To Read
Background for Environmental Humanities
Background for Environmental History
Growth/Degrowth
Environmental Justice
Books In This Category That I’ve Read
Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring”
Classic in the field, and partially came from Hopkins which is always neat. This book suffers from first mover disadvantage: it does something important that nobody else had ever done before, and so when others came to do similar things it became less special in comparison. I liked it quite a bit, and I learned quite a bit by reading it. That said, I do think that other books have filled in this kind of gap many times now. I will read more of her work in the future.
Elizabeth Kolbert, “Field Notes From a Catastrophe”
Demonstrates why the New Yorker is held in such high esteem. Climate science is a science that lends itself very well to schematic explanation, and Elizabeth Kolbert is clearly a master of explanation. She touches on the effects of climate change on Alaskan permafrost, the role of the oceans, and explains feedback loops and discusses ENSO and AMOC in an intuitive and engaging way. I found her articles on the climate modelling efforts at Goddard and mining in the Canadian tar sands particularly interesting. I read this entire book in one sitting.
Amitav Ghosh, “The Great Derangement”
Addresses the reasons for the failure of the novel to address topics in climate change. He says that the novel is an artistic form built on a framework of self-expression and personal narrative (emph. personal), whereas climate change is an issue that defies the individual. The relationship of the novel with the concept of probability makes it difficult to discuss improbable events, because improbable events come off as unrealistic. He identifies imperialism as a major threat in climate change: western states industrialized faster, and this gave them an advantage. To maintain this advantage, they had to keep non-western nations from industrializing using colonial violence, which may have delayed climate change (by slowing their industrialization). This is the case for why climate reparations are necessary: developing nations paid the price for slowing climate change in blood. Also, oil as a concept is much less personal than other forms of fossil fuel. In the early 20th century, social change was driven by striking coal workers (e.g. Blair Mountain) because coal was a necessary resource that is very human-intensive to extract. Oil is extracted from drills and transported in pipelines with comparatively little human interface. This removes a point of leverage for people looking to affect change.
Elizabeth Marino, “Fierce Climate, Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska”
Presents an interesting perspective on the underlying drivers of vulnerability. In the early 20th century, the Bureau of Indian Affairs built a school in Shishmaref, which they used as a method to force the indigenous Tapaqagmint to become sedentary. Prior to that they lived mobile lives, retreating inland during the winter and on the island during the summer as a fishing base. This flexible way of life was a form of adaptation: during challenging environmental conditions (e.g. flooding), the indigenous people were able to retreat inland. One consequence of the BIA imposing a more sedentary lifestyle was to remove that mode of adaptation. Now faced with flooding and erosion driven by climate change, the option to retreat inland no longer exists. Alternative adaptation strategies, such as the construction of seawalls by the Army Corps of Engineers, have a very high cost per capita; this limits options in the long term. The contradiction is that the actions of the BIA improved the standard of living in the community, but it also created a set of circumstances that are likely to destroy it. This is the case for many indigenous communities; actions taken by people who are not familiar with the community improve the standard of living in the short-term but have long-lasting negative consequences that ultimately threaten its existence.
Susan Alexandra Crate, “Once Upon the Permafrost: Knowing Culture and Climate Change in Siberia”
Collectivization under the Soviet government plays a very similar role to the imposed sedentary lifestyle of the BIA. Have many pages of notes on this book, will need to condense later.
Dorcetta Taylor, “History of the Modern Conservation Movement”
Lays out the history of the modern conservation movement, the development of the USFS under Gifford Pinchot, the establishment of the National Park Service.
Misc.
I like the look of geodesic domes, and I’d love to build one to use as a greenhouse someday. I don’t know that they’d be very practical though– with all the exposed joints, they’re probably prone to leaking. I guess that’s probably good for the plants though, even if it’s bad for the structure. There are a lot of practical problems with geodesic domes: fire escapes are difficult, they’re not easy to maintain, and they (probably) leak. Maybe it’s worth doing anyways.
Geodesic domes definitely have an association with futurism. Certainly the most famous one is at Epcot, the “experimental community of tomorrow”, and the one I’m most familiar with is the Montreal Biodome, which was built for Expo 67 as an environmental museum. The combination of environmentalism and futurism is what makes me think about solarpunk: as a form it’s a blend of the synthetic and the ecological.