NATURE, SOCIETY AND HISTORY
LONG TERM DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL METABOLISM
Guest Editors: Marina Fischer-Kowalski,
Eugene Rosa, Rolf P. Sieferle and Barbara Smetschka
Stephen
Boyden
Nature, Society, History and Social Change
Abstract
The Nature, Society
and History theme is discussed in terms of the conceptual
framework of 'biohistory'. Reference is made to its relevance
to human health and well-being, societal metabolism and
ecological sustainability. The power of human culture as an
ecological force is emphasized. The Nature, Society and
History paradigm is discussed in the context of the social
changes that will be necessary for the achievement of
ecological sustainability. It is suggested that it has an
essential contribution to make not only in the academic world,
but also in the general community.
Helga
Weisz, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Clemens M. Grünbühel, Helmut
Haberl, Fridolina Krausmann and Verena Winiwarter
Global Environmental Change and Historical Transitions
Abstract
What do transition
processes in rural areas in Thailand, biomass consumption in
nineteenth-century Austria and the ecology of hunter-gatherers
have to do with the appropriation of plant production and
global environmental change? More than one might think of in
the first place. They are part of a scholarly discourse on our
changing relations with the environment. We argue that global
change can be analysed in terms of transitions between major
modes of subsistence and try to document this with several
case studies.
Richard
C. Hoffmann
A Longer View: Is Industrial Metabolism Really the Problem?
Abstract
Seen from the long
perspective of recent historical research on Europe's
pre-industrial millennia, large-scale human destruction of
natural environments and ecological relationships evidently
pre-dates industrial metabolism. If so, the limited view of
the most recent centuries arguably fails to encompass the
depth of experience required to understand current problems or
therefore to formulate successful remedies or responses to
human violations of carrying capacity. The longer past reveals
some cultural mechanisms to counteract the pressures of human
wants and needs. Comparative research is urged on long-term
ecological outcomes in other great pre-industrial
civilizations.
Petra
J. E. M. van Dam
Status
Loss Due to Ecological Success. Landscape Change and the
Spread of the Rabbit
Abstract
This article focuses
on the early modern history of the rabbit in England, France,
Flanders and Holland, as a case in the long-term dynamics
between society and nature. How and why did the rabbit spread
and what was the role of humans? Deforestation, the spread of
agriculture and the set up of warrens were key elements that
created a new habitat for the rabbit. Investments in promoting
rabbits were market driven. The rabbit provided a welcome
resource of fur and meat after many furry wild animals had
become extinct as a result of hunting and habitat destruction.
Once the rabbit became wild it turned into a pest. Extensive
damage to crops and disastrous sand drift were unforeseen and
undesired results. Ultimately, the ecological success of the
rabbit was the cause of its loss of status.
Roldan
Muradian and Joan Martinez-Alier
South-North
Materials Flow: History and Environmental Reprercussions
Abstract
The current
literature on the relationship between income and
environmental quality is dominated by a notion of an inverted
'U'-shaped curve between both variables. However, a key
variable is missing in this kind of study: the
extra-territorial environmental effects of national economies.
International trade of raw materials may be a good proxy to
estimate these 'environmental load displacement' effects. The
present work tries to elucidate some patterns in the
relationship between economic growth in affluent countries and
the quantity of non-renewable materials imported from
less-developed countries. The results indicate that a general
de-linking between economic growth and Southern resource
consumption is not occurring in the industrialized world. Thus,
developed countries may be increasingly displacing the
environmental costs associated with material throughput to
poorer regions of the world.
