The global environment at risk Flashcards
(86 cards)
1
Q
What are some key points about contemporary environmental change?
A
It is no longer confined to localised places or people, it is global
2
Q
What is temporality?
A
The experience of time, links with perception and how it is felt; it is spatially varied
3
Q
What are some words frequently used to describe the climate crisis relating to time?
A
“Emergency”; “improvement”; “futures”; “perpetuality”
Other contexts there is “spending” (v capitalist), “passing”, “wasting”, “forgetting” time
4
Q
From a more existential stance, what are the implications of unprecedented environmental change?
A
Makes us ask if the world will ever be the same…
Has the world ever been in a static state?
5
Q
What is a good example of “disorientation” during the environmental crisis?
A
The Inuit language (a very robust language) cannot adjust to the rapid environmental changes taking place
(FIND A CITATION!)
6
Q
Why does perspective effect global conciousness?
A
We can see the world from the perspective of the outsider - a “god-eye view” (also ignores the representor)
7
Q
Why do we need to rethink approaches to environmental history?
A
We are paralysed (Latour, 2004)
8
Q
When did Donna Haraway write situated knowledges?
A
1988
9
Q
What is meant by second natures?
A
About the arbitrary definition of what nature is… is anything pure nature?
The pristine myth
(See Cronon 1991)
10
Q
How did Williams describe nature?
A
“Perhaps the most complex word in the English language” (Williams 1976)
11
Q
Who introduced the idea of second natures?
A
Clarence Glacken (1967) - written during the beginning of the environmentalist movement
12
Q
What paradox emerges when considering second natures? Does this limit the application of the idea?
A
- Second natures presume that the earth has been altered by humans, or that it is forever changing. So when did it start?
- Without a starting point, how do we measure contemporary climate change? Or should we just accept that humans (CAPITALISM!) has always been a problem which should be addressed?
13
Q
How does first nature relate to planetary urbanisation?
A
Planetary urbanisation has created a completely urban world (Lefebvre, 2003)
14
Q
In what other ways does first nature occur?
A
- When it comes to imagined communities in the nation state - Stewart Lee “Comin’ over here”
- When it comes to socio-political issues, essentialism to cover up underlying relations (population increase)
- All three about how things are essentialist and generalised
15
Q
What is providentialism?
A
- A religious framework providing a ‘moral obligation’ to improve the land
- Capitalism given moral authority through Christianity
- Justified colonialism
(see Drayton, 2005 Nature’s Government)
16
Q
What is unproductive land to colonisers?
A
Wasteland
17
Q
What is important about ecological imperialism (Crosby, 2004)
A
Plants brought over from Europe by colonisers to New World now feed Europe. A paradox
18
Q
What is the problem with Drayton’s (2005) work on providentialism and Crosby’s (2004) work on ecological imperialism?
A
- Makes improvement and colonialism sound more peaceful than it actually was
- Force important, as well as resistance
19
Q
What is implicitly associated with the passage of time?
A
Progress (Boris Johnson COP 26 interview)
20
Q
What is a good paper on the standardisation of time in the workplace?
A
Thompson 1967
21
Q
What is a novel way of representing different and coordinated temporalities?
A
Taskscapes (Ingold, 1993)
IMPORTANT: Do taskcapes mean that we are divided into different temporalities through the division of labour?
22
Q
What is a good (and problematic) example of a highlighting different global temporalities?
A
Omai, a “Noble Savage” native of present-day Tahiti portrayed in Ancient Greek clothing in a Capability Brown landscape (18th C)
23
Q
What is Fabian’s co-evalness?
A
Inhabiting the same time (Fabian 1983)
24
Q
Why is co-evalness important?
A
People around the world are still represented as occupying different times, when really many have contemporary (or even more pressing) concerns
(Fabian 1983)
25
What is a limitation of co-evalness in the Anthropocene? How can it be overcome?
- Forgets about inequalities and how some places will experience climate change sooner than others
- Instead we need to see humanity as one, experiencing the same temporality, such that we all experience climate change simultaneously so climate action can actually happen
26
When was the N Carlolina PCB protest? What did it involve and why is it significant?
- 1982 (Miller, 2016)
- The black community protested because PCB chemicals seeped into the water supply from industries
- Seen as the start of the environmental justice movement
27
Are the effects of pollution felt equally?
No, the effects are segregated among pre-existing social segregations
28
What is a problem with wilderness protection?
It has been appropriated by NIMBYism, instead resulting in pollution being put in minorities' backyards
29
When did ecology become a more dominant discipline?
Began to be taught in schools in the 1970s
30
Who coined the term ecosystem? What else did he coin?
Arthur Tansley (Blew, 1996)
Also devised an understanding of anthropogenic alteration (link to second natures)
31
What is the cynical side of holism?
It was used to justify separation by race during apartheid because would otherwise affect the 'holism' of the community
32
Why is it we refer to ecosystem disturbances?
Goes back to the psychoanalyical origins of the term with Tansely (Cameron, 2015)
33
What was the difference between Tansley and Clements' views of ecosystems vis-a-vis human sociology?
Tansley saw ecosystems as individuals, Clements (1942) saw them as a single organism
Latter links to Gaia hypothesis
34
What is a major theme within ecology?
Analogies to humans and technology (e.g., circuits, esp. after systems theory introduced)
Equally nature is used in analogy to human society and politics
35
What was the problem with Tansley viewing ecosystems as individuals?
Created divisions between people AND ecosystems - theoretical backdrop to apartheid
CITATION?
36
What did Carson inadvertently do in writing Silent Spring?
Created a form of counterfactual history for those in the future to reflect on
37
What linguistic devices did Carson draw on in Silent Spring (1962)?
- Sounds like a fairy tale
- "What if" anaphora
- A biblical story
38
What is a narrative?
Many things
Can be perspectives, tales, novels, journals, lectures etc
All people are involved in narratives
39
What is pluralism?
- Difference in perspective or kind
- Values different perspectives
- Not the same as diversity
40
Was Alexander Von Humbolt a pluralist?
No, he was a universalist
All places with similar climates are the same
CITATION?
41
What is 'affect'?
Intangible impact of power on people
42
What is the problem with considering animals' experiances?
Cannot fully understand or know experiences and effects beyond a priori assumptions and limited behavioural evidence
43
What does Beck et al 1994 democratising sub-politics entail?
Making risk science accountable
44
How do Inuit perceive and construct risk?
- They PLAN for the future, accounting for all scenarios
- Use understanding of their local environment
- DO NOT PREDICT the future, that is seen as arrogant
(Bates, 2007)
45
What does Inuit construction (c.f. Bates 2007) of risk highlight?
That risk is a Western construct
46
How do western conceptualisations of risk work?
They use prediction for the future, using the past as evidence which is weighed up using probability
Perhaps this is liable to disaster by not accounting for unlikely things. LESS INTERPRETIVE REFLEXIVITY - links to "biproducts" and externalities to Capitalism
Compare to Bates 2007 Inuit paper
47
Why is Arnold 2000's work on Topicality ironic today?
European organisations are now trying to preserve tropics as a wilderness area... even though in the past there was a focus on conquest and domination
48
How does Swift introduce 'Waterland'?
A definition of Historia: “inquiry… a narrative of past events… any kind of narrative” (added emphasis)
49
Who has written critically about Chakrabarty's philosophy? Why?
Bonneuil and Fressoz 2015
- Chakrabarty is defeatist in saying that capitalism should no longer be critiques because the effects in the anthropocene will outlive it
50
What is "Geopower"?
- Formulated by Bonneuil and Fressoz (2015)
- A form of biopower concerning the way in which the world has been represented as technological
- In a state of "emergency"
- "extreme" (inc fascist) solutions are thus framed
51
How is objectivity made possible by western scientists?
- A "view from nowhere"
- 19th century idea
- Requires a "de-earthed" vision
- Earthrise as an example
Bonneuil and Fressoz 2015
52
What is the trouble with the Anthropocene being apoliticised?
Anthropocentologists only DESCRIBE a history of humans increasingly destroying the planet
- Fails to investigate (and EXPLAIN) WHY
- "Only explanatory at the secondary level"
Bonneuil and Fressoz 2015
53
Is the separation of humans and nature only a modern phenomenon?
- Existed for thousands of years (Bookchin 1995)
- Aware of impacts since the 18th century
- Made to look as though only known now in an "emergency"
Bonneuil and Fressoz 2015
54
What is reflexivity?
How feelings and motives shape what you do
Bonneuil and Fressoz 2015
55
How does scientific elitism play a role in the Anthropocene?
- Scientists "discovered it", so should solve it
- Similar with "discovery" of new world - forgets other perspectives
Bonneuil and Fressoz 2015
56
What is the main argument behind Chakrabarty's work?
There are many futures and possible temporal pathways of "modernisation"
Chakrabarty 1992 (Provicialising Europe)
57
Why do I find Chakrabarty's criticism of Marxism problematic?
Marxism is critical of Eurocentrism in the present day - Marx himself was paraphrasing arguments of society and classical economists!
Capitalism undeniably originated in Europe... It's the very source of Chakrabarty's (1992) arguments!
58
Where is there evidence of Marxism assigning temporal aspects to theories?
"Pre-political societies" - ignores modes of production which come before capitalism which still exist today
Chakrabarty 1992
59
What does Chakrabarty 2009 say about human and natural histories?
That they have never intersected...
Yet Marxists and others have pointed this out for a long time
60
Why does Chakrabary undermine his theories?
He suggests that all humans are equally causing climate change so that his arguments stand... yet this is definitely wrong!
(c.f. Malm and Hornborg 2014)
61
Why is decentring needed during the anthropocene?
Just as decentring is necessary in a globalised world, decentring is important during the Anthropocene when impacts are afflicting many different places
Zemon Davis 2011
62
What is the purpose of decentring?
To "introduce plural voices into the account"
Zemon Davis 2011
63
How is time political?
- Everything plays out through time
- Time can be used as a means of domination, discourse and power
Fabian 1983
64
What does Allochronic mean?
The opposite of co-evalness - occupying a different temporality or time
Fabian 1983
65
What is the empirical focus of Fabian's (1983) work?
Polynesia
66
Why is temporal distancing important for science?
Creates separated subjects for objective study
67
What is unique about the anthropocene?
First time lots of different places and societies are implicated in it
Chakrabarty 2018
68
Why does decentring create theoretical issues during the Anthropocene?
- Europe is the cause of the crisis - and many in the South want that to be raised
- Should not de-centre causes
c.f. Chakrabarty 2018
69
What is less clear about Szerszynski (2019) arguing that "the Earth remembers and forgets"?
Will it remember the social causes of the Anthropocene?
70
How could a de-centring of solutions and approaches to the Anthropocene be useful? What's the catch?
- Provides new perspectives (such as Inuit risk in Bates 2007)
- Yet could lead to western "ingenuity" as an argument
Advocated for by Daniels and Endfield 2009
71
How has Social Darwinism been applied to Western knowledge and temporality?
"This evolutionary view… showing growth and progress taking place along a single line, was possible only on the assumption that the pursuit of science was a fundamental part of human nature, a universal enterprise transcendentally derived"
Cunningham and Williams 1993
72
Who has advocated for being coeval with nature, not just humans?
Heringman 2018
73
What is a good way of illustrating different pathways through time for nature and humans?
- Natural time is cyclical
- Human time is a linear arrow
Cronon 1993
74
What is a good quote on urban/social metabolism and the metabolic rift?
"The more complicated the paths in and out of town, the more obscure they become and the easier it is to forget them"
Cronon 1993
75
What did Williams (writing in the 1970s) say would be "ironic" concerning humans and nature?
"It will be ironic if one of the last forms of the separation between abstracted man and abstracted nature is an intellectual separation between economics and ecology"
Yet this happened! Geography and Pol Ecol are reunifying them
76
What is a good way of addressing an essay on temporality or decentring?
- Need to equalise time by de-centring Eurocentric approaches to time
- Yet need to remember that the Anthropocene has unequal causes and consequences
- So should be used to decentre narratives and solutions, but to avoid re-centring
77
Why does decenring created by the "blue marble photo" or Apollo landings offer opportunities to decenring in the anthropocene?
- Coevalness to reconnect on the same temporality
- Yet not quite so nostalgic...
Itakura 2015 on Apollo Landing humans (with a TV) in unison
78
What does Boyce's book "Imperial Mud" highlight about imperialism and indigeneity?
Imperialism creates indigenous cohesiveness which is presented as backward as time increasingly leads towards capitalist development
(Boyce 2020)
79
What has Boyce (2021) highlighted as the main issue with the fenland history?
- Overlooked - the landscape does not show it, and history does not show what happened in the Fens
- Obviously not the same as when it comes to Australia
- "The agency of the people was not part of history"
- These factors had been known in Australia
Boyce 2021
80
What is the problem with first/second nature and/or planetary urbanisation?
Where to draw ontological distinctions...
When does the Anthropocene start and when will it end?
81
Why is planetary urbanisation (Brenner 2003) significant for global environmental change?
- Is anywhere rural?
| - Conversely, is anywhere urban? (hence obscure and ambiguous)
82
What is important to remember for the Living With Global Change (inc. diseases section) paper?
Need to refer to GLOBAL and CHANGES throughout
Even if it is just context for conc - might not necessarily be appropriate for Q
83
What does Varoufakis (2013) argue about decentring? What are the adverse implications?
- Need to adopt Archimedes' idea of "inspecting from the outside"
- Important because few people do this, the rich can easily do it - they have time, knowledge of markets, and an incentive to do so
Implications are to forget people are involved in it!
84
How does Varoufakis' (2013) support for decentring and to "inspect from the outside" differ from other "god-eye views"?
- About seeing the big picture for those dominated by an abstract culture in an economic system
- NOT about trying to gain a form of objectivity for studying and maximisation - this is the traditional form of "god-eye view"
85
What is longue durée?
A way of studying history that extends beyond human and archaeological history (climate etc)
Useful in the Anthropocene
86
What is important about environmental history with respect to the Anthropocene?
Highlights how in some ways the effects are unprecedented, but the causes are not particularly unprecedented
(Eg emergency narrative in Bonnel and Fressoz 2018; also cities importance and destruction of nature)
