nearly omnipresent desire for consumption resulting in an even steeper increase in the environmental footprint. More importantly, the developed world also continues to encourage economic models of continuous growth, even in developing countries where natural resources are often almost depleted or in the process of being depleted. In the coming years, global climate change is expected to create up to one billion environmental refugees due to sea level rise, flooding, drought, and desertification among other causes (personal communication, 2014; Rees and Wackernagel, 1992; 2011; Wilson, 2002), once again illustrating rising consumption as intertwined with other SES challenges. As Erhlich and Commoner demonstrated in the 1960s and 1970s, the great inequities of global population and consumption extend beyond the mere mathematics of Thomas Malthus. It should be noted the field called sustainable development education (SDE), like the three-pillar paradigm itself, has more closely reflected the technocratic and cornucopian framework of the United Nation (UN) documents (Thomas, 2009). In the recent UN “Post 2015” Report, for instance, the authors made it the normative mission to protect Lowest Developing Countries (LDC), now being hit hardest by surging population growth (UN, 2013). The UN’s mission encourages “the fair distribution of new and appropriate technologies [to] promote steady improvements in living conditions, which can be lifesaving for the most vulnerable populations, and drive productivity gains which ensure rising incomes” (p. 1). But, in order to preserve LDC, the UN imperative as stated is to provide countries of lowest socio-economic development by primarily acquiring “technologies for health and wealth” (p. 4). Tellingly, it includes no explicit measures to preserve ecosystems.

171

172

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Technology is not the same as science; it is an application of science. Like many UN documents, the “Post 2015” report conflates wealth and technological advancement with sustainability and science. While such documents are aimed at addressing the social equity between Global North and Global South, they fail to include the notion that science and technology should be geared at preserving and restoring natural systems on which civilizations have depended for centuries. Brown (2015), Hartmann (1995), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) however have estimated that the world’s population will level out at eleven and a half billion people. This vastly exceeds the estimates of the earth’s carrying capacity threshold made by most population ecologists. Although the populations of developed countries have begun to reach equilibrium in many cases and will not experience as much population growth, net footprints and consumption levels—often at per-capita consumption rates 25 to 250 times as much as per-capita consumption rates of developing countries— persistently continue to rise. While speaking broadly of “science,” the “Post-2015” report does not refer to the basic needs of humans and ecosystems themselves. This can be seen when it depicts integrated socio-ecological problems like climate change, population growth, biodiversity loss, and lower local-to-global carrying capacities as if science’s sole role wholly concerned advances in engineering, research, and development. The UN’s mission focuses on noble, albeit vague, values of economic and technological equity. However, this mission appears to envision society as existing in a vacuum, encouraging nations to provide “the fair distribution of new and appropriate technologies [to] promote steady improvements in living conditions, which can be lifesaving for the most vulnerable populations, and drive productivity gains which ensure rising incomes” (UN, 2014, p. 1). The United Nations’ “Post-2015 Consensus Review” author Bjorn Lomborg (2001) has criticized the ecological footprint concept for presenting doomsday scenarios. This is despite Lomborg (2001) characterizing UN goals of ending malnutrition and providing jobs for everyone as “both unrealistic and uneconomical” (p. 2) and calling for the widespread distribution of prophylactics and increased development spending over medicine and education. Both Jorgenson, et al. (2002) and Nordhaus and Shellenberger (2013) have criticized the ecological footprint for being based primarily on carbon footprint (which Rees and others fully admit) and not allowing for a sudden shift toward renewables that could potentially return us within carrying capacity. But the sudden shift to the large-scale use of renewables has in fact not occurred, and it may never come without some drastic changes to the way we see, treat, and think about culture, economics, and ecology. In addition, how technology is used, who pays for it, and who benefits are all topics for suitable for the field of ethics. Growth in population and consump-

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

tion do present new ethical dilemmas, especially regarding the myth of technological advancement leading to a flourishing utopia. Further, Wilson says that ethics designed to benefit human populations and sacrifice ecosystems, however noble they may appear in initial appearance, are in fact neither likely to support human populations in the long run nor create sustainable global systems (Wilson, 2002). As discussed in the previous two chapters, scientific and technological developments cannot be compartmentalized. Instead, they are inextricably tied to the normative values of sustainability (Kates et al., 2012; UN, 2014; Vucetich & Nelson, 2010). Put another way, “the necessity of looking at nature through a variety of disciplinary lenses brings with it a variety of normative lenses, as well” and thus includes more than just an increase in wealth or technology, especially where the countries who develop that technology—the West—will have all the advantages (Sarewitz, 2003, p. 385). Unchecked population growth, over-consumption, and ecosystem loss result, in part, from the weak (or even non-existent) link between science and environmental ethics (Wilson, 1998), compartmentalization in academia, and “anarchistic pedagogy” that fails to connect communities to institutions for real-world problem-solving (van der Leeuw et al., 2012, p. x; Wilson, 1998). Unfortunately, narrow explanations of health and wellbeing limited to sporadic donations of money or the haphazard provision of medicine and technology from the developed world (as in the “Post-2015 Report”) fail to capture all of the normative lenses of both environmental and social sustainability. Better said: The productions of science, other than medical breakthroughs and sporadic thrills of space exploration, are thought marginal. What really matters to humanity, a primate species well adapted to Darwinian fundamentals in the body and soul are sex, family, work, security, personal expression, entertainment, and spiritual fulfillment—in no particular order . . .. Science, however, is not marginal. Like art, it is the universal possession of humanity, and scientific knowledge has become a vital part of our species’ repertory. It comprises what we know of the world with reasonable certainty. (Wilson, 1998, p. 293)

Here, Wilson (1998) conveys a salient insight about humanity that resonates of recent political discussion in America and essential in combatting a “post-truth America.” Further, Wilson argues that it is essential to understand not only ecosystem needs but also the elemental needs of human societies. Evolutionary needs are essential for understanding the much more complex systems of ecology, human nature, and advanced social systems. Therefore, understanding ecology and culture as one thing would not be such a significant issue, were it not that ethics, Wilson (2002) argues, are the very lynchpin to the survival of both:

173

174

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson . . . [E]thics is everything. Human social existence, unlike animal society, is based on the propensity to form long-term contracts that evolve by culture into moral precepts and law. The rules of contract formation were not given to humanity from above, nor did they emerge randomly from the mechanics of the brain. They evolved over tens of hundreds of millennia because the coffered among the genes prescribing them survival and opportunity to be represented in future generations [my ital.]. (p. 325)

Figure 13: Edward O. Wilson is considered the world’ leading expert of myrmecology. (Public Library of Science, 2003)

In the Social Conquest of the Earth (2012) and numerous other places, E. O. Wilson argues culture must be linked to the natural sciences to be explained and understood. As an eco-humanist, Wilson views most people’s non-scientific reasoning as stemming from the lingering denial of the theories of evolution and natural selection—foundational to almost all contemporary work in physics, chemistry, biology, and climatology. What is the purpose of life? Theology—possibly the most powerful driver in historically shaping civilization—“which long claimed the subject for itself, has done badly” Wilson (1998) writes (p. 294). According to Wilson, theology has performed miserably, and philosophy has seemingly accomplished little more in the postmodern sphere than the idea that nothing can be known for certain. Wilson argues this is neither true nor relevant to the very real crisis at hand. Wilson contends it is rather gene-culture coevolution that have created our familiar human values of co-operation, healthy competition, and even our worst traits like xenophobia, as a protection against other warring tribes.  Wil-

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

son’s “transcendental” ethics seem to me to have been spread not by logic, but by territorial conquest and domination of land as well as people. However, even ecologists like E. O. Wilson, tend to disagree about the importance of myths. Wilson says they are essential for the formation of language and science. From the Social Conquest of the Earth (2012): The early humans needed a story of everything important that happened to them, because the conscious mind cannot work without stories and explanations of its own meaning. The best, the only way our forebears to explain existence itself was a creation myth . . . The creation myth was the essential bond that held the tribe together. It provided its believers with a unique identity, commanded their fidelity, strengthened order, encouraged valor and sacrifice, and offered meaning for life and death. No tribe could survive long without the existence of a creation story. The option was to weaken, dissolve and die . . . (p. 291)

The West has an inseparable identity with Genesis, Ecclesiastes, the New Testament, etc., and it would certainly be a lesser of place without this influence. Imagine how America's identity would suffer without, say, the story of the Normandy Invasion, and Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River, and the story of Chicago during Prohibition. Our story cannot simply be told through statistics alone. Tribalism, the desire to belong, the self-sacrifice that is invariably called upon from some members of a society so that others may go on are all components of the sciences and humanism. Hence, if we want the human race to persist, how can we solve the problem of exponential population growth in the developing world? Notably, Wilson argues in order to be humane, resources must be expanded through “sustainable development” (p. 317). Thus, he would be ideologically pitted against the thesis of this book, were it not for his never mentioning the Brundtland Report or any UN groups except for the IPCC. Unlike the UN’s definition, Wilson’s placement of sustainable development rests squarely and firmly within the realm of environmental sustainability and in the preservation and restoration of our “life-support system.” He argues, “To the extent that we banish species we will impoverish our own, for all time” (p. 326). Wilson does not throw humanity under the bus, so to speak, for the sake of ecosystems but instead argues on the behalf of developed countries. To curb population, Wilson pushes for the only thing a population ecologist could: a demographic transition to raise the standard of living, in which birth rates would naturally drop off with the rise of standard-of-living. Like Brown, he argues, we need to save failing states, wipe out poverty, and institute family planning. We “must feed the world now but also raise the standard of living of

175

176

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

the population at least to the middle of the twenty-first century” (Wilson, 2002, p. 189). It might sound strange coming from an evolutionary biologist and naturalist, but as Wilson (2015) argues in the Meaning of Human Existence (2015), the mission to understand humanity’s place in relationship with nature can only be achieved through uniting science and the humanities: To understand cultural evolution from the outside looking in, as opposed to the inside looking out, the way we do it, requires interpreting all of the intricate feelings and constructions of the human mind. It requires intimate contact with people and knowledge of countless personal histories. It describes the way a thought is translated into symbol or artifact. All this the humanities do. They are the natural history of culture, and our most private and precious heritage. (p. 57)

C onclusion Wilson writes that we have reached an “environmental bottleneck:” Like the Sumerians, Greeks, and the Khmers (discussed in the Introduction to this book), we are faced with socio-ecological dilemma: the same technologies that propelled us to success are the ones portending our demise. Rees and Wackernagel (1992) have noted tradition from Limits to Growth (1972) to Rio largely framed sustainability in terms of carrying capacity over 40 years ago, subsequent UN-literature ignored its warning and framed sustainability around an economic imperative of continuous growth that is intrinsically incompatible with thermal and material laws. The Limits to Growth (1972) sought to elucidate five socio-ecological system problems in need of alteration to prevent complete and catastrophic social, economic, and ecological collapse. The authors stated that global transformations were needed in five categories: population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion. I assert the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s—directly inspired by writers like Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson, and taken extremely seriously by then young scientists like Wilson—saw the world in crisis, and largely framed the problem of sustainability correctly almost fifty years ago. The discussion about sustainability arises, as has the discussion about environmental movements, from real-life socio-ecological system problems. But once the Bruntland Report (1987)—and the three pillars—captured the attention of development and planning theorists and practitioners, “trading-off” among the three pillars became a standard part of all sustainability planning. The stated compromise between environment and economy, and the trading-off between ecological and economic values are fundamentally incompatible with the preservationist and restorationist principles of naturalists (Redman, person-

Chapter 5: Wilson, the Era of Sustainable Development and Global Sustainability

al communication, 2014). The Brundtland Report does not address the spatial and temporal scales with which sustainability is necessarily concerned. UN-based literature, like Brundtland, has done little to protect land health worldwide and preserve carrying capacity as its stated goal in the report (Shiva, 2000; IUCN 2004). The environmental footprints of most developed countries extend far beyond their borders. And, as the populations of developing countries continue to grow exponentially, and as they become more unstable and are unable to satisfy their own needs, population growth and consumption among the global middle class is likely to decimate the ecologies of many biodiversity hotspots and increase the rate of historical over-consumption patterns if not contained (Brown, 2011; Wilson 2002). Many historians seem to have chosen to view all of the documents discussed earlier as progressing core sustainability values. But here, I provide evidence that two opposing strains of thought formed the center of these documents, and that one was environmentally centered, and another was ecologically centered. Written by scientists, Limits to Growth (1972), The World Conservation Strategy (1980), and Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living (1991)—all of which used “sustainable development” were centered on solving wicked problems. These non-UN documents, were published parallel to the UNCHE (1972), the Brundtland Report (1987), and the Earth Summit (1992), the first two of which were centered on economic growth, and the latter of which carried no financial commitments from its members. In an attempt to provide sustainable development with a more fully developed ecological platform, the first group attempted to create science- and ecology-based documents to focus the concept; ironically, these efforts instead propagated and further entrenched UN discussions structured around the instrumental and economics-centric focus of sustainable development. Since the Enlightenment, science and ethics have since been taught as primarily separate fields. And, this practice persists to this day (Minteer, 2011; Norton, 2005; Wilson, 1998). As a biologist, myrmecologist, and eco-humanist, E. O. Wilson (1998; 2002) calls for recoupling the sciences and humanities, especially within the ivory towers of higher education. It may seem ironic that the strategy to save the planet offered by a scientist (and someone outwardly opposed to most organized religions) of Wilson’s magnitude “begins, as in all human affairs, with ethics” (Wilson, 2002, p. 151). Most issues that generally vex politicians and come before the U.S. Congress (such as ethnic conflict, escalation of arms, environment, or poverty) require that knowledge from natural science are integrated with social sciences and humanities so these problems can be solved.  Wilson (2002) asserts: What is the relation between science and the humanities, and how is it important to human welfare? Every public intellectual and political leader should be able to answer

177

178

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson that question . . . Most of the issues that vex humanity daily—ethnic conflict, arms escalation, overpopulation, abortion, environment, endemic poverty, to cite several most persistently before us—cannot be solved without integrating knowledge from the natural sciences with that of the social sciences and humanities. Only fluency across the boundaries will provide a clear view of the world as it really is, not as seen through the lens of ideologies and religious dogmas or commanded by myopic response to immediate need. (p. 13)

Wilson (1998; 2002), like the other three ecohumanists that ethics are the key to our survival. Moreover, Wilson (1998) advocates that we are capable of living well with the technology we have now. At the end of each of their books, both Carson (1962) and Wilson (1998) discuss making the right technological choices and following the right path with the wise use of technology, which can only be understood from outside the sciences in the realm of ethics. While Wilson (1998; 2006; 2012) often hails the miracles of science as evidence of a higher order, he also tempers such sentiments with a human and natural philosophy based on precaution and logic. “It is too early to speak seriously of ultimate goals, such as green-belted cities and robot expeditions to the nearest stars. It is enough to get Homo sapiens settled down and happy before we wreck the planet” (p. 325). Wilson’s work has clear solutions for wicked problems derived from a synthesis of the values he sees arising from the Modern Synthesis, the co-development of genes and culture, and a deep understanding of the history of ethics in its relationship to the history of science. He suggests we mitigate our carbon, pay for the life-support systems of the ecosphere, and feed the poor through a much more equitable existence between the Global North (which consumes most of the resources and produce the most carbon) and the Global South (which is the most vulnerable but has untold assets of biodiversity, which may be one of the most valued future commodities). He derives his transdisciplinary vision from over half a century of studies in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. His vision, like those of the other ecohumanists in this book, demands we preserve and restore nature’s original ecosystems and abundant diversity. Since the ecosphere has been transformed, the naturalists suggest the principles of sustainability also need be transformative.

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

Our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides, but they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history, to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.  A ldo L eopold, “E ngineering and C onservation ” (1938)

Often forgotten in sustainability discourse is that only a radical transformational change—or a major paradigm shift—will make us ecologically fit beyond the 21st century. While many contemporary sustainability scholars seem to agree, perhaps J. J. Ferng (2014), an ecological economist, states it best, arguing that living within the global carrying capacity would mean a radical transformation “from the prevailing human-demand-oriented consumption mode to the land-supply-oriented consumption mode” (p. 108). “Transformation” of our current economic, ethical, and educational systems has been argued to be “necessary to avoid mounting crisis and even possible future collapse” (Hopwood, et al., 2005, p. 41). Naturalists, as our first scientists, ecologists, and field biologists, have written extensively from the foundations of physical and material conditions. To derive findings in more abstract fields like ethics, philosophy, and cultural history, naturalists have relied on their direct observation of natural phenomena, as well as mining natural history and all the inescapable results of our human impact. Such efforts provided them with a “long view” on SES and sustainability problems that is requisite in order to achieve constructive sustainability thinking and education. More important, however, has been naturalists’ holistic imperative, in the tradition of Aristotle, to apply their findings to the greater whole of not only the natural sciences but the social sciences and humanities as well. As I revealed in the last chapter, during the integration of sustainability concepts into international economic, social and environmental bodies such as

180

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

the United Nations and the IUCN, two opposing sides of sustainability present themselves. Although the opposing forces are more complex here than in previous eras however, Wilson penetrates to their core, distilling this opposition to two clear and opposing worldviews: environmentalist vs. economist. As Edward O. Wilson (2002) writes, “These stereotypes cannot be simply dismissed since they are so often voiced and contain elements of real substance, like rocks in snowballs. But they can be understood clearly and sidestepped in the search for common ground” (p. 152). It is not only during the creation of the sustainable development paradigm but throughout history, that we can understand the roots of this problem and the solution. In this book, I have suggested that there is an environmental polarization that dates back to the beginnings of the Enlightenment, and stems from the key division of thinkers at that time, one Aristotelian, and one Platonic. The contemporary sustainable development discourse has often replicated past assumptions about knowledge and value in the Three Branches. Four historical naturalists and ecohumanists from four eras express concepts, values, and principles that can help overcome aspects of these inherited problems. Each chapter of this book has framed a current SES and sustainability challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising consumption, and many more, as well as having with multiple and cascading socio-ecological effects, and that these problems are integrated with the other SES problems. Ecohumanists’ most foundational principles—and principles that address these that explored in this book come from four naturalists from the American environmental tradition that emphasizes scaling down consumption and growth, and precaution in managing ecosystems. I have called them ecohumanists because of their proto-coupled systems, proto-ecological economics, and proto-transdisciplinary thinking. Throughout this work, I have held that the principles espoused by these naturalists should be leveraged to clarify, enhance, and advance sustainability theory practice and education. I hold that as proto-ecological and systems thinkers, they can help guide us through the growing complexity and uncertainty in the twenty-first century.

Thore au and L ocal S ustainabilit y In the Introduction, I first described idealistic and non-scientific yet holistic ideologies as those presented by the philosopher and first social scientist, Plato. This highly influential philosopher viewed human beings as separate from nature, and the natural world we lived in was as one dimensional like shadows on a cave’s wall in comparison to that which arose out of “primitive” and unscientific Idealism (Mumford, 1961, p. 121). Normative Christian ideas, values, and principles during the Enlightenment were tacitly idealistic, Platonic, and

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

orderly (Farber, 2000; Worster, 1977). But not only did Plato’s philosophical, spiritual, and ethical worldview guide ideas of science and philosophy during the Enlightenment, it also set man at odds with nature. Platonic and Idealistic thinking relegates the natural world as one created for human beings to exploit to its fullest. In a highly influential example of Platonic idealism and Christian dominion thinking during the Enlightenment, Linnaeus presented a hierarchical structure that linked providence to the exploitation of nature for economic growth. Linnaeus substituted the “Supreme Engineer” for Plato’s concept of a “Spirit of Nature,” and the “Sublime” (Worster, 1977a, p. 42). This worldview would eventually lead to massive environmental exploitation through colonialism and the industrial revolution (Kingland, 2005, Nash, 1973; Wilson, 1998, Worster, 1977; 1985). One of the cultural theorist Michael Foucault’s (1926-84) sub-hypotheses in the Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1975) is that idealistic Linnaeans often choose form over function, energy exchange, and phenomena. The word “species” is even a translation of the word “form” or idea (Dennett, 1995, p. 36). In accordance with the influence of Plato’s forms and idealism, the cultural theorist Foucault (1973) has also argued that the “limit of knowledge” is precisely the limit of language (p. 20), making it problematic that ecosystems—more often than not— are described as “natural resources” and “natural capital.” Foucault (1973) famously argued that economic domination is inherent in our language, and thus the language has helped to delineate the field of ecology itself. This conceptualization of the natural world as form-specific—one adjacent to and equally complex spiritual world—has often led society to take from the environment without considering long-term consequences, and was one of Western society’s ongoing organizing characteristics to the postmodern era (Foucault, 1973). Foucault (1973) therefore writes of Linnaeus that, like Plato, “he opposed historical knowledge of the visible to philosophical knowledge of the invisible” (p. 138). Such a mindset was part of Christian colonialism and in the US Westward expansion by pioneers into previously pristine territories during the rise of industrialism through the nineteenth century, setting the foundation for an economy built on environmental externalities. During European colonization of the Americas, settlers had all but extinguished Native American agricultural methods that restored important nutrients to the soil (e.g., burning and allowing land to lie fallow). Furthermore, while not all pioneers saw the natural world as an enemy, pioneers though lack of knowledge may have literally been unable to see their effect of local species extirpation on the larger forests, prairies and other ecosystems before they were fully discovered (Nash, 1973). Although the first

181

182

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

population ecologist Thomas Malthus’ warned that exponential growth and expansion would lead to war, famine, and destruction, colonialism spread the values of industrialism and efficiency around the world. Pioneers devastated integrated forests, prairies, and riverine systems in the US, homogenizing many ecosystems. The unfortunate effects of industrialism and classical economics on both environmental and human systems is a common thread throughout Thoreau’s oeuvre, whether his subject is a journey to New York City, meanderings in his backyard of Concord, or the far reaches of civilization in Maine and Canada. Though the subject of Thoreau’s first major article was flora and fauna, he evidenced very early on that his socio-economic views were inextricably intertwined with his environmental views. The larger philosophical milieu of Thoreau’s time would shape his approach to science, natural history, art, governance and economics. To Thoreau, flawed systems of human design like government and economics separated man from nature, God, and himself. Much of his later writing fiercely attacks the socio-economic predicament of mid-century Americans, including his most widely-known essays from Walden (1854), and other late essays such as “Life without Principle” (1863), “The Last Days of John Brown” (1860). Thoreau did not see any of the emerging ideologies of socialism, communism, or utopianism as providing a more humane economic framework. He understood the emerging ideas of European utopian socialists and their communes that promised to remove the greed human beings were exposed to in modern society. Thoreau was offered a chance to participate in their experiments being established in the US. Society in Concord were discussing the socialist ideas of French economist Charles Fourier (1772-1837) and American economist John Adolphous Etzler (1791-1846), friends of Emerson through Horace Greely (1811-1872), who proposed socialist solutions. Ultimately, for Thoreau, Minteer (2006) writes, only “unspoiled nature … offered the necessary distance from American industrial and commercial values so that the latter could be seen in their perspectives, i.e. as means, not as final ends” (p. 93). Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of such movements, Thoreau wrote a harsh critique in the Dial in 1843 of Etzler’s Paradise within the Reach of All Men, without Labor, by Powers of Nature and Machinery, an Address to All Intelligent Men published in 1833 (Thoreau, 1843/2012). One might think Thoreau would have attacked the idea that technology could solve humanity’s problems and freeing them from a flawed earthly existence. Instead, Thoreau condemned the book for lauding a world where the only end in life worthy of humanity’s attention was sustained pleasure and leisure. Thoreau synthesized scientific and philosophical discourse. Thoreau lived during America’s rising industrialism in an era that naturalist E. O. Wilson (1998) and environmental historian Laura Walls (1995) refer to as a unique

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

time in history time. This was a time when the three branches—the sciences, social sciences, and humanities—were thought of as an interconnected body of knowledge. As Walls (1995) puts it, Thoreau consolidated two competing narratives during his era, which she calls rational holism and empirical holism. I have posited that he integrated disparate natural and philosophical concepts for sustainability thinking. As one of the few non-Native Americans in his time who admired the lifestyle of the Native Americans, he provided a model for reducing net impact based not on luxury but on needs, and developed a nuanced, contemplative, and ethical relationship between nature and culture.

L eopold and R egional S ustainabilit y Hans Carl von Carlowitz, who is sometimes referred to as a naturalist, managed the planting and cutting of conifers to fuel the mining industry as the degraded state of the forests in Germany presented economic and expansion problems for the state (Grober, 2012). In his era, Germany led the industrialization occurring in Europe. These practices, almost needless to say, did not account for economic externalities of biodiversity and soil loss. For example, the homogenization of most of Germany’s forests into spruce and pine stands that have presented a considerable challenge for forest sustainability in the twentieth (Leopold, 1936) and twenty-first centuries. Much to the chagrin of John Muir, a later naturalist during the Progressive Era who fought for the preservation of nature for spiritual and aesthetic purposes, Gifford Pinchot embraced von Carlowitz-like language and methods: such efficiency methods for the USFS to increase national productivity. Von Carolwitz’s philosophy of wise use and sustainable yield were later applied to fisheries and agriculture, also introducing the concept of sustainability for the first time on a large scale. The “Dust Bowl,” which in many ways contributed to the Great Depression, was a result of legislators and farmers failing to understand the ecology of the Central Plains, and resulted in enormous amounts of soil loss still being felt today. The utilization of mono-agriculture produced an agricultural culture that, in time, wholly lost its resiliency. Nutrients set down over millions of years were quickly depleted by these intensive, widespread farming practices. When prolonged drought occurred vast quantities of dirt were lifted by seasonal winds. The drought and the loss of agricultural lands led to widespread poverty and hunger as well as mass migrations to places more inhabitable. Pioneers had assumed that the agricultural principles of the East and its temperate climates could be applied to the Southwest by adding water. “Progressive farming” following the stock market crash and the early dust bowls continued to drive mono-culture and machinery-intensive farming practices

183

184

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

to increase production that would irrevocably alter the biotic community of the West (Worster, 1979), which drove Leopold’s writing. With efficiency as a main driver of a civilization that one-day dreamed of freeing itself from manual labor, exponential increases in production (and subsequently, consumption) was discovered to be what is now termed the Jevon’s paradox. In 1856, William Jevons noted that despite England’s stated normative goal of conserving coal for future generations, improving the efficiency of a train’s stream engine would result in a lower cost which in turn, would increase production and consumption. It also resulted in exhausting the country’s supply of coal over the next 150 years. The truth is that most efficiency measures (like those that emerged from the Earth Summit) lead to more production and consumption (McDonough & Braungart, 2006; Hallet, 2012; Owen, 2012). The way sustainability leader David Owen (2012) puts it: When we talk about increasing energy efficiency, what we’re really talking about is increasing the productivity of energy. And, if you increase the productivity of anything, you have the effect of reducing its implicit price, because you get more return for the same money—which means the demand goes up. (p. 112)

Weak sustainability made even more demands on already strained systems, such as I have mentioned: the installation of unsustainable dams in the northwest, unsustainable monoculture farming methods in the Great Plains and the unrestrained clear-cutting of forests. Bryan Norton, author of Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management describes efficiency-based sustainability as a “weak sustainability model,” and one that Leopold counters with what he calls, “strong normative sustainability.” Leopold’s “normative sustainability,” as Norton (2005) defines it, is guided by policy science, environmental ethics, complex systems theory and an adaptive management paradigm. Most importantly he discusses the maintenance of “options” and integrity of place and community involvement all of which are inherent in Leopold’s philosophy (Norton, 2005, p. 314). Norton asserts Leopold introduced the idea that regional policy-science could be firmly rooted in environmental ethic, based on what is known today as resiliency. The findings of the emerging field of ecology by Clements and others recast ecology in terms of a much more holistic and systems-based view. The writing of Leopold’s understanding of socio-ecologigcal system (SES) interdependency and normative-thinking ethics reacted to “progressive” thinking at the turn of the twentieth century. Ben Minteer (2003) has elucidated Leopold’s pluralistic and transdisciplinary worldview that presents a more grounded and practical “third way.” Leopold’s worldview merges polarized ideological thinking like preservationist vs. conservationist and environmentalist vs. econ-

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

omist in the tradition of environmental pragmatism, and through experimentation toward an effective integration of pluralistic values. While Norton’s (2005) interpretation of Leopold has in many ways helped steer my own thinking on how naturalists can contribute to sustainability, I take issue with some points that may simplify his astoundingly comprehensive and transdisciplinary (but also rather complex and enigmatic, unlike Leopold himself) interpretation of Leopold’s body of work and “adaptive ecosystem management” in Sustainability. I instead describe Leopold in, I think, easily and clearly defined terms of a restorationist and preservationist, and based on a simpler integration of all knowledge under the umbrella of his interpretation of the field of ecology and its incorporation of the three branches of knowledge. Leopold, who witnessed the creation of our national parks and spent a lifetime fighting ideological disputes among disparate interest groups like hunters, planners, forestry and fishery harvesters, and farmers, eloquently clarified ideological conflicts that prevent the fusing of natural and social values.

C arson and N ational S ustainabilit y After WWII, both Leopold and Rachel Carson discuss how technologies sped up extraction of natural resources of timber, fuel, water and agriculture in America at an unprecedented rate. By 1947, for example, the chainsaw had been perfected, allowing timber cuts to take place “100-1000 times faster” than before the war (Mosley, 2010, p. 40). Natural resources and ecosystems were increasingly defined as “outputs and products” (Meine, 2004, p. 47). From the beginnings of scientific advancement, “forest industrialization” perpetuated an overwhelming rate of change (Meine, 2004, p. 47). The acceleration of discovery, followed by dependency on ever-rising levels of technology to meet daily needs during the second half of the century, further compartmentalized the natural and social sciences. During the “New Age of Ecology” (Worster, 1977) as it develops during the post-WWII era in America, Carson, an ecologist who worked for the US Bureau of Fisheries and Woods Hole, sought intellectually to convey the beauty, dynamism, and fragility of the global biosphere. Like Leopold, Carson (1951), a winner of the National Book Award for her poetic depiction of the interconnectivity of land and sea life, shifted gears later in life. In her final book, Silent Spring (1962), Carson brought forward concerns about the unprecedented as well as incalculable costs of agricultural externalities, demonstrating the toxic effects to human beings and nature. She ushered in a new, illuminating, and highly critical perspective on the rapidly increasing global externalities of human activity. Research and development in chemical and nuclear science had escalated rapidly after World War II. Barry Commoner was one among many who saw

185

186

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

the gap between science and social science ever widening, and they it upon themselves to fill that gap with the creation of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and as it evolved its own sustainability ethic. As early as 1966, Commoner said that we were “mortgaging future generations” with our industrial practices (Egan, 2007, p. 83), and like his contemporary Carson later, his contact with dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) research would heavily influence his beliefs that often centered on risk to both ecological and human health and wellbeing. Carson’s recent biographer Stewart Lytle (2006) writes in The Gentle Subversive. In a commencement address given to Scripps College in 1962, Carson spoke of the disruption to natural systems that had achieved balance only over geological time, saying: I clearly remember the days before Hiroshima I used to wonder whether nature—nature in the broadest context of the word—actually needed protection from man. Surely the sea was inviolate and forever beyond man’s power to change it. Surely the vast cycles by which water is drawn up into the clouds to return again to the earth could never be touched. And just as surely the vast tides of life—the migrating birds—would continue to ebb and flow over the continents, making the passage of the seasons.

The “new ecology” of this era (not so much unlike ecology as we know it today) had no choice but to recognize the massive impact of human beings on the environment, despite its very impressive technological achievements. Carson notes in Silent Spring (1962) that there were over “500 new chemicals to which the bodies of men and animals are required to adapt each year” (p. 7). Chemical combinations in the forms of bleaches, aerosols, dyes, and other chemicals never seen before in the universe became part of everyday American consumption practically overnight. This was especially true in the federally backed agricultural industry, which used propaganda aimed at American citizens to accept the production of more and more chemical-laden conveniences in the home (Carson, 1962). A holistic view and systems-thinking had driven Eugene Odum in the seminal the Fundamentals of Ecology (1955), where he described the science of ecology as something new, like sustainability, incapable of being captured by linear models Paul Sears and others who described ecology by its necessity to be a “subversive” science, and described part of its role in questioning the application of other sciences. He and others helped pave the wave for Carson, who became possibly the single most important precursor to an emerging environmental movement in America. Like Leopold (1949), Carson’s work (1962) proved that many of our practices, especially the eradication of certain species, were pathological, senseless, and extremely shortsighted. “Yet is the real problem not one of overproduction?” Carson asked (1962, p. 9), linking the ethics of government

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

and big business to its economic foundation of continued growth at any cost. Carson’s rhetoric built upon thinkers like Leopold, by noting that institutions like industrialized agriculture embodied a threat to future sustainability. Instead of confining her approach simply to highlighting how the private citizen could contribute to environmental issues, she demonstrated to the public the very real danger to their own health that they had been otherwise taking for granted. Feminist and environmental ethicist Vera Norwood (1987) has described how Carson illuminates the political and economic views of industrial economics during the post-WWII era as one in which neither the organic nor human household definitions of eco—the root to ecology and economics—are respected. Carson protested seeing species, including us, consistently and solely being framed in terms of “food chains” and “categorized as producers, consumers, reducers, and decomposers” (Norwood, 1987, p. 746), recalling Linnaeus’s production-based ecology. Carson literally brought the definition of eco, back into the home (in the spirit of Leopold’s ecology), and defined human ecology forever as one that must be monitored in all coming eras. In short, Carson initiated what Lawrence Buell (2003, p. 31) calls the “toxic discourse” that connected human and natural systems. Carson thus offers an apparatus for an integrated SES-based critique of our relationship with nature. Carson’s realization of human-natural interdependency is one of the reasons that Silent Spring became the strikingly instantaneous catalyst of the environmental movement. Her greater body of work presents a new ecological vision for transdisciplinary thought by focusing on interconnectivity of land and sea, non-point pollution on a global level, multi-generational environmental problems and risks, and the connections among chemical, hydrological, soil, ocean, and atmospheric science.

W ilson and G lobal S ustainabilit y Wicked problems became apparent to interdisciplinary researchers of the 1970s and 80s. In the 1970s, international bodies began addressing the most challenging problems of their time. UN documents like the Stockholm Convention, the Brundtland Report and the Rio convention helped trace the term sustainable development from its first use in the early 1970s to its centrality in environmental discourse in the late 1980s, and compromise what I call “the received tradition.” During the same period, an alternative tradition for contemporary sustainability, characterized by the Limits to Growth (1972), the World Conservation Strategy (1980), and Our Common Journey (1999), on the other hand, depicted sustainability as the mechanism to protect the Earth’s coupled human-nature system from severe SES problems.

187

188

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

The Limits to Growth, The World Conservation Strategy, and Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living were sources of a framework that could accommodate the unprecedented rising consumption rates, the health of ecosystems, the growth of technology, and dissemination of advancing ecological knowledge. These principles were much more congruent with the principles of eco-humanists. These three non-UN documents and the naturalist tradition also support an alternative tradition for sustainability, and a heritage that system naturalists can claim as their own. This alternative tradition recognized SES problems and stressed applying systems thinking over the long-term. As SES problems stimulated the inception of this tradition, the tradition in turn developed a holistic approach to sustainability issues from all of the three branches of knowledge simultaneously. Essentially, this approach formed the center of contemporary sustainability thinking. In the coming years, global climate change is expected to create up to one billion environmental refugees due to sea level rise, flooding, drought, and desertification, among other causes (personal communication, 2014; Rees & Wackernagel, 1992; 2011; Wilson, 2002), once again illustrating rising consumption as intertwined with other SES challenges. Although UN literature is quick to point out these problems, they often do not provide substantial solutions to address the magnitude and complexity of these problems. The many “Failed States” of Chad, Haiti, Syria and the Sudan will likely never recover are in part due to ecological regime shifts that created the conditions for famine, dense populations, socio-political unrest, fighting over scarce resources and war. Meanwhile growing developing countries like India, China, Vietnam and Brazil, with more and more global “middle-class” members being born each day, also create more and more demand for energy-intensive products like meat, televisions, refrigerators and computers, and create rising environmental footprints, and accelerate energy use which leads to the warming of the planet and destruction of biodiversity. Likewise, developed countries show no sign of abating their net environmental footprint. Wilson’s polemic concentrates on issues of food and water, but is not limited to the United States or Western countries. He draws on a score of international examples, like China, where the cost of agriculture is rising as water resources are being depleted to meet the rising middle class’ demand for more food. As developing countries continue to emulate the economies of America and other developed countries and the global middle class continues to grow, over-consumption will increase and decimate local ecosystems, as well as threaten many biodiversity hotspots of our life-support system (Brown, 2011; McKibben, 2009; Wilson, 2002). Wilson has witnessed many of our greatest environmental disasters: the pollution of the Great Lakes and the Cuyahoga River bursting into flame, the damming of the Nile River, the birth of the AIDS epidemic, the killing of en-

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

vironmental activists killed by the Shell-corporation supported Nigerian government, the destruction of the Aral Sea, the pollution of space with thousands of satellites, and the creation of the ozone hole in the stratosphere. The late twentieth century, when modern globalization takes hold, is a backdrop that lurks beneath the service of even Wilson’s most gene-, species-, population- and ecosystem-focused research. Wilson contributes to sustainability thinking for the long-term, and guides our thinking about its ethical, economic, and educational theory. As technology grows and human beings it will begin to take a tighter grip on global resources. My analysis of Wilson’s work culminates in recent books, especially Consilience: The Unity of All Knowledge (1998) and the Future of Life (2002). Together, these works provide a contemporary, scientific, and comprehensive view of how natural and social systems function. In particular, his sophisticated development of transdisciplinary fields like sociobiology, biophilia, conservation biology, and the revival of William Whewell’s nineteenth century idea of consilience contribute to a human-natural ethic of enlightened self-interest—an evolutionarily based argument for the human affiliation with nature and a worldview driven by planetary survival that can help link SES problem-solving.

The F ailing B rundtl and Par adigm Is “sustainable development” an oxymoron, and inherently contradictive? The Minister of the Environment for Canada Tom McMillan (1989), though so, and wrote shortly after publication of the UN-produced Brundtland Report: [F]rom Gifford Pinchot to the Brundtland Commission, we have come full circle. Conservation was originally a doctrine of economic growth. Pinchot's theory of sustained yield forestry has now been broadened to encompass non-renewable resources and practices as remote from forestry as a computer is from a garden. But the principle in each case is the same: we must live off the planet’s interest—not its capital. What is more, we must make the kind of investments in the planet that will ensure sustained dividends. (p. 112-3)

As I suggested in Chapter 1, the IUCN (Adams, 2006) may have regretted the decision to validate sustainable development later, saying, “The Brundtland definition was neat but inexact. . .. In implying everything sustainable development arguably ends up meaning nothing” (p. 3). As discussed in Chapter 2, Rees has estimated the current overshoot of environmental resources and our ecological footprint at 1.5 planets—50 percent more than the carrying capacity of the Earth (WWF, 2014). Yet, such alarming statistics have not prevented economic growth-based frameworks aimed

189

190

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

at increasing production and consumption for more and more people from dominating not only sustainability thinking but also sustainability practices (Adams, 2006; Costanza, 1997; DuPisani, 2006; Jamieson, 1998; Kates, Parris & Leiserowitz, 2003; Solow, 1993; Svara, 2010). The UN has forwarded a paradigm of scientific management based on economic wealth and perpetual growth. While the UN has produced tens of thousands of pages devoted to sustainable development and solving global SES problems, its approach has not sufficiently framed the solution and therefore, has not proven entirely effective. The UN’s Brundtland Report (1987) and the Earth Summit (1992) set a framework based on the “three pillars” of environment-economy-social justice and “future generations,” which has been widely accepted as the definitive aspects of sustainability. In reality, this framework promised a “new era of economic growth” for all (WCED, 1987, p. xiii) that both developed and developing countries initially embraced, since they did not have to tighten their belts, but were encouraged to place economic growth as central to both development and environmental issues. This focus evolved out of the human development discourse that includes an overtly polarized human-first vs. environment-first interpretations (Wilson, 2002) and the practice of trading-off between oppositions (Gibson, 2006). The failure of the sustainable development discourse to include the subtleties of a natural and cultural historical sustainability discourse may be why economics has often been viewed as the dominant of the three pillars. So while we extol sustainability’s economic-based principles, e.g., efficiency, trade-off negotiating, transparency, local economies, etc., we often ignore long-standing sustainability principles derived from a more holistic and complex range of normative, scientific, cultural, aesthetic, and ecological values (Jamieson, 1998; Norton, 2005; Walker et al., 2004). Since its induction as the central organizing document of sustainability discourse, the Brundtland Report (1987) has promoted economic development to such an extent that it has subsumed environmental discourse, relegated it to be simply one of three pillars, and led to continued western models of human dominance over nature. It has also framed sustainability as a compromise between preservation and growth, pitting their values against one another. Although most economists admit that environmental externalities continue to present the largest problems to our current and inherited neoclassical economic framework (Caradonna, 2014), ecological economist Herman Daly (2004) points out economic decision makers often neglect them. Sustainability indicators, which specifically describe practical applications, have generally tended to emphasize a paradigm that promotes economic growth rather than ecological or social health and wellbeing (Adams, 2006; Costanza, 1997; DuPisani, 2006; Jamieson, 1993; Kates et. al., 2005; Solow, 1993; Svara, 2010). This bias has been attributed to a lack of agreed-upon indicators for these other val-

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

ues (Parris & Kates, 2003; Kates et. al., 2005) and the difficulty inherent in discussing normative values as metrics (Pijawka, 2015). Where locally based indicators do exist, in most cases they are lacking in some way and “need not be linked to land, the land’s functioning, or to any ecological science” (Newton & Freyfogle, 2005, p. 23). This lack of joining land functionality and ecological science to locally based sustainability indicators constitutes a mistake. This critical omission has led to the continuation of subsidies proven harmful to the environment and long-term economy and efficiency-based policies that devalue, undervalue, or ignore ecological factors. How can human sustainability economics not be grounded in ecological sustainability when we are approaching—or have surpassed as many would argue—the ecological carrying capacity of the planet (Brown, 2011; Pijawka, 2015; Rees, 1992)? In short, UN-based literature like the Brundtland Report has done little to protect land health worldwide and preserve carrying capacity as its stated goal in the report (Shiva, 2000; IUCN 2004). The environmental footprints of most developed countries extend far beyond their borders. And as developing countries’ populations continue to grow exponentially, and as they become more unstable and are unable to satisfy their own needs, population growth and consumption is likely to decimate the ecologies of many biodiversity hotspots and increase the rate of historical over-consumption patterns if not contained (Brown, 2011; Wilson 2002).

Figure 14: Scenarios of Growth. In the Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (Meadows, Randers & Meadows, 2005, p. 158).

191

192

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

The E arth ’s C arrying C apacit y Limits to Growth (1972) was criticized when the discovery of numerous deposits of natural resources suspended the envisioned catastrophic consequences (Mitcham, 1995; Simon & Kahn, 1984), and 1992 came and went without collapse as forecasted. Despite the fact that the predictions did not materialize, the authors’ concepts of ecological populations as a function of available resources, and the relationship to carrying capacity, can be easily understood using the x/y graphs in Figure 14. Scenario a) shows population keeping pace with the Earth’s carrying capacity. In this scenario, resources are abundant and/or efficiency will exponentially multiply their availability. Scenario b) shows that we have not yet reached the global carrying capacity and the population will smoothly level off —an unlikely scenario according to most sustainability scholars (Brown, 2011; Condon, 2012; McKibben, 2010; Rees & Wackernagel, 2012). Scenario b) is also unrealistic in that it demands signals from physical limits to the economy to be “instant and accurate.” Scenario c) shows that we have passed the carrying capacity and that signals and responses are delayed. This is likely the condition we now face. Finally, scenario d) depicts where carrying capacity is exceeded, forcing a reduction in natural resources and lowered carrying capacity both of which are irreversible (p. 158). Over the forty years post-Limits to Growth, the writers and systems-thinkers suggest that the second two scenarios (i.e., c. and d.) presented in the second update, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (Meadows, Randers & Meadows, 2005), seem the most likely. Neither of the last two scenarios allows for continuous growth in a world of finite resources. In their follow up document, Meadows, Randers & Meadows (2005) reiterated their predictions with only slight variations in the outcomes in many cases. The Limits to Growth (1972) and its follow-up articles have used well-known ecological principles to suggest that sustainability must be about cutting back our net impact, not just on the individual or community level but at national, regional, and global scales. It would thus serve us well to remember, as population ecologist Lester Brown (2011) put it, that “economic and social collapse is always preceded by a period of environmental decline” (p. 9). The tightly interconnected world of the 21st century–and an encroaching population of ten billion by mid-century–dictate protecting environmental and human values will overlap, if not become one-and-the-same. But politicians and capitalists like those currently controlling the executive branch and legislative houses in America love to place human and environmental values in opposition. We cannot have economic growth and jobs, they say, without loosening environmental regulations and using dangerous methods such as fracking–known to have scores of adverse effects on humans and environment alike.

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

While the problems associated with hydraulic fracking range from polluting drinking water to triggering earthquakes, the current White House administration is expanding mining so that the United States can become a leader in global gas exporting. In her final book, Dark Age Ahead (2005), the urban planner and activist Jane Jacobs foresaw a coming dark age because of crumbling family life and community welfare due to wicked social problems: because of a consumerist and individualistic culture; because economics is the main science of consideration for most governments; and because universities seem more interested in growing through publishing than providing high quality education. Of our social duty—not only to nature, but also to ourselves—Jacobs (2006) wrote: Any institution, including a government agency, that is bent upon ecological destruction, or an outrage on the built environment argues its case or bullies its opponents by righteously citing the jobs that supposedly will materialize, or even more effectively, the jobs that may be forfeited or jeopardized if the ugly deed is not done. To this day, no alternative disaster, including possible global warming, is deemed as a dire threat to job loss. (p. 59)

While Jacobs does not address ecological collapse in Dark Age Ahead (2005), in her penultimate book, the Nature of Economies (2001), she describes this cultural malaise in terms of collapse, driven by a lack of dynamic ability to change. Nature itself, she (2006) argues, provides an elastic and pulsating model for future economies, which unlike current systems, provide the ability to address destructive feedback loops and replace them with beneficial ones. Sustainability scholar David Owen remarks in The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse (2011), “One of our favorite green tricks is reframing luxury consumption preferences as gifts to humanity” (p. 3). The decoupling and “disconnect of ecology and economics” that began with the Industrial Revolution and transformed the world economy, also changed the worldview to one of natural resources with the sole functions as fuel for the economy only. While Norton (2014), who remarked that our country had relied on natural resources for national security since at least World War I, other researchers have said it began as far back as the Agricultural Revolution. While we have established that we need to pay for the protection of the environment, at international conferences, neither the top-tier of the Global North, nor the average, disenfranchised citizen of the Global South—with sometimes fractions of a percent in ecological footprint of the average Global North citizen—have been willing to fully pay for the attendant costs associated with global climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising consumption levels that re-

193

194

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

sult in the drastic reduction in the availability of food, water, energy, forest, and ocean products.

Tr ansformative D efinitions of S ustainabilit y Transformation necessary of SES to adequately address global climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising population and consumption rates, I argue in this book, are not be found in compromising among the three pillars (i.e. society, economics, and environment) as UN literature suggests, but in the transformation of our ethical, economic, and educational worldviews. Moreover, this transformation will rely on historically accurate, academically sound, natural and ecological science; it will utilize long-tested humanistic principles from our long discourse in the areas of literature, history, aesthetics, philosophy and especially ethics from the discourse of our past lessons learned, into the 21st century and beyond. Yet, even when transformational, scholars from the vast array of contributing disciplines, as well as those within disciplines, often find themselves at odds. For example, ecologist Stewart Brand calls for a “new paradigm” to replace the outdated precautionary principle adopted in the 1992 Rio Convention, and views all sustainability problems as capable of being solved by weighing and balancing risks (p. 208). Brand’s influence and popularity as an environmentalist began publishing the Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools in 1970. In the late 1970s he also served as special advisor to Jerry Brown, whose governorship helped make California one of the greenest states in the U.S. He has founded many environmental organizations, including the Long Now which is devoted to sustainability over the next 10,000 years. Brand argues that the combined efforts of grassroots organizations, corporations and renewable energies will fail to make human activity sustainable without large-scale, co-ordinated national and international intervention. To solve the growing problem of food security for example, Brand, a professed futurist, looks to genetically-modified foods (GMOs) versus low-tech urban agriculture, suggesting that GMOs can help conserve soil and fix carbon, as well as “fulfill Rachel Carson’s dream” of a “new science of biotic controls” (Brand, 2009, p. 164; Carson, 1962, p. 278). In Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto (2009), Brand proposes a technocratic vision for the US. Brand’s vision is centered on the introduction of large-scale projects in geo-engineering, urbanization, and nuclear energy, and he embodies the ideals of a top-down and technocratic worldview. The crucial component of Brand’s strategy for sustainability rests on future urbanization. Brand argues that the concentration of people in future cities will make it possible to solve problems of social inequity, diminishing food

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

security, and over-population. Cities are “wealth creators,” and the place for transformation of national infrastructure; he claims they can “go on growing forever” (Brand, 2009, p. 33). His faith in humanity’s ability to reign over Nature expresses extreme optimism: “We are gods, and we must get good at it” (p. 72). “We are become as gods, destroyers of worlds,” Bill McKibben retorts in Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (2010, p. 106), quoting Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad Gita and expressing a worldview based more on the precautionary principle not to mention some pessimism toward meeting our future needs. McKibben is a prominent environmental journalist whose iconic book, the End of Nature (1990), was one of the first to describe how climate change has irreparably altered the Earth. On urbanization, McKibben notes that migration often separates family members and breaks up communities that would otherwise have a bigger role in investment in, and the monitoring of, city sustainability planning and performance. Cities are also dependent upon stable weather and cheap oil. Instead of looking to urbanization as a solution, he predicts that migration patterns will soon reverse, as China’s did during the 2008 recession. Instead he suggests that we think about a city’s sustainability in terms of towns, neighborhoods and blocks. Only through the development of “generational communities”—especially those of the contextual American small town—can residents assume social responsibility for the environment (McKibben, 2010, p. 124). In facing climate change going forward, precaution, like the ecohumanists of this book, McKibben argues that caution, not risk, should be the guiding principle; technological developments alone make us nothing more than “mechanically advanced beavers” (McKibben, 1990, p. 55). McKibben, in contrast to Brand, views corporations, centralized governments and globalization as culprits rather than assets when valuing and preserving natural capital; he quotes Jared Diamond (2006) to point out that the most complex societies are the ones most likely to collapse. McKibben offers a blueprint for bottom-up policies that limit consumption and growth, respect ecological thresholds, and return society to less complex and more local agricultural and economic systems. He advocates intercropping and suburban gardens that can produce up to 50 percent of a city like Manhattan’s own food requirements, so that societies can once more rely on their traditional hinterlands (McKibben, 2010).

S ustainabilit y in the 21 s t C entury The term “sustainability” used as the key term (and not “sustainable development,” which the group expressed concerns over), as well as a more scientific-based foundation, took a huge leap became a formalized science when the

195

196

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

National Academy of Science (NAS) published Our Common Journey: a Transition for Sustainability (Kates & NRC, 1999). This document, though not international, echoed the language in “Our Common Future” and stressed sustainable transitions with a more ecological and “normative vision.” The concept of normative vision was important because it contained an ecological imperative grounded in factual data regarding the changes in the biosphere. These facts were a substantial part of that ethic, going far beyond previous ethics of economic and technological equity between developed and developing countries. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has also now recognized SES as inextricably intertwined with the emergence of a new transdisciplinary science, or a study that integrates all the branches of learning—sustainability science (Kates and Parris, 2003). SES research that discusses issues of global carrying capacity has been expanded upon in recent years by sustainability scholars such as Kates and Parris (1999; 2003) and William Clark (1999; 2007), who have highlighted mass poverty, the collapse of fisheries, and problematical ecological, economic issue, and environmental justice issues created by urban development to include megacities (populations of 10 million) with a substantial portion of the population living in urban squalor. As Kates and Clark (1999) state in Our Common Journey, an emerging sustainability science should: . . . focus on the dynamic interactions between nature and society, with equal attention to how social change shapes the environment and how environmental change shapes society. These movements seek to address the essential complexity of those interactions, recognizing that understanding the individual components of nature–society systems provides insufficient understanding about the behavior of the systems themselves. They are problem-driven, with the goal of creating and applying knowledge in support of decision making for sustainable development. Finally, they are grounded in the belief that for such knowledge to be truly useful it generally needs to be “coproduced” through close collaboration between scholars and practitioners. (p. 1)

Our Common Journey (1999), written by scientists, links the ideals of the Brundtland Report to the real world. Reminiscent of the Limits to Growth (1972), the second chapter outlines the historical trends of population, economy, resource use, and pollution, recognizing humankind as an ecological force and begins to shape the planet in terms of changes to the life support system. More important, the authors of Our Common Journey do not constrain its normative vision to instrumental values and natural capital, instead outlining its premier mission as protecting water, air, and land resources. While these academies acknowledged ecosystems as vital for human beings, and thus instrumental, their literature reveals the declining health of ecosystems vital to the survival of life as a whole, and not just as resources

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

geared towards increased wealth. Thus, their definitions of sustainability are not only social and technological but also biological and geological (Kates & Clark, 1999), helping to link sustainability more formally to the SES problems that can drive society’s collapse. With this shift, the term sustainability replaced sustainable development as the central term of focus (Grober, 2012).

W icked SES P roblems In recent decades, scientists Kates and Clark and many others have expanded this work. In addition, important research bodies, like the NAS, have recognized SES as inextricably intertwined with this new transdisciplinary science that examines pivotal wicked problems such as the decline of land health in the form of ecosystem diminution, agricultural soil erosion and depletion, and annual biodiversity losses at a rate logarithmically higher than past extinction rates (Wilson, 2002). These thinkers advocate for the resiliency, adaptive capacity, anticipatory governance, and transformation of current systems rather than relying on the more one-dimensional concept of efficiency-based sustainability; but it is one that is rarely employed in sustainability planning (Rees, 2006). I have argued that a true sustainability paradigm should arise from socio-ecological system (SES) problems, and principles provided by ecohumanists—not by economic, instrumental, and efficiency-based solutions that do not match the size and scope of the problems at hand. If we take these estimates of our ecological footprint as the truth—or even close to it—ecohumanists would probably say we need to intensify our efforts to preserve (and restore when possible) the natural diversity of global ecosystems. Diluting sustainability thinking with more efficient extraction methods may meet the theoretical demands of equity, economy, and environments; but this diluted, non-environmentally-focused approach still exhausts the planet beyond repair. Efficiency methods have historically failed to protect ecosystems, but they have increased production and consumption. In the end, they may only succeed in facilitating the efficient destruction of the ecosphere. Wilson writes of our “Anthropocene Era,” implying another race looking back on our extinct culture, “like the conquistadors who melted the Inca’s gold, they recognize the great treasure must come to an end—and soon” (p. 123). Many of ecohumanist suggestions as you have seen depart from incremental and efficiency-based solutions but at their core are more transformational. Transformation has been argued to be “necessary to avoid mounting crisis and even possible future collapse” (Hopwood, et al., 2005, p. 41). Since we are at or have surpassed carrying capacity, and populations are still growing quickly, sustainability demands the use of fewer environmental resources in total, which will come about only as the result of big and transformational measures;

197

198

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

however, transformations are not easy, and imply an end to many entrenched ideologies. I have suggested that we frame sustainability around the issues of socio-ecological system (SES) problems that most threaten a global carrying capacity that we have now reached or surpassed. In doing so, I have highlighted three of our most critical SES problems: human-induced climate change, biodiversity loss and extinction rates, and rising consumption patterns in both developed and developing countries. Increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are unprecedented over the past 800,000 years; and if the rising rate of greenhouse gases (GHG) is not curbed, the Earth’s average surface temperature could increase from 4.3 to 11.5 ºF (2.4 to 6.4 °C) by 2100 (IPCC, 2014). Ecologists also estimate extinction levels at 100-10,000 times the background rate of historical species loss, and the increasing specialization of human-welfare outputs has resulted in the homogenization of forestry, agricultural products, and other human subsistence outputs now essential to our lives. Finally, rising consumption patterns centered on an ever-growing middle-class, has created an incessant demand that forces energy, agricultural, meat, fish, lumber, pulp, and paper multinationals to use increasing dangerous and invasive methods that convert natural capital to match rising levels of demand in the developed and developing worlds. The problem, as Leonard (2009) puts it, is simply that throughout recent history there has been “more absolute growth overall: or people extracting, using, and disposing of more and more stuff ” (p. xix). Because of the way systems work, we can create better social and natural systems, but fail in global sustainability because “the subsystems needs to fit inside the constraints of the parent system” (Leonard, 2010, p. xviii). Much of today’s sustainability practices are not grounded in the realities of SES challenges and the parent system circumscribed by the term global carrying capacity, presenting a serious obstacle for sustainability practices. In particular, industry and finance leaders have framed the wilderness and its diversity as an obstacle to, rather than a source of, societal happiness. Examples of this are many, such as offshore mining for fossil fuels, the Keystone pipeline, fracking for natural gas, and other environmentally threatening and at times dangerous methods in the U.S. designed for a more sustainable, or secure, nation at the expense of a sustainable future.

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

E cological S ustainabilit y In order to base sustainability on social and ecological health and wellbeing that is based on the long-view of SES which sustainability is concerned, this book focused on answering how the principles of the foundational naturalists and holistic thinkers could help clarify, enhance, and advance sustainability discourse. I examined the current sustainability paradigm, its common practices, and university pedagogy. I asked, how could an integrated ecological and economic worldview capture a fuller range of human and natural values? I asked why was this perspective critical to programmatically operationalize naturalist thinking in sustainability discourse and education? The contemporary sustainability paradigm is still rooted in historical dichotomies of anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric worldviews, economic and environmental practices, and traditional multi-disciplinary university frameworks where the integration of scientific and normative values often fail to happen on more than a superficial level. The reason sustainability thinking has not made the world more sustainable is because our thinking has in many ways replicated assumptions about knowledge and value in both the sciences and the humanities. Each chapter of this book presented current sustainability challenges and SES problems, then turned to an intellectual history for both the roots of the problem, and the roots of the solution. I have proposed the knowledge contained in the tradition of naturalists—as not only proto-ecological thinkers, but also holistic thinkers who understood cultural barriers to sustainability—can overcome significant aspects of this inheritance, and found sustainability discourse in an American environmental tradition that linked important principles from science and ethics. Issues of sustainability, much like the issues during the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, most often arose not from theories and frameworks but serious problems, which inspired activists to demand that institutions be held accountable. Bill McKibben of 350.org, have responded singularly to dauntingly real and profoundly problematical environmental issues (Norton, p.c., 2014). McKibben (p.c., 2014), an environmental writer and climate-change activist who founded what the New York Times calls the largest activist organization ever, responded to my book. He wrote, echoing Leopold: [E]cology—the idea that everything is connected—was the most fundamentally important discovery of the twentieth century, far more useful in the long run than atomic power. And of course it was really only a discovery in the West; it was taken for granted in older and deeper cultures.

199

200

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

When asked which of the four ecohumanists is most important to sustainability discussions, McKibben (personal communication, 2014) framed them all as ecologists and activists: [T]hey're all very important to any discussion of a workable world. Thoreau was a consummate naturalist and a natural activist; Leopold understood far better than Thoreau the importance of community (natural but especially human); Carson was the first person to really take the shine off modernity; and ‘Ed’ is not only the greatest scientist of the bunch (though Leopold gives him a run for his money) but also a powerful conservationist.

These naturalists and ecohumanists have described the root of the problem in placing the health and wellbeing of humankind in opposition to that of nature and ecosystems. To develop sustainability systems that subvert old ideas about the relationship between nature and culture on a global level is an enormous undertaking. But it is one most ecologists feel we will become more and more aware of as arable land, productive fisheries, coral reefs, first-growth forests, species diversity, sustainable rural communities, potable water, and glaciers become scarce, more expensive, and in some cases, extinguished from our natural world. The challenges our global community faces in the twenty-first century will be an enormous undertaking. Most thinkers who understand the concept of carrying capacity have suggested radical changes. To cite one of the now clichéd metaphors regarding the shift in living comparable to the mobilization of the entire nation as in fighting the Axis powers during World War II. Yet, this metaphor and concept are fitting for the socio-ecological system (SES) problems that threaten global carrying capacity. Whether you call it conservation, sustainability, conservation biology, or resilience, or adaptive capacity, the problem of not “eating your corn seed” suggests fully dealing with SES problems requires an integrated framework of the normative sustainability paradigm, linking ecological and economic theory and practice, and merging principles from the Three Branches.

L ast W ords The view of Earth from space reveals not that the Earth is metaphorically like a “space-ship”—a technological achievement—but rather that all life in the solar system lives in a closed-system. Except for sunlight, no resources go in or out. Whether framed environmentally as ecosystem resources, or economically in hard numbers, this means that the unsustainable use of resources beyond natural recharge rates, and in ways that pollute the atmosphere, and diminish-

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

es biodiversity is decreasing the actual and tangible health and wealth of the planet. Ecohumanists call for a much more transformational sustainability based on SES problems. In a world where both society and nature have been culturally constructed as in Platonic idealism (and often in denial of real environmental problems), each of the four ecohumanists of this study help ground us in real-world and imperiled cultural and natural systems. This sets an example of creativity, non-conformity, and it is Thoreau’s particularly agile ability (like Aristotle and Buffon) to make inferences about society from his findings in the natural world that has inspired so many naturalists, ecologists, and environmentalists. These four naturalists from the American environmental tradition suggest a more transformative and ecologically based sustainability discourse. Today, Thoreau is often accredited for spawning our first “land ethic” as well as “environmentalism” itself (Wilson, 2002, p. 144; Worster, 1977). Leopold became a forerunner of a one-coupled-system worldview and introduced a new paradigm of SES problem-solving for sustainability discourse. By exposing our dependency on ecosystems as a whole, as well as recognizing the inherent instrumental value of appreciating what we cannot yet fully understand, Carson and Wilson began with a deep understanding of human-natural interdependency and the fragility of natural systems, before identifying civilization as the key to ecosystem sustainability. In final, to answer to the question “what is sustainability?” I submit that the ecohumanists would define it not as a new science, or a new field, or a new framework, or as a matrix of sustainability indicators. Rather, they would define sustainability as a set of problems that threaten cultural and natural health and integrity. Ecohumanists seem to have interpreted sustainability as it not in terms of outcomes or solutions, but as core, systemic problems and challenges. The historian, novelist and environmentalist Wallace Stegner (1909-93) said, “conservation is a task.” Conservation biologist, Curt Meine (2004), the leading national Aldo Leopold scholar in his most recent book, has called conservation “the oldest task in human history,” relating it to the Native Americans and the Ghost Dancers who upon the Great Plains a hundred years ago “tried to dance [the world] back into existence” (p. 15). Ecohumanists have generally interpreted anthropocentric worldviews, economic-based conservation policies and projects that interpret sustainability as in beneficial terms of output, and the lack of education about ecology as problematic to plant, animal, and human health and wellbeing as serious challenges. These challenges demand a change in the worldview of our relationship with nature, the management of our economic system, and the revitalization of a relationship between governments, businesses, communities and educational systems that has so far failed to make the world any more sustainable and has not learned from the lessons of the past.

201

202

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

The origins of SES challenges appear throughout prehistory to today. Since the beginning of the agricultural revolution shifting climates, over-farming and hunting which lowered soil carrying capacity and extirpated prey, and rising consumption that was dependent on the continued expansion and conquest, has turned ancient civilizations into crumbling empires. The first policies during the Enlightenment, as forests were being depleted for shipbuilding, conquest, and the fueling of first seeds of industrialism, sent us to the far corners of the globe in search of more and more raw materials. During the Progressive Era (1890-1920), the creation of the first national parks, and the end of the American West, we sought to make the land we had ever more productive, in an increasingly more crowded United States. The environmental movement the 1960s and 1970s, not at all the first plea to restore and protect ecosystems, was not an efficiency movement, but a protest of the continued ignorance of the growing toxicity of air, land, ocean, and riverine systems during the acceleration of production and consumption following World War II. The general awareness and discussion of carrying capacity, which has its origins in Malthus, begin with the findings by international and interdisciplinary groups such as the authors of Limits to Growth (Meadows, et al., 2004). The Limits to Growth (1972) sought to elucidate five socio-ecological system problems in need of alteration to prevent complete and catastrophic social, economic, and ecological collapse. The authors stated that global transformations were needed in five categories: population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion. Legislators and leaders from around the world struggle now to give treaties and conferences some teeth to overcome these impediments. However, developing an effective international agreement is proving difficult. This was evident in the Copenhagen and Warsaw conferences that witnessed ever-growing frustrations, especially by representatives from developing countries who often walked out of the proceedings in protest or to form their own sub-groups and decision-making bodies. The Paris Agreement was the most hopeful yet, but one the United States has withdrawn from, slowing the momentum developed before and since the voluntary system. Tradeoffs between sustainability domains “indicate the continued conceptual divide between the environment and humanity,” argues Hopwood et al. (2005) Since the Brundtland Report in 1987, we have continued to develop and expand indicators based largely on trading off between 3 or 4 or 5 pillars, but the now hundreds of pages of types of indicator sets, and often hundreds of indicators per set, seem only to add to the complexity. What is new about our problems is that our big sustainability problems (especially climate change, land health diminution, and population growth and consumption) are more tightly interconnected than ever before, these problems have no testing ground,

Chapter 6: What Now? Sustainability in the 21 ST Century

and we only have once to get it right (Rittel & Webber, 1973); otherwise the problem of how to sustain a growing civilization is not new. As ecohumanists since Thoreau have told us, we cannot continue in many of daily activities without alienating human beings from nature and other human beings alike. Insofar as UN interpretations of sustainability are founded on working within the same systems that caused our largest SES- problems in the first place, we are not addressing the problem of sustainability. Beginning with Aristotle and throughout history, philosophers have known that neither language, nor the language of money, can represent nature (Foucault, 1973, p. 61). Economics for Aristotle did not espouse accumulating wealth, but “altogether parts with modern economics to become a treatise on the ethics of family life” (Barker, 2013). Instead, he insisted that we look at the “function of man” toward the community, which is always larger than any one individual’s—or group’s—satisfaction. Yet, despite all the difficulties of bringing together diverse ideas, institutions and knowledge systems, people who would have never before sat down together have reached agreement within the framework of sustainability and sustainable development. In this sense, sustainability’s ambiguity can be considered as an asset. Keeping all these problems in mind, we must reinvent programs and policies based on efficiency only to those that preserve natural resources, biodiversity, and our life-support systems for many generations to come. The future success of the sustainability paradigm, or its failure as a constructive discourse, depends on its dedication to overcoming SES-challenges that respond to the global socio-ecological system crises that face us today. Naturalists, scientists, and ecologists are well versed in how human society and development have shaped the environment and are most apt to provide the foundations for sustainability. Sustainability education and curriculum can consolidate the three branches with these comprehensive concepts and values in a simple way but without marginalizing important principles. The theoretical, practical, and educational principles of ecohumanists and environmentalists provide pathways into a transformational paradigm of sustainability that can respect ecological limits needed to ensure the health, well-being, and survival of all living things.

203

Glossary Adaptation: adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities (UNFCCC, 2012). Adaptive capacity: the ability of a system to prepare for stresses and adjust (Engels, 2011). American exceptionalism: the notion that American’s canonical commitments to liberty equality, individualism, populism and laissez faire somehow exempt from the historical forces that have led to the corruption of other societies; attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville circa 1831 (Koh, 2003). That America is qualitatively different than past European civilizations, and the product of Providence (Madison, 1998). Anthropocentric: human-centered approaches, which include both “strong" anthropocentric positions, i.e., usefulness in satisfying human consumer preferences, and “weak” anthropocentric or pragmatic positions which advance a more thoughtful and nvironmentally sensitive humanism argued to avoid the anti-environmental consequences of harshly utilitarian-style ethical positions regarding nonhuman nature (Minteer; 2003; Norton, 1985). Syn: Humans-first, Instrumental, and Imperialistic as defined by researcher. Best practices: commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective (Oxford, 2012). Biophilia: the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. ‘Innate’ means ‘hereditary’ and hence part of ultimate human nature. 2.) a complex set of learning rules developed over thousands of years of evolution and human-environment (Beatley, 2011; Wilson, 1993). Carrying capacity: the maximum population (as of deer) that an area will support without undergoing deterioration (Merriam-Webster, 2013). Cascading effects: a chain of secondary events that have complex and often unpredictable effects throughout ecological and socioeconomic systems (i.e., SES), as defined by the researcher. Conservationist: in the narrow sense, a utilitarian and more anthropocentric perspective of the highest good for the highest number and use of environmen-

206

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

tal services in the public interest, as defined by researcher. (Also often used in the broader sense, such as in Wilsons’s conservation biology.) Ecohumanist: a naturalist who represents many of the values of linking natural and material sciences with the social sciences and philosophy; a fuller and transdisciplinary sense of holism. Beginning with material findings and proceeding through induction to philosophical theories, as defined by the researcher. Emergence/Emergent properties: the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems (Anderies, Jansen & Ostrom, 2004). Emergent phenomena are conceptualized as occurring on the macro level, in contrast to the micro-level components and processes out of which they arise (Goldstein, 1999). Emergent properties are phenomena that cannot be predicted from the components of the level or unit in ecological levels of organization. Syn: Non-reducible property (Odum & Barrett, 2005). Environmental externalities: the economic concept of uncompensated environmental effects of production and consumption that affect consumer utility and enterprise cost outside the market mechanism as defined by the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD). Granting the OECD’s completely instrumental view as a valid economic view, I balance this definition from a population ecologists’ view, and William Rees’s and Meidad Kissinger’s (201o) rough definition of an “ecological externality” as “accelerating ecosystems degradation . . . associated with over-exploitation as global market forces increasingly assert their influence.” Environmental externalities, even if fully internalized, would not capture the long-term damage to ecosystems (Kissinger & Rees, 2010). Holism: a theory that the universe and especially living nature is correctly seen in terms of interacting wholes (as of living organisms) that are more than the mere sum of elementary particles (Merriam-Webster, 2013). [Often understood as the opposite of reductionism]. Syn: Interconnectivity, Transdisiplanarity (Klein, 1990), Consilience, (Wilson, 1998) as defined by researcher. Ideology: 1a) a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture; 1b) a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture (Merriam-Webster, 2013). 2) a pejorative term which means a sense of abstract impractical or fanatical theory popularized by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (Williams, 1973). Induction/ Inductive reasoning: reasoning from specific to general conclusions (Odum & Barrett, 2005). As opposed to explicative, analytic, or deductive' and ‘amplifiative, synthetic, or (loosely speaking) inductive’ reasoning. Charles Pierce characterized the latter as reasoning in which the facts summed up in the conclusion are not among those stated in the premises' (Pierce & Moore, 1998; Popper & Miller, 1987).

Glossary

Naturalist: a student of natural history; especially: a field biologist (Merriam-Webster 2013). Practitioner who applies concepts from one discipline or field to the greater whole of epistemology (Wilson, 1998). Non-anthropocentric: non-human
centered
approaches that include a) “Zoocentric” (animal-centered)
positions; b) “Biocentric” 
(life-centered)
positions; and c)
“Ecocentric”
(ecologically-centered)
positions (Minteer, 2003). Syn: Arcadian and Environmentalist, as defined by the researcher. Normative sustainability: does not view or treat human and natural capital as interchangeable; adaptive capacity; has an ethical imperative (Norton, 2005). Preservationist: in the narrow sense, an intrinsic and more non-anthropocentric worldview, stemming from less progressive values of John Muir during the Pinchot-Muir controversy, as defined by researcher. Syn. Arcadian (Worster, 1994a), Non-anthropocentric (Minteer, 2003); Environmentalist (Wilson, 1998). Reductionism: 1) an explanation of complex life-science processes and phenomena in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry; also: a theory or doctrine that complete reductionism is possible 1a): a procedure or theory that reduces complex data and phenomena to simple terms. 2) the attempt to explain all biological processes by the same explanations (as by physical laws) that chemists and physicists use to interpret inanimate matter; also: the theory that complete reductionism is possible; 2a) a procedure or theory that reduces complex data or phenomena to simple terms (Merriam-Webster, 2013). Resilience: capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure (Walker & Salt, 2006). Socio-ecological system (SES); SES problems: an ecological system intricately linked with and affected by one or more social systems (Anderies et al., 2004); coupled human-environmental systems (Young, Berkhout, Gallopin, Janssen, Ostrom & van der Leeuw, 2006). A suite complex, global, multilevel, cross-temporal and emergent problems (Anderies et al., 2004), which will drive decision-making. Syn: Super-Wicked Problems (Levin, Cashmore, Bernstein & Auld, 2012) as defined by researcher. Trade-off negotiating: [in sustainability discourse] seeking mutually reinforcing, cumulative and lasting contributions and must favor the achievement of the most positive feasible overall result, while avoiding significant adverse effects (Gibson, 2006). Transdisciplinary: fully integrating all the branches of learning in order to solve a problem; preferred to multi- or inter- disciplinary (Odum & Barrett, 2005). Education that reflects and aspires to a complete unity of knowledge systems (Wilson, 1998). Vulnerability: the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes (UNFCCC, 2012). Ant: Robustness.

207

208

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Wicked/Super-wicked problems: problems of such complexity that they require the integration of knowledge from many disciplines coupled with experiential and empirical knowledge from practitioners in the field (Kates & Parris, 2003; Brown, Harris & Russel, 2013). Super-wicked problems are wicked problems where the time available to solve such problems is running out and there is no “testing ground.” Syn: Socio-ecological problems, as defined by the researcher.

Works Cited Adams, W. M. (2006). The future of sustainability: Re-thinking environment and development in the twenty-first century. Report of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Renowned thinkers meeting, 2931 January 2006. Albanese, C. L. (2012). Chapter 7: The spirit of Walden, Henry David Thoreau. Sponsel, L.E. (Ed.) Spiritual Ecology. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. American Lung Association (2017). State of the air. Chicago: ALA. Anderies, J. M., Janssen, M. A., & Ostrom E. (2004). A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Ecology and Society, 9(1), 18, Retrieved 12 November from http://www. public.asu.edu.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/~majansse/pubs/es2004a.pdf. Andrews, E., & Orr, D. The sustainability revolution: Portrait of a paradigm shift. British Columbia: New Society. Aristotle, B. (371 B.C./2004). Metaphysics. Digireads.com Publishing. Aristotle, & McKeon, R. (1941). The basic works of Aristotle. U.S.A.: Oxford University. Assadourian, E. (2010). The rise and fall of consumer cultures.  State of the World, 2010, 3-20. Bacevich, A. J. (2008). The limits of power: The end of American exceptionalism. Macmillan. Bainbridge, J., Goc, N., & Tynan, L. (2011). Media and journalism: New approaches to theory and practice. Oxford University. Baumgartner, S., and Quas, M. (2010). What is sustainability economics? Ecological Economics 69: 445-450. Beatley, T. (2011). Biophillic cities. Washington D.C.: Island. Beddoe, R., Costanza, R., Farley, J., Garza, E., Kent, J., Kubiszewski, I., & Woodward, J. (2009). Overcoming systemic roadblocks to sustainability: The evolutionary redesign of worldviews, institutions, and technologies.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(8), 2483-2489. Beston, H. (1928/1988). The outermost house. New York: Penguin. Bible, H. (2000). King James Version. Texas: National Publishing Company.

210

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Black, B. (2006). Nature and the environment in twentieth century American life. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Boone, C. G., Modarres, A. (2006). City and environment. Philadelphia: Temple University. Boutaud, A., Gondran, N., & Brodhag, C. (2006). (Local) environmental quality versus (global) ecological carrying capacity: what might alternative aggregated indicators bring to the debates about environmental Kuznets curves and sustainable development? International Journal of Sustainable Development, 9(3), 297-310. Brand, S. (2009). Whole earth discipline. Atlantic Books Ltd. Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the edge: How to prevent environmental and economic collapse. New York: Earth Policy Institute. Brown, V. A., Harris, J., & Russel, J. (2010). Tackling wicked problems: through the transdisciplinary imagination. New York: Earthscan. Buell, L. (2009). The future of environmental criticism: Environmental crisis and literary imagination. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Buffon, G. L., & Loveland, J. (2004). Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon’s Histoire naturelle in English, 1775-1815. (Histoire gaturelle, générale et particulière). Archives of natural history, 31(2), 214-235. Cafaro, P. (2001). Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson.  Environmental Ethics,  23(1), 3-17. Callicott, J. B. (1987).  Companion to a Sand County Almanac: Interpretive and critical essays. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Callicott, J. B. (1988). Reply to Miller. Between the Species, 4(3), 5. Callicott, J. B. (1993). A brief history of American conservation philosophy. Sustainable Ecological Systems: Implementing an Ecological Approach to Land Management, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Fort Collins, CO (USA). Callicott, J. B. (2014). Thinking like a planet: The land ethic and the earth ethic. Oxford University. Callicott, J. B., Grove-Fanning, W., Rowland, J., Baskind, D., French, R. H., & Walker, K. (2011). Reply to Norton, re: Aldo Leopold and Pragmatism. Environmental Values, 20(1), 17-22. Canadian Nuclear Society. (2017). Too cheap to meter? Retrieved 1 October 2017 from https://cns-snc.ca/media/media/toocheap/toocheap.html. Caradonna, J. L. (2014). Sustainability: A history. Oxford University. Carson, R. (1941). Under the sea-wind: A Naturalist’s Picture of Ocean Life. New York: Simon & Schuster. Carson, R. (1951). The sea around us. New York: Oxford University. Carson, R. (1958). Essay on the biological sciences. Good Reading. Carson, R. (2011). Lost woods: The discovered writing of Rachel Carson. Beacon. Carson, R. (1963/2011). A sense of wonder. New York: Open Road Media.

Works Cited

Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. New York: First Mariner. Carson, R., & Gartner, C. B. (1962/1983). Of man and the stream of time (commencement address, Scripps College, Clarement, Calif., 1962). Rachel Carson, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing. Carson, R., & Lear, L. (1962/2011). Women’s Press Club speech. Lost woods: The discovered writing of Rachel Carson. Beacon. Center for Disease and Control. (1944). This historic image depicts a U.S. soldier as he was in the process of demonstrating dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT hand-spraying equipment, used to apply this insecticide to a military staff member. ID#2620 Public Health Image Library. Retrieved 11 October 2017 from https://phil.cdc.gov/phil/details.asp?pid=2620. Claeys, G. (1986, Jan.-Mar.). ‘Individualism,’ ‘socialism,’ and ‘social science’: Further notes on a process of conceptual formation, 1800-1850. Journal of the History of Ideas. University of Pennsylvania Press 47(1), 81-93. Clark, P. (Ed.). (2012).  The Cambridge guide to literature and the environment. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University. Clark, W. C., & Dickson, N. M. (2003). Sustainability science: the emerging research program. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(14), 8059-8061. Cole, C., Freeman, M., Jahoda, A., and Pavitt, K. (1973). Models of doom: A critique of the limits to growth. New York: Universe. Cole, L. W., & Foster, S. R. (2001). From the ground up: Environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement. New York: NYU. Commoner, B. (1966). Science and survival. New York: Viking. Commoner, B. (1972). The closing circle: confronting the environmental crisis. London: Cape. Commoner, B. (1975). Making peace with the planet. Toronto: Random House. Condon, P. M. (2010). Seven rules for sustainable communities: Design strategies for the post carbon world. Washington D.C.: Island. Conway, J. K., Keniston, K., & Marx, L. (Eds.). (1999). Earth, air, fire, water: Humanistic studies of the environment. Boston: University of Massachusetts. Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S. A., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., ... & Skuce, A. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental research letters, 8(2), 024024. Costanza, R. (1991). Ecological economics: The science and management of sustainability. New York: Columbia University. Costanza, R. (1997). Frontiers in ecological economics: Transdisciplinary essays by Robert Costanza. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar. Cronon, W. (1992). A place for stories: Nature, history, and narrative. The Journal of American History, 78(4), 1347-1376.

211

212

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Cronon, W. (1996). The trouble with wilderness: or, getting back to the wrong nature. Environmental History, 1(1), 7-28. Cronon, W. (2003). Changes in the land: Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England. U.S.A.: Douglas and McIntyre Ltd. Crow, M. M. (2012). Citizen science U. Scientific American, 307(4), 48-49. Daly, H. E., & Farley, J. (2004). Ecological economics: Principles and practices. Washington, DC, Island. Darwin, C. (1938/2014). A naturalist’s voyage round the world: The voyage of the Beagle. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. Dennett, D. C. (1995). Darwin’s dangerous idea. Evolution and the meaning of life. New York, Simon and Schuster. De Tocqueville, A. (1835). Democracy in America (Vol. 2). France: Saunders and Otley. Diamond, J. M. (2006). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: Penguin Group. Dictionary, O. E. (OED)(1989-2014). Oxford English dictionary online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2013-2014 from http://www.oed.com/. Dryzek, J. S. (2013). The politics of the earth: Environmental discourses. Oxford: Oxford University. Duffin, A. (2007). Plowed under. Seattle: University of Washington. Du Pisani, J. A. (2006). Sustainable development: Historical roots of the concept. Environmental Science 3(2), 83-96. Egan, M. (2007). Barry Commoner and the science of survival. The remaking of American environmentalism. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Ehrlich, P. R. (1968). The population bomb. New York: Ballantine. Ehrlich, P. R. (1988). The loss of diversity. Biodiversity. National Academy Press, Washington DC, 21-27. Ehrlich, P. R., & Holdren, J. P. (1972). A bulletin dialogue on “The Closing Circle,” Critique. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Eisenstaedt, A. (1963). Rachel Carson, field biologist, at work. US Fish & Wildlife Service Photo by, courtesy of Time and Life Pictures, Getty Images. https://www.fws.gov/midwest/insider3/September12.htm. Emerson, R. W. (1979a/1836). Art. The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Norfolk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 1979), 138-47. [Originally published in New York, Munroe & Co., 1836]. Emerson, R. W. (1979b/1836). Nature. The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Norfolk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 1979), 214-25. [Originally published in New York, Munroe & Co., 1836]. Engels, A. (2011) Global transformations towards a low carbon Society: Working Paper Series. Retrieved 4 May 2017 from http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pub man/item/escidoc:2056593/component/escidoc:2056597/Working_Paper_ Series_05.pdf.

Works Cited

Evelyn, J. (1664/2013). Sylva, or, a discourse of forest trees: With an essay on the life and works of the author (or a Discourse on Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber for his majesty’s dominions. Cambridge University. Farber, P.L. (2000). Finding order in nature: The naturalist tradition from Linnaeus to E O Wilson. USA: John Hopkins University. Ferng, J. J. (2014). Nested open systems: An important concept for applying ecological footprint analysis to sustainable development assessment. Ecological Economics, 106, 105-111. Foucault, M. (1973). The order of things. An archeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage. Frederick, C. P., & Pijawka, K. D. (2015). Constructing and assessing an introductory urban sustainability course: Applying New Insights Using Survey Research. Journal of Sustainability Education, 7. Frisk, E., & Larson, K. L. (2011). Educating for sustainability: Competencies and practices for transformative action. Journal for Sustainability Education, 2. Gibson, R. (2006). Sustainability assessment: Basic components of a practical approach. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 24(3), 170-6. Glacken, C. (1976). Traces on the Rhodian shore: Nature and culture in Western thought from ancient times to the end of the eighteenth century. Berkeley: University of California. Goldstein, J. (1999). Emergence as a construct: History and issues. Emergence, 1(1), 49-72. Goodwin, C. D. (2008). Aldo Leopold, 1887-1948. Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 30(04), 429-452. Gould, S. J. (1990). Wonderful life: The Burgess Shale and the nature of history. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Gould, S. J. (1997). Nonoverlapping magisteria. Natural history, 106(2), 16-22. Grober, U. (2007). Deep roots–A conceptual history of ‘sustainable development’ (Nachhaltigkeit). Berlin. Hg. v. Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung. Grober, U. (2012). Sustainability: A cultural history. Devon, EN: Greek Books. Guardian, The. (2010). Tea Party climate change deniers funded by BP and other major polluters. The Guardian, Sunday 24 October 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2014 from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/24/tea-partyclimate-change-deniers. Habitat, U. N. (2013). State of the world’s cities 2012/2013: Prosperity of Cities. New York: Routledge. Hallet, S. (2012). The efficiency trap: Finding a better way to achieve sustainable future energy. Amherst, New York: Prometheus. Hansen, J., Sato, M., Hearty, P., Ruedy, R., Kelley, M., Masson-Delmotte, V., ... & Velicogna, I. (2016). Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that

213

214

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

2 C global warming could be dangerous. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 16(6), 3761-3812. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science. 162, 1243-1248. Hartmann, B. (1995). Reproductive rights and wrongs: The global politics of population control. New York, Harper & Row. Harvard School of Public Health. (2014). Climate change and biodiversity loss. Retrieved 4 August 2011 from http://www.chgeharvard.org/topic/climate-change-and-biodiversity-loss#sthash.S45PsEwJ.dpuf. Hauptman, L. M. (2008). Seven generations of Iroquois leadership: The six nations since 1800. Syracuse: Syracuse University. Havens, K., Henderson, S., & Thoreau, H. D. (2013). Citizen science takes root. American Scientist, 101(5). Hawken, P., Lovins, A., & Lovins, H. (1999.) Natural capitalism. USA, Earthscan. Hawthorne, N. (2015). The Blithedale romance. Chicago: Broadview. Hay, P. R. (2002). Main currents in western environmental thought. Indiana University. Hempel, L. C. (2012). Evolving concepts of sustainability in environmental policy. The Oxford Handbook of US Environmental Policy, 67. Hirt, P. (1994). A conspiracy of optimism: Management of the national forests since World War Two. U.S.A.: University of Nebraska. Hoggan, J., Littlemore, R. D., & Ball, T. (2009). Climate cover-up: The crusade to deny global warming. Vancouver: Greystone Books. Holdren, J. P. (2008). Science and technology for sustainable well-being. Science, 319(5862), 424-434. Holling, C. S. (1959). The components of predation as revealed by a study of small-mammal predation of the European pine sawfly. The Canadian Entomologist, 91(05), 293-320. Holling, C. S. (1969). Stability in ecological and social systems. In Brookhaven Symposia in Biology, 22(128). Holling, C. S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4, 1-23. Holling, C. S. (2001). Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems, 4(5), 390-405. Hopwood, B., Mellor, M., O’Brien, G. (2005). Sustainable development: Mapping different approaches. Sustainable Development 13(1), 38-52. Hornaday, W. T. (1913). Our vanishing wild life: its extermination and preservation. New York: C. Scribner’s sons. Howe, E. M. (2009). Henry David Thoreau, forest succession & the nature of science: a method for curriculum development.  The American Biology Teacher, 71(7), 397-404.

Works Cited

Hubbert, M. K. (1956). Nuclear energy and the fossil fuels. American Petroleum Institute, Drilling and Production Practice. In Spring Meeting of the Southern District, San Antonio. Huxley, R. (2011). The great naturalists. The Natural History Museum. London: Thames and Hudson. IPCC, A. (2014). Climate change 2014: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Retrieved 2 March 2014 from http://www.ipersonal communicationc.ch/ report/ar5/wg2/. International Programme on the State of the Ocean (2015). Threats: Climate change. Retrieved 23 January 2015 from http://www.stateoftheocean.org. International Union for the Conservation of Nature. (IUCN). (WWF). (1980). World conservation strategy. World Conservation Union, United Nations Environment Programme, Word Wide Fund for Nature, Gland. Ison, R. L., & Russell, D. B. (2000). Exploring some distinctions for the design of learning systems. Cybernetics & Human Knowing, 7(4), 43-56. Jacobs, J. (2001). The nature of economies. New York: Vintage. Jacobs, J. (2005). Dark age ahead. New York: Vintage. Jamieson, D. (1998). Sustainability and beyond. Ecological Economics, 24(2), 183192. Jantsch, E. (1947). Inter and trasdisciplinary university. A systems approach to education and innovation. Higher Education Quarterly 1(1), 7-37. Jasanoff, S. (Ed.). (2013). States of knowledge: The co-production of science and the social order. New York: Routledge. Jickling, Bob, & Wals A. E. J. (2008). Globalization and environmental education: Looking beyond sustainable development. UNESCO (2006) The Goteborg Workshop. Education for Sustainable Development in Action. Kahn, H., & Schneider, E. (1981). Globaboney 2000. Policy Review, 16, 129-47. Kahn, H., & Wiener, A. J. (1969). The year 2000. New York: Macmillan. Kates, R. W., Clark, W.C., Corell, R., Hall, J.M., Jaeger, C.C., Lowe, I., McCarthy, J.J., Schellnhuber, H.J., Bolin, B., Dickson, N.M., et al. (2000). Sustainability science. Science, 292(5517), 641-7. Kates, R. W. & National Research Council (NRC). (1999). Our common journey: A transition toward sustainability. Board on sustainable development. Washington, D. C.: National Academy. Kates, R. W., & Parris, T. M. (2003). Science and technology for sustainable development special feature: Long-term trends and a sustainability transition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100(14), 8062. Kates, R. W., & Parris, T. M., & Leiserowitz, A. A. (2005). What is sustainable development? Environment, 47(3), 8.

215

216

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Kates, R. W., Travis, W. R., & Wilbanks, T. J.. (2012). Transformational adaptation when incremental adaptations to climate change are insufficient. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(19) 7156-7161. Kellert, S., & Wilson, E. O. (1996). The biophilia hypothesis. Washington, D.C.: Island. Killingsworth, M. J., & Palmer, J. S. (1995). Ecospeak: Rhetoric and environmental politics in America. USA: Southern Illinois University. Kingsland, S. E. (2005). The evolution of American ecology, 1890-2000. JHU. Kissinger, M., & Rees, W. E. (2010). An interregional ecological approach for modelling sustainability in a globalizing world—Reviewing existing approaches and emerging directions. Ecological Modelling, 221(21), 2615-2623. Kissinger, M. & Rees, W. E. (2011). Interregional sustainability: Governance and policy in an ecologically interdependent world. Environmental Science & Policy, 14(8), 965-976. Klein, J. T. (1990). Interdisciplinarity: History, theory, and practice. Detroit: Wayne State University. Klein, J. T. (2006). A platform for a shared discourse of interdisciplinary education. JSSE-Journal of Social Science Education, 5(4). Klein, J. T. (2013). The Transdisciplinary Moment (um). Integral Review, 9(2). Klein, J. T. (2014). Discourses of transdisciplinarity: Looking back to the future. Futures, 63, 68-74. Knight, R. L., & Riedel, S. (2002). Aldo Leopold and the ecological conscience. Oxford: Oxford University. Koh, H. H. (2003). On American exceptionalism. Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 1778. Retrieved 4 November 2014 from http://digitalcommons.law. yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2737&context=fss_papers. Kolbert, E. (2014). The sixth extinction: An unnatural history. Edinburgh, A&C Black. Konfirst, M. A. (2012, December). Nomads, no moisture, no more Sumerian: The 4.2 Ka climate anomaly and the death of a language. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 1. Kormandy, E. J. (1978). Ecology/economy of nature—synonyms? Ecology, 59(6): 1292-1294. Kotkin, J. (2006). The city: A global history. New York: Random House. Kuhn, B. H. (2009). Autobiography and natural science in the age of Romanticism. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Lear, L. (1998). Rachel Carson: Witness for nature. New York: Macmillan. Leonard, A. (2009). The story of stuff: How our obsession with stuff is trashing the planet, our communities, and our health-and a vision for change. New York: Simon & Schuster. Leopold, A. (1923). Some fundamentals of conservation in the Southwest. Environmental Ethics, Summer 1979, 131-141.

Works Cited

Leopold, A. (1933). Game management. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Leopold, A. (1933, October). The conservation ethic. Journal of Forestry, 31(6), 634-643. Leopold, A. (1936, March). Naturschutz in Germany. Bird-Lore. Audubon Society. Leopold, A. (1943). Wildlife in American culture. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 1-6. Leopold, A. (1949). A Sand County almanac. With other essays on conservation from Round River. Oxford. Oxford University. Leopold, A. (1979). Some fundamentals of conservation in the Southwest. Environmental Ethics, 1(2), 131-141. Leopold, A., Callicott, J. B., Flader, S. L. (1991). The river of the mother of God: and other Essays. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Leopold, A. Callicott, J. B., & Freyfogle, E. T. (1999). For the health of the land: previously unpublished essays and other writings by Aldo Leopold. Madison, University of Wisconsin. Levin, K., Cashore, B., Bernstein, S., & Auld, G. (2007, February). Playing it forward: Path dependency, progressive incrementalism, and the ‘Super Wicked’ problem of global climate change. In  International studies association 48th annual convention, February (Vol. 28). Library of Congress. Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, California, in 1903. Prints and Photographs division. Retrieved 10 October from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g04698/. Lichatowich, J. A. (2001). Salmon without rivers: A history of the Pacific salmon crisis. Washington DC: Island. Light, A. (2002). Callicott and Naess on pluralism.  Land, Value, Community: Callicott and Environmental Philosophy, Ouderkirk, W., 197-211. Linden, E. (2006). The winds of change: Climate, weather, and the destruction of civilizations. Simon and Schuster. Linnaeus, C. V., & Ramsbottom, J. (1775/1938). Linnaeus and the species concept.  Presidential Address. Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of London 150(4), 192-219. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Liu, J., Dietz, T., Carpenter, S. R., Folke, C., Alberti, M., Redman, C. L., ... & Provencher, W. (2007). Coupled human and natural systems.  AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 36(8), 639-649. Lomborg, B. (2003). The skeptical environmentalist: measuring the real state of the world (Vol. 1). Cambridge University. Lomborg, B. (2015). Setting the right goals. Project Syndicate. Retrieved 5 March 2015 from http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-identifies-the-areas-in-which-increased-development-spending-cando-the-most-good.

217

218

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Lovelock, J., & Gaia, A. (1979). A new look at life on earth. Oxford: Oxford University. Lovelock, J. (2009). The vanishing face of Gaia: A final warning. New York: Monograph. Lytle, M. H. (2007). The gentle subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the rise of the environmental movement. Oxford University. McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. (2001). The next industrial revolution. Sustainable Solutions: Developing Products and Services for the Future, 139(150), 12. McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. (2006). Cradle to cradle. New York: North Point. McKibben, B. (1996). Buzzless buzzword. The New York Times. Retrieved 10 October 2017 from http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/10/opinion/buzzless-buzzword.html. McKibben, B. (2006). Deep ecology. New York: Random House. McKibben, B. (2010). Eaarth: Making a life on a tough new planet. New York: Times Books. McMillan, T. (1989). America’s role in planetary survival.  RSA Journal, 137(5390), 110-114. McNeill, J. R. (2000). Something new under the sun: An environmental history of the twentieth century world. New York: W. W. Norton. Madsen, D. L. (1998). American exceptionalism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University. Malthus, T. (1798). An essay on the principle of population. The philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon their history, in 1840, and of induction, with especial reference to Mr. J. Stuart Mill’s system of logic, in 1849. London: J. Johnson. Mantel, K. (1964). History of the international science of forestry with special consideration of Central Europe. International review of forestry research, 1, 1-37. Marsh, G. P. (1864/1965). Man and nature. Or physical geography as modified by human action. A: University of Washington. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1948/2002). The communist manifesto. New York: Penguin. Marx, L. (1956). The machine in the garden. New England Quarterly, 29(1), 2742. Matthiessen, F. O. (1941). American Renaissance: Art and expression in the age of Emerson and Whitman. London: Oxford University Press. Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., & Randers, J. (1992). Beyond the limits: Global collapse or a sustainable future. Earthscan.

Works Cited

Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens III, W. W. (1972). The limits to growth: A report for the club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. Nova York, New American Library. Meadows, D., Randers, J., & Meadows, D. (2004). Limits to growth: The 30-year update. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green. Mebratu, D. (1999). Sustainability and sustainable development: historical and conceptual review. Environmental impact assessment review, 18(6), 493-520. Mebratu, D. (2001). The knowledge dimension of the sustainability challenge. International Journal of Economic Development, 3(1), p1-21. Meine, C. D. (1988). Aldo Leopold: His life and work. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin. Meine, C. D., & Knight, R. L. (Eds.). (1999). The essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and commentaries. University of Wisconsin. Meine, C. (2004).  Correction lines: essays on land, Leopold, and conservation. Washington D.C.: Island. Merchant, C. (2007). American environmental history: An introduction. Columbia University Press. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2013). An encyclopedia of the Britannica family. Merriam-Webster, Ltd. Retrieved 2013-2014 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/. Merton, T. (1965). The way of Chuang Tzu. New Haven, Kentucky: Abbey of Gethsemani, 45-6. Miller, C. (2009). The once and future forest service: Land-management policies and politics in contemporary America. Journal of Policy History, 21(1): 89-104. Minteer, B. A. (2006). The landscape of reform. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Minteer, B. A. (2007). On sustainability, dogmas, and (new) historical roots for environmental ethics. Sustainable food production and ethics, 21-25. Minteer, B. A. (2011). Refounding environmental ethics: Pragmatism, principle and practice. Philadelphia: Temple University. Minteer, B. A., & Miller, T. R. (2011). The new conservation debate: Ethical foundations, strategic trade-offs, and policy opportunities. Biological Conservation, 144(3), 945-947. Mitcham, C. (1995). The concept of sustainable development: Its origins and ambivalence. Technology in Society, 17(3), 311-326. Mondzain, M. J. (2005). Image, icon, economy: The Byzantine origins of the contemporary imagery. Stanford University. Montgomery, D. R. (2012). Dirt: The erosion of civilizations. Berkeley: University of California. Mooney, C. C. (2006). The Republican war on science. New York: Basic Books. Mosley, S. (2010). The environment in world history. New York: Routledge.

219

220

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Most, G. W. (1996). Reading Raphael: “The school of Athens” and its pre-text. Critical Inquiry, 145-182. Muir, J. (1911/1998). My first summer in the Sierra (Vol. 92). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Muir, J. (1915). My travels in Alaska. Sierra Club. Retrieved, 2 October 1917 from http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/travels_in_alaska/. Mulder, K. & Jansen, L. (2006). Integrating sustainable development in engineering education—Reshaping university education by organizing learning. 69-74. Mumford, L. (1926). The golden day: A study in American experience and culture. New York, Boni and Liveright. Mumford, L. (1961). The city in history. New York: Harcourt, Inc. Munang, R. T., Thiaw, I., and Rivington, M. (2011). Ecosystem management: Tomorrow’s approach to enhancing food security under a changing climate. Sustainability. 2011, 3(7), 937-954. Naess, A. (1973). The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement. A summary. Inquiry, 16(1-4), 95-100. Nash, G. H. (2009).  Reappraising the Right: The past and future of American conservatism. New York: Isi Books. Nash, R. (1974). Wilderness and the American mind. New Haven. Yale University. The Natural Resource Defense Council (NDRC). (2017.) Zinke’s western “Listening Tour” light on the listening, heavy on the fossil fuels. Retrieved 12 September 2017 from https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/zinkes-western-listening-tour-light-listening-heavy-fossil-fuels. Neufeldt, L. N. (1989). The economist: Henry Thoreau and enterprise.  OUP Catalogue. Newman, L. (2002). Marxism and ecocriticism, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, 9. Newman, P., Beatley, T., & Boyer, H. (2009). Resilient cities: Responding to peak oil and climate change. Island. Newman, P., & Jennings, I. (2012). Cities as sustainable ecosystems: Principles and practices. Washington, D. C.: Island. Newton, J. L., & Freyfogle, E. T. (2005). Sustainability: A dissent. Conservation Biology, 19(1), 23-32. Nicholls, R.J., Hanson, S., Herweijer, C., Patmore, N., Hallegatte, S., Corfee-Morlot, J., Herweijer, C., & Chateau, J. (2008a). Ranking port cities with high exposure and vulnerability to climate extremes. Organization for Economic Development. Norton, B. G. (1991). Toward unity among environmentalists. Environmental Ethics 14(3): 283-287. Norton, B. G. (1999). Leopold as a practical moralist and pragmatic policy analyst. From The essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and commentaries. Edited

Works Cited

by Meine, C. D., Knight, R. L., & Vaughn, G. F. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin. Norton, B. G. (2003). Searching for sustainability: Interdisciplinary essays in the philosophy of conservation biology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University. Norton, B. G. (2005). Sustainability: A philosophy of adaptive ecosystem management. Chicago: University of Chicago. Norwood, V. L. (1987). The nature of knowing: Rachel Carson and the American environment. Signs, 740-760. Odum, E. F. (1971). The fundamentals of ecology (Third ed). Philadelphia: Saunders. Odum, E. P., & Barrett, G. W. (2005). Fundamentals of ecology. Fifth Edition, Belmont CA: Brooks/Cole. O’Neill, J. H. (1997).  The golden ghetto: The psychology of affluence. Affluence Project. O’Neill, R. (2013). Next generation of more efficient markets and planning. Modeling, Simulation, And Optimization for the 21st Century Electric Power Grid, Eds, ECI Symposium Series, Volume 22. Retrieved 12 November 2014 from http://dc.engconfintl.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context= power_grid. Oravec, C. (1984). Conservationism vs. preservationism: The “public interest” in the Hetch Hetchy controversy. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70(4), 444458. Oreskes, N. (2004). Science and public policy: What’s proof got to do with it?" Science Direct. (7), 369-83. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2003). Glossary of statistical terms. Retrieved 12 March 2014 from http://stats. oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=824. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2014). Sustainable Development: Linking economy, society, environment. Retrieved 9 December 2014 from http://www.oecd.org/insights/sustainabledevelop mentlinkingeconomysocietyenvironment.htm. Orr, D. W. (2002). Four challenges of sustainability. Conservation Biology. 16(6), 1457-1460. Orr, D. W. (2004).  Earth in mind: On education, environment, and the human prospect. Island. Osborn, F. (1948). Our plundered planet. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Ouspensky, P. D. (1949). In search of the miraculous: Fragments of an unknown teaching. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Oxford University Press Online (Oxford). (2017). Retrieved 2016-2017 from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us.

221

222

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Owen, D. (2012). The Conundrum: How scientific innovation, increased efficiency, and good intentions can make our energy and climate problems worse. New York: Riverhead. Paley, W., & Meadley, G. W. (1802/1810). The works of William Paley, DD: Natural theology (Vol. 1). Boston: Joshua Belcher. Palmer, G. B. (1996). Toward a theory of cultural linguistics. Austin: University of Texas. Parlow, G. F. (1879). Henry David Thoreau, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly right. c1879. Library of Congress. The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920. Retrieved 10 October 2017 from http://memory.loc.gov/ cgi-bin/query/I?consrvbib:1:./temp/~ammem_B4Ii::displayType=1:m856s d=cph:m856sf=3a02153:@@@mdb=mcc,aap,consrvbib,vv,presp,varstg, suffrg,hlaw,aaodyssey,coolbib,fpnas,mff,mnwp,rbcmillerbib,ww2map,mf dipbib,klpmap,rbaapcbib,mal,ncpm,psbib,mharendt,fawbib,afcpearl, awh,awhbib,afcesnbib. Parris, T. M., & Kates, R. W. (2003). Characterizing and measuring sustainable development. Annual Review of environment and resources, 28(1), 559-586. Pew Center on Global Climate Change. (2012). Long-term trends in carbon dioxide and surface temperature. Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Retrieved 3 March 2011 from http://www.pewclimate.org/facts-figures/ trends/long-co2-temp. Pielke, R., Prins, G., Rayner, S., & Sarewitz, D. (2007). Climate change 2007: Lifting the taboo on adaptation. Nature, 445(7128), 597-598. Pijawka, K. D. (2015). Sustainability for the 21st century: Pathways, programs, and policies. Dubuque, IA. Kendall Hunt. Pijawka, K. D., Yabes, R., Frederick C. P., & White, P. (2013). Integration of sustainability in planning and design programs in higher education: evaluating learning outcomes. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 6(1), 24. Piketty, T. (2017). Capital in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Pinchot, G. (1905). The use of the national forest reserves. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture. Plato & Halliwell, S. (1988). Republic 10. Aris & Phillips. Cambridge, EN: Cambridge University. Popper, K., & Miller, D. W. (1987). Why probabilistic support is not inductive. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 321(1562), 569-591. Primack, R. B. (2014). Walden warming: Climate change comes to Thoreau’s woods. Chicago: University of Chicago. Public Library of Science. (2003). Photo of E. O, Wilson. Retrieved 10 October 2017 https://www.plos.org/downloads/plos_wilson.pdf.

Works Cited

Pugh, Kevin. 2011. Transformative experience: An integrative construct in the spirit of Deweyan pragmatism. Educational Psychologist, 46(2), 107-121. Pulsipher, L. M., Pulsipher, A., & Hapke, H. M. (2005). World regional geography: Global patterns, local lives. New York: Macmillan. Pyne, S. J. (2009). Voice and vision. A guide to writing history and other serious nonfiction. Harvard University. Rabin, R. (2017). A strong case against a pesticide does not phase the E.P.A. under Trump. New York Times, 15 May 2017, Retrieved 9 October 2017 from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/health/pesticides-epa-chlorpyrifosscott-pruitt.html?_r=0. Radkau, J. (2008). Nature and power. A global history of the environment. New York: Cambridge University. Ramsbottom, J. (1938). Presidential address. Linnaeus and the species concept. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, December, 192-219. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Raphael. School of Athens. (1509). Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Musei Vatican. Retrieved 10 October 2017 http://www.museivaticani.va/con tent/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/stanze-di-raffaello/stanza-dellasegnatura/scuola-di-atene.html. Redman, C. L. (1999).  Human impact on ancient environments. University of Arizona. Redman, C. L., Grove, J. M., & Kuby, L. H. (2004). Integrating social science into the long-term ecological research (LTER) network: Social dimensions of ecological change and ecological dimensions of social change.  Ecosystems, 7(2), 161-171. Redman, C. L., Wiek, A., & Johnston. (2013). Sustainability as a transformation in education. Higher education for sustainability: cases, challenges, and opportunities from across the curriculum. New York: Routledge. 214-222. Rees, W. E. (1992). Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: What urban economics leaves out. Environment and urbanization, 4(2), 121130. Rees, W. E. (2006). Globalization, trade and migration: Undermining sustainability. Ecological Economics, 59(2), 220-225. Rees, W. E. (2009). The ecological crisis and self-delusion: Implications for the building sector. Building Research and Information 37(3), 300-311. Rees, W. E., & Wackernagel, M. (1996). Urban ecological footprints: Why cities cannot be sustainable- and why they are a key to sustainability. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 16(4), 223-248. Rees, W. E., & Wackernagel, M. (2013). The shoe fits, but the footprint is larger than Earth. PLoS biology, 11(11), e1001701. Resilience Alliance. (2014). Retrieved 20 August 2014 from http://www.resal liance.org/.

223

224

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Reynolds, D. S. (1998). Beneath the American Renaissance: The subversive imagination in the age of Emerson and Melville. New York: Oxford University. Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), 155-169. Robinson, J. G. (1993). The limits to caring: Sustainable living and the loss of biodiversity. Conservation Biology, 7(1), 20-28. Rodman, J. (1977). The liberation of nature. Inquiry, 20(1-4), 83-131. Romberger, J. A., & Mikola, P. (Eds.). (2013). International review of forestry research (Vol. 1). Elsevier. Roosevelt, T., & Greene, F. V. (1903). American ideals: And other essays, social and political. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Rostow, W. W. (1959). The stages of economic growth.  The Economic History Review, 12(1), 1-16. Russell, B. (1918). Mysticism and logic. Retrieved 12 November 2013 at www. DoverPublications.com. Russell, J. (2013). Last of their kind. As fish stocks dwindle and catch limits tighten, a way of life is disappearing, too. The Boston Globe Retrieved 14 May 2014 at https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/06/15/this-endnew-england-fisherman/XDE93VGrorgaz5iwui7s3L/story.html. Sale, K. (2008). Secession: How Vermont and all the other states can save themselves from the empire. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House. Sarewitz, D. (2003). How science makes environmental controversies worse. Environmental and Science Policy 7, 385-403. Schneider, E. D., & Kay, J. J. (1994). Life as a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics. Mathematical and Computer modelling, 19(6), 25-48. Shellenberger, M., & Nordhaus, T. (2004). The death of environmentalism: Global warming politics in a post-environmental world. USA: Breakthrough Institute. Shellenberger, M., & Nordhaus, T. (2007). Breakthrough: From the death of environmentalism to the politics of possibility. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Shepard, T. (1648). The clear sunshine of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians in New England. New York: Joseph Sabin. Shiva, V. (2000).  Stolen harvest: The hijacking of the global food supply. Cambridge, MA: South End. Simon, J. L., & Kahn, H. (1984). The resourceful earth. A response to Global 2000. The resourceful earth. A response to Global 2000. Smith, A. & Cannon, E. (1776/1994). The wealth of nations. New York: Random House, Inc. Snow, C. P. (1959). The two cultures and the scientific revolution (Vol. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University. Solomon, S. (2011). Water: The epic struggle for wealth, power, and civilization. New York: Harper.

Works Cited

Solomon, S., Plattner, G. K., Knutti, R., & Friedlingstein, P. (2009). Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(6), 1704. Solow, R. W. (1993). Sustainability: An economist’s perspective. Economics and the Environment. Chapter 11. Souder, W. (2012). On a farther shore: The life and legacy of Rachel Carson. Random House. Stanford Report (2013). Climate change on pace to occur 10 times faster than any change recorded in past 65 million years, Stanford scientists say. Byline: Bjoern Carey, August 1, 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013 from http://news. stanford.edu/news/2013/august/climate-change-speed-080113.html. Steinbeck, J. (1939).  The grapes of wrath. New York: The Viking Press-James Lloyd. Steiner, G., & Posh, A. (2006). Sustainability in higher education: What is happening? Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability. 14(9-11), 877-890. Sterling, S. (2004). Transformative learning and sustainability: Sketching the conceptual ground. Stone, C. D. (1972). Should trees have standing? Toward legal rights for natural objects. Southern California Law Review 45, 450-68. Sullivan, R. (2009). The Thoreau you don’t know. New York: HarperCollins. Summit, E. (1992). Agenda 21. The United Nations programme for action from Rio. Svara, J. H. (2010). The early stage of local government action to promote sustainability. The municipal year book 2011. ICMA Press. Retrieved 4 March 2011 from http://bookstore.icma.org/The_Early_Stage_of_Local_Gover_ P2136C23.cfm. Tanka, J., & Baym, N. (1998). The Norton anthology of American literature (Shorter Sixth Edition). WW Norton. Tapp, R. B. (Ed.). (2002). Ecohumanism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Taylor, B. P. (1996). America’s bachelor uncle. Thoreau and the American polity. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Thomas, I. (2009). Critical thinking, transformative learning, sustainable education, and problem-based learning in universities. Journal of Transformative Education, 7(245). Thoreau, H. D. (1931). The transmigration of the seven Brahmans; a translation from the Harivansa of Langlois. New York: W. Rudge. Thoreau, H. D. (2009). The Journal, 1837-1861. New York Review of Books. Thoreau, H. D. (2012). Paradise (to be) Regained. Ed. [Originally published in Boston, The Dial, 1843]. The Anarchist Library, accessed 13 December 2012 from http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/Henry_David_Thoreau__Para dise__to_be__Regained.pdf.

225

226

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

Thoreau, H. D. (1893). Excursions, the writings of Henry David Thoreau. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Thoreau, H. D. & Cramer (1839/2012). The natural history of Massachusetts. The portable Thoreau. New York: Penguin. Thoreau, H. D. & Cramer (1839/2012). Civil disobedience. The portable Thoreau. New York: Penguin. Thoreau, H. D. & Cramer (1854/2012). Walden: Or Life in the Woods for APA. The portable Thoreau. [Originally published in New York: Tinker & Co., 1854]. New York: Empire Books. Thoreau, H. D. & Sanborn, B. F. (1905). The first and last journeys: Lately discovered among his unpublished journals of Thoreau for APA. Edited by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn. Boston: The Bibliophile Society. Truman, H. S. (1949). Statement by the president: The 100th anniversary of the Department of the Interior. Public Papers of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953. Retrieved 4 March 2014 from http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/ index.php?pid=1055&st=&st1=. Turner, F. J. (2010). The frontier in American history. New York: Courier Dover Publications. Udall, S. L. (1863). The quiet crisis. A plea for conservationism as seen through its historical origins. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. The United Nations (UN). (2014). Post-2015 consensus review. Retrieved 5 March 2015 from http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus/post-2015-consensus-review. The United Nations Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC). (2012). Glossary of climate change acronyms. Retrieved 15 February 2012 from http:// unfccc.int/essential_background/glossary/items/3666.php. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Goteborg Workshop. (2006). Drivers and Barriers for Implementing Sustainable Development in Higher Education. Education for sustainable development in action. United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). December 7-9, 2005. Journal of Curriculum Studies 40(1), 1-21. The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), (1972). The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Retrieved 4 March 2014 from http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/ Default.asp?documentid=97&articleid=1503. The United States Congress. (1960, June). Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield of 1960. [As amended through December 31, 1996, P.L. 104-333]. Retrieved 4 January 2015 from http://www.fs.fed.us/emc/nfma/includes/musya60.pdf. The United States Department of Agriculture. (1938). Aldo Leopold sits on Rimrock above the Rio Gavilan in northern Mexico while on a bow hunting

Works Cited

trip in 1938. Retrieved 10 October 2017 from https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/8409643996. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). (2011, September). Semiannual report to Congress: April 1, 2011-Septemper 30, 2011. Office of the Inspector General. Retrieved 16 February 2012 from http:// www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2012/Semiannual_Report_to_Congress_November_2011.pdf. United States Public Health Service. (1935). Effect of Dust Storms on Health). Reprint No. 1707 from the  Public Health Reports  50(40). October 4, 1935. NOAA Photo Library. Retrieved 10 October from https://earthobserva tory.nasa.gov/Features/DustBowl/. Van der Hamsvoort, C. P. C. M. & Latacz-Lohmann, U. (1998). Sustainability: A review of the debate and an extension. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 5(2) 99-110. Van der Leeuw, S., Wiek, A., Harlow, J., & Buizer, J. (2012). How much time do we have? Urgency and rhetoric in sustainability science. Sustainability Science, 7(1), 115-120. Vogt, W. (1948). Road to survival. New York: William Sloane Associates. Inc. Volkoff S. & Thorsos E. (2015, Feb. 5). EPA believes that the children are the future, at least according to the new chlorpyrifos assessment. Nicholas School for the Environment. Duke University, Retrieved 10 October 2017 from http://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/superfund/epa-believes-that-the-childrenare-the-future-at-least-according-to-the-new-chlorpyrifos-assessment/. Von Carlowitz, H. C., & von Rohr, J. B. (1732/2010).  Sylvicultura oeconomica. Charlestown, S. C.: Nabu Press Von Weizsäcker, E. U. (2014). Eco-efficiency goals: Factor four or factor ten. In Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker. Springer International Publishing, 143-147. Vucetich, J. A., & Nelson, M. D. (July 2010). Sustainability: Virtuous or vulgar? Bioscience. 539-544. Wackernagel, M., & Rees, W. E. (1996). Our ecological footprint: Reducing human impact on the planet. Gabriola Island, B. C.: Society Publishers. Walker, B., Holling, C. S., Carpenter, S. R., & Kinzig, A. (2004). Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 9(2), 5. Walker, B., Salt, D. & Reid, W. (2006). Resiliency thinking: Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Walls, L.D. (1995). Seeing the new worlds: Henry David Thoreau and nineteenth century natural science. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin. Wals, A. E. (2006). Globalization and environmental education: Looking beyond sustainable development. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40(1), 1-21. Wapner, P. (2010). Living through the end of nature: The future of American environmentalism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

227

228

Revisiting Thoreau, Leopold, Carson & Wilson

White, G. (1789/1967). The natural history of Selborne. London & New York: Everyman Library. JM Dent & Sons/E. P Dutton & Co. White, L. (1967). The religious roots of our ecological crisis. Science, 155, 1203207. Wiek, A. (2007). Challenges of transdisciplinary research as interactive knowledge generation experiences from transdisciplinary case study research. Gaia: Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 16(1), 52-57. Williams, M. (2003). Deforesting the earth: from prehistory to global crisis. Chicago: University of Chicago. Williams, R. (1973). Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. London: Fontana. Wilson, E. O. (1978). On human nature. New York: Random House, Inc. Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Wilson, E. O. (1992). The diversity of life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Wilson, E. O. (1998). Consilience: The unity of knowledge. New York: Vintage. Wilson, E. O. (2000). Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Harvard University. Wilson, E. O. (2002). The future of life. London: W. W. Norton & Co. Wilson, E. O. (2006). Naturalist. New York: Time Warner. Wilson, E. O. (2012). The social conquest of the Earth. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Wilson, E. O. (2014). The meaning of human existence. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Wilson, E. O. (2016). Half-earth: Our planet’s fight for life. W. W. Norton & Co. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). (1987.) Our Common Future. The Brundtland Report. New York: Oxford University. The World Conservation Union (IUCN)(2013). Caring for the earth: a strategy for sustainable living. New York: Routledge. World Wildlife Fund (WWF). (2014). Footprint calculator. Retrieved 25 December 2014 from http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/. Worster, D. (1977). Nature’s economy: A history of ecological ideas. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University. Worster, D. (1979). Dust bowl: The southern plains in the 1930s. UK: Oxford University. Worster, D. (1985). Rivers of empire: Water, aridity, and the growth of the American West. Oxford, UK: Oxford University. Worster, D. (1993). The wealth of nature: Environmental history and the ecological imagination. Oxford, UK: Oxford University. Worster, D. (1994). Nature and the disorder of history. Environmental History Review, 18(2), 1-15. Worster, D. (2008).  A passion for nature: The life of John Muir. USA: Oxford University.

Works Cited

Xenophon. (384 B. C./1992). Xenophon: Memorabilia; Oeconomicus; Symposium; Apology. Harvard University. Xing, Y., Malcolm, R. Horner, W. Mohamed, A. E., & Bebbington, J. (2009). A framework for assessing sustainability impacts of urban development. Science Direct, 33, 209-224. Yeo, R. (2003). Defining science: William Whewell, natural knowledge and public debate in early Victorian Britain (Vol. 27). Cambridge University. Young, O. R., Berkhout, F., Gallopin, G. C., Janssen, M. A., Ostrom, E., & van der Leeuw, S. (2006). The globalization of socio-ecological systems: An agenda for scientific research. Global Environmental Change, 16(3), 304-316. Yu, C. (2001). Complex adaptive system theory and its application: Foundation, contents and implication. Journal of Systemic Dialectics, 4 (9).

229

Social Sciences and Cultural Studies Carlo Bordoni

Interregnum Beyond Liquid Modernity 2016, 136 p., pb. 19,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-3515-7 E-Book PDF: 17,99 € (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3515-1 EPUB: 17,99€ (DE), ISBN 978-3-7328-3515-7

Alexander Schellinger, Philipp Steinberg (eds.)

The Future of the Eurozone How to Keep Europe Together: A Progressive Perspective from Germany October 2017, 202 p., pb. 29,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-4081-6 E-Book PDF: 26,99 € (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-4081-0 EPUB: 26,99€ (DE), ISBN 978-3-7328-4081-6

European Alternatives, Daphne Büllesbach, Marta Cillero, Lukas Stolz (eds.)

Shifting Baselines of Europe New Perspectives beyond Neoliberalism and Nationalism May 2017, 212 p., pb. 19,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-3954-4 E-Book: available as free open access publication ISBN 978-3-8394-3954-8

All print, e-book and open access versions of the titles in our list are available in our online shop www.transcript-verlag.de/en!

Social Sciences and Cultural Studies Ramón Reichert, Annika Richterich, Pablo Abend, Mathias Fuchs, Karin Wenz (eds.)

Digital Culture & Society (DCS) Vol. 1, Issue 1 – Digital Material/ism 2015, 242 p., pb. 29,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-3153-1 E-Book: 29,99 € (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3153-5

Ilker Ataç, Gerda Heck, Sabine Hess, Zeynep Kasli, Philipp Ratfisch, Cavidan Soykan, Bediz Yilmaz (eds.)

movements. Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies Vol. 3, Issue 2/2017: Turkey’s Changing Migration Regime and its Global and Regional Dynamics November 2017, 230 p., pb. 24,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-3719-9

Annika Richterich, Karin Wenz, Pablo Abend, Mathias Fuchs, Ramón Reichert (eds.)

Digital Culture & Society (DCS) Vol. 3, Issue 1/2017 – Making and Hacking June 2017, 198 p., pb. 29,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-3820-2 E-Book: 29,99 € (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3820-6

All print, e-book and open access versions of the titles in our list are available in our online shop www.transcript-verlag.de/en!