WHAT IS NATURE

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WHAT IS NATURE?

• AND WHAT IS NATURE FOR?

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QUOTES FOR THE WEEK

• The Lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.
• Life without labor is guilt. Labor without art
  is brutality. (John Ruskin, 1819-1900, British
  artist, scientist, art critic, poet,
  environmentalist, philosopher, and said to be the
  greatest Victorian except for Queen Victoria).

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The Economy and Nature The Simple Model
FIRMS
NATURE AS A SINK FOR WASTES FROM
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
wastes
NATURE AS A SOURCE OF INPUTS FOR
ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

commodities
labor



HOUSHOLDS
wastes
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HOUSEHOLDS BUYING FROM FIRMS
SUPPLY
SUPPLY
Price
p
p
DEMAND
q
q
Goods and Services
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HOUSEHOLDS BUYING FROM NATURE
SUPPLY
Price
p
p
DEMAND
D
q
q
Recreation days
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FIRMS BUYING FROM NATURE
SUPPLY
Price
p
p
DEMAND
D
q
q
Quantity of timber
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FIRMS BUYING FROM HOUSEHOLDS
SUPPLY
Wage
p
p
DEMAND FOR LABOR
D
q
q
Quantity of labor
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The Evolution of Nature as A Commodity to be
Traded

• Of course individuals had always used nature
• But colonialism involved nature in a web of
  long-distance trade
• And this precipitated colonialism

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The Economy and Nature With Trade
Foreign Countries
Domestic Economy
Nature
raw materials
IMPORTS
FIRMS

foreign exchange
EXPORTS
NATURE AS A SINK FOR WASTES
Firms
commodities
commodities
foreign exchange
NATURE AS A SOURCE OF INPUTS FOR ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY

Households
labor


commodities
HOUSHOLDS

IMPORTS

commodities
environmental goods and services

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COLONIAL EXPANSION

• Brockway writes of science in the service of
  colonialism
• British East India Company 1600
• Dutch East India Company -- 1602

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The British in India

• Interested in spices, timber, etc.
• That is, the extraction and importation of exotic
  materials from the tropics for domestic
  consumption

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The Evolution of Colonialism

• But the British were also interested in the
  tropics as a laboratory for science and the
  nation state to support colonial outposts
• The exposure to India induced an interest in tea
  among the British, but of course tea does not
  grow in Britain.

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The Emergence of the Tea Triangle

• Britain started out importing tea from China, but
  Britain had little to trade that the Chinese
  wanted to have
• This created a problem in the outflow (drainage)
  of British pounds to China
• A nation will run short of its own currency if it
  imports too much from elsewhere

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Solving the Currency Problem

• Some way had to be found to get tea from China
  without draining the British Treasury of Pounds,
  Shillings, and Pence.
• The answer would be found in something that China
  wished to have
• The answer turned out, unfortunately, to be opium

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So the Tea Triangle Emerged

• The British would grow opium in India
• The British would take the opium to China
• The opium would be traded (bartered) for tea that
  would then go to England

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Hong Kong as a Colonial Entrepot

• Hong Kong became a British territory in order to
  facilitate the opium trade (and trade in other
  goods)
• China (at least Southeast and East China) was a
  colonial outpost.
• Hong Kong and Shanghai were British
• Macau was Portuguese

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The Opium Wars of 1839-1842

• By 1830 the British had become the worlds largest
  drug traffickers, importing opium to China in
  exchange for tea and other goods.
• This trade was centered on the inland city of
  Canton (now Guangzhou).

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The Opium Wars

• By 1836 China had criminalized the opium trade
  but the British bribed Cantonese traders and kept
  the trade vibrant
• Opium dens and addiction spread
• See http//www.wsu.edu/dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM

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The Brockway Article

• Relates similar stories for
• Cinchona
• Rubber
• Sisal

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The Dutch East India Company

• In 1642 The Dutch established an outpost at Cape
  Town
• The purpose was to provision the ships with meat,
  citrus, etc.
• The Dutch were interested in spices (the Spice
  Islands).

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Outpost at Cape Town Fueled European Occupation
of Southern Africa

• Huguenots quest for religious freedom
• Dutch immigrants seeking land and opportunity
• Discovery of gold and diamonds
• The rise of apartheid

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Nature and Social Policy

• The discovery of gold and diamonds in South
  Africa is best understood as the precursors to
  apartheid
• The large supply of low-wage labor willing to
  work in the mines led to widespread unemployment
  in the 1950s and fueled the rise of a white
  supremacist government that lasted until 1994.
• Nelson Mandela spent 27 of those years in prison

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And so we see that nature and colonialism
produced a particular economy in most of
Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, and
Southeast Asia. Indeed the number of poor
developing countries that have NEVER been
colonized by Britain, Germany, France, Belgium
and the U.S. is very small indeed.

• This history is important to our own experience
  here in the U.S. We were, after all, a colony of
  settlers--just as South Africa was.

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America as the Garden

• Early European immigrants saw America as a
  gardenverdant, unspoiled, lush, productive and
  waiting to be both conquered as well as revered.
• It was empty and there for the taking.
• See The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx
• Recall Lockes idea that nature was to be
  subjected to human conquest.
• That is what nature is FORthe purpose of nature

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The Evolved and Created Purpose of Nature in
America

• The purpose of nature was to produce food and
  fiber
• Timber
• Minerals
• Agriculture
• Water for transport and energy production

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Environmental Awareness (Earth Day) in the 1970s
was concerned with working out a newPurpose of
Nature

• This meant challenging accepted attitudes and
  beliefs and behaviors.
• It meant working out reasons to regard nature in
  other terms.

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And So Environmental Literature

• Environmental literature is giving us other
  reasons to see nature.
• It is giving us meaning that we did not see
  before.
• By meaning I have in mind ways to talk about
  and to think about nature that was missing
  before.

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Recall our earlier discussion of beliefs, rules
and customs, and behaviors?It is from here that
we can understand a profound change in the
purposes of nature (that is, what is nature for?).
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BELIEFS, RULES BEHAVIOR
BEHAVIOR
RULES
BELIEFS
Rules are the structural parameters of a
societythese are both legal and cultural (or
customary habits of mind).
Beliefs are the thoughts and attitudes that
inform and shape both rules and behavior.
Behavior is the actual choices that people
makewhat they do.
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The Purposes of Nature

• The early vision was that nature was for the
  provision of raw materials for our sustenance and
  material enrichment.
• Now there is an evolving sense that nature is for
  something less materialistic.
• Perhaps nature is not just to extract from, and
  to receive our wastes?
• Perhaps nature is to be enjoyed (used) in a
  way that does not take FROM nature, but regards
  nature as something we can experience.