Covering the last five hundred years of global history, The Environment in World History examines the processes that have transformed the Earth and put growing pressure on natural resources.
Chapters ...and case studies explore a wide range of issues, including:
the hunting of wildlife and the loss of biodiversity in nearly every part of the globe
the clearing of the world's forests and the development of strategies to halt their decline
the degradation of soils, one of the most profound and unnoticed ways that humans have altered the planet
the impact of urban-industrial growth and the deepening 'ecological footprints' of the world's cities
the pollution of air, land and water as the 'inevitable' trade-off for continued economic growth worldwide.
The Environment in World History offers a fresh environmental perspective on familiar world history narratives of imperialism and colonialism, trade and commerce, and technological progress and the advance of civilisation, and will be invaluable reading for all students of world history and environmental studies.
Urbanization and urban lifestyle are progressively diminishing individuals' opportunity (e.g., nature exposure) to experience and orientation (affinity) towards nature, ultimately reducing people's ...experiences of nature. This process has been described as the ‘extinction of experience’ (EoE), and it was suggested that it can alter the way people benefit from, interact with, learn about, emotionally connect with and commit to protect the natural world. The EoE is underpinned by interconnected relations between the drivers, nature experiences and outcomes, yet to date most research have focused on bilateral relations (e.g. between opportunity and well-being). Here we adopt a holistic approach to jointly explore the network of relationships suggested by the EoE theory. We conducted a survey of 523 inhabitants of a large metropolis, Tel Aviv, Israel, living in neighborhoods varying in nature intensity levels, and explored their orientation, health, well-being, environmental attitudes and conservation behaviors. Using a structural equation model, we empirically demonstrated the validity of the theoretical model of the EoE, but also showed more complex relationships. For instance, opportunity to experience urban nature was only related to health and well-being benefits, while orientation towards nature was related to well-being, conservation attitudes and behaviors in different contexts. Thus, providing opportunities to experience nature seems to be less sufficient than strengthening people's orientation to avert the EoE, as the latter can simultaneously enhance nature experiences, conservation behaviors and provide social benefits. This knowledge is pivotal if we are to promote policies that achieve the behavioral changes needed to mitigate the biodiversity crisis.
•We empirically tested the validity of the extinction of experience framework.•We provided support for the framework but also showed complex relationships.•Providing more opportunities can help maintain health and well-being in cities.•Connecting people with nature can benefit both people and, indirectly, biodiversity.•Enhancing the quality of nature interactions can help increase nature affinity.
Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached "the end of nature," as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is ...there left to protect? InThinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of "nature" altogether and spoke instead of the "environment" -- that is, the world that actually surrounds us, which is always abuiltworld, the only one that we inhabit. We need to think not so much like a mountain (as Aldo Leopold urged) as like a mall. Shopping malls, too, are part of the environment and deserve as much serious consideration from environmental thinkers as do mountains. Vogel argues provocatively that environmental philosophy, in its ethics, should no longer draw a distinction between the natural and the artificial and, in its politics, should abandon the idea that something beyond human practices (such as "nature") can serve as a standard determining what those practices ought to be. The appeal to nature distinct from the built environment, he contends, may be not merely unhelpful to environmental thinking but in itself harmful to that thinking. The question for environmental philosophy is not "how can we save nature?" but rather "what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?"
This book examines the relationship between humans and nature that evolved in medieval Europe over the course of a millennium. From the beginning, people lived in nature and discovered things about ...it. Ancient societies bequeathed to the Middle Ages both the Bible and a pagan conception of natural history. These conflicting legacies shaped medieval European ideas about the natural order and what economic, moral and biological lessons it might teach. This book analyzes five themes found in medieval views of nature – grafting, breeding mules, original sin, property rights and disaster – to understand what some medieval people found in nature and what their assumptions and beliefs kept them from seeing.
Most of the world's population in developed regions lives in urban areas, with this proportion growing annually. A key question regarding this trend is the effects that reduced contact with nature ...may have on human well-being and functioning. In this paper, we propose to evaluate, using the empirical literature, the hypothesis that human beings have a basic psychological need for nature relatedness. This proposition could have positive benefits for human well-being, the way we design human environments and communities, and the natural environment itself if properly evidenced; however, to date, no article has evaluated the extant literature for such a purpose. The objective of this paper is to use previous conceptualisations of basic psychological needs, and the criteria proposed by Baumeister and Leary (1995) and Sheldon (2011) to critically examine whether enough evidence exists to support this proposition. Research from diverse research areas are reviewed, with conclusions drawn for each criterion as well as for the overall literature. In general, research supports the proposition for a basic psychological need for nature relatedness, with stronger evidence pointing to the idea of this as a need-as-requirement than a need-as-motive, though both are well-evidenced.
La population mondiale des régions développées vit majoritairement en zone urbaine, et cette proportion croît d'année en année. La principale question concernant cette tendance a trait aux effets éventuels du contact réduit avec la nature sur le mieux-être et le fonctionnement humain. Dans le présent article, nous proposons d'évaluer, au regard des écrits empiriques, l'hypothèse voulant que les êtres humains aient un besoin psychologique fondamental de liaison avec la nature. Cette proposition, si elle est dûment étayée, pourrait avoir des effets positifs sur le mieux-être humain, sur la façon dont nous concevons les collectivités et les milieux humains, ainsi que sur l'environnement naturel. Or, à ce jour, aucun article n'a évalué les publications existantes dans un tel objectif. Le présent article vise à utiliser les conceptualisations établies des besoins psychologiques de base ainsi que les critères proposés par Baumeister et Leary (1995) ainsi que Sheldon (2011) pour examiner de manière critique s'il existe suffisamment de preuves pour étayer cette proposition. La recherche effectuée dans divers domaines sera examinée, et des conclusions seront tirées pour chaque critère, ainsi que pour la documentation dans son ensemble. De manière générale, la recherche confirme la proposition voulant que l'humain ait un besoin psychologique fondamental de liaison avec la nature. Des preuves mieux étayées semblent indiquer qu'il s'agit d'un besoin motivé par la nécessité plutôt que par la volonté, même si ces deux possibilités sont bien démontrées.
The purpose of the research is to highlight methodological approaches to understanding principles of law in the contextof modern globalization transformations. Main content. Their ontological, ...epistemological and axiological nature are revealed, in particular, links of the principles of law with human existence, science and other ways of world perception are being traced. Methodology: The methodological basis of the research is the dialectical method of scientific knowledge, through the application of this method considered were legal, functional, organizational and procedural aspects of methodological approaches to understanding of principles of law in the context of modern globalization transformations. Conclusions. The classification of the principles of law was singled out and a brief description of their types — universal principles, civilizational principles, and right-family principles and possibilities of separating principles of the national legal system was provided.
Forces of Nature Fedman, David; Kim, Eleana J; Park, Albert L ...
05/2023
eBook
Odprti dostop
Bringing together a multidisciplinary conversation about
the entanglement of nature and society in the Korean
peninsula, Forces of Nature
aims to define and develop the field of the Korean
...environmental humanities. At its core, the volume works to
foreground non-human agents that have long been marginalized in
Korean studies, placing flora, fauna, mineral deposits, and
climatic conditions that have hitherto been confined to footnotes
front and center. In the process, the authors blaze new trails
through Korea's social and physical landscapes.
What emerges is a deeper appreciation of the environmental
conflicts that have animated life in Korea. The authors show how
natural processes have continually shaped the course of events on
the peninsula-how floods, droughts, famines, fires, and pests have
inexorably impinged on human affairs-and how different forces have
been mobilized by the state to variously, control, extract,
modernize, and showcase the Korean landscape. Forces of
Nature suggestively reveals Korea's physical landscape to be
not so much a passive context to Korea's history, but an active
agent in its transformation and reinvention across centuries.
There is empirical evidence suggesting a positive link between direct experiences in nature and people's environmental attitudes (EA) and behaviors (EB). This has led researchers to encourage more ...frequent contact with nature, especially during childhood, as a way of increasing pro-environmentalism (i.e., pro-EA and pro-EB). However, the association between experiences in nature and EA/EB is complex, and specific guidelines for people's everyday contact with nature cannot be provided. This article offers an overview of the research conducted until know about the relation between experiences in nature and pro-environmentalism, and opens up new inquiries for future research. We begin with an introduction to people's current tendency toward an alienation from the natural world and set out the objectives of the article. It is followed by three main sections. The first one reports on what experiences in nature refer to, how and where they occur. The second section describes the different approaches used to investigate and interpret the experiences in nature-EA and EB relation. The last section provides suggestions for future research. We close by making some final remarks about the importance of (re)stablishing a greater interaction with nature for people's pro-EA and EB.
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