Across the globe, environmental questions feature more and more in today's social and political agendas. In Western countries environmental campaigns target issues at home and abroad. They have a special urgency, which draws in an astonishing range of field campaigners, from young militants to rebel aristocrats. This book examines the roots of contemporary environmental consciousness and action in terms of both popular experience and tradition. The global reach of this book reflects the character of contemporary environmentalism. It examines a geographically and thematically diverse range of case studies, including: British environmental campaigners in the Brazilian rainforest; ecocriticism and literature; the environmental movement in Kazakhstan; and medieval church iconography. The common theme linking each chapter is that environmental consciousness and activism are shaped through people's life stories, and that their memories are shaped not only through individual experience but also through myth, tradition, and collective memory. Containing a wealth of empirical source material, Environmental Consciousness will be invaluable for sociologists and historians alike. It offers a cutting-edge illustration of how narrative and oral history can illuminate our understanding of an uncertain present. Stephen Hussey is a research associate at the School of Education at the University of Cambridge. His previous publications include Childhood in Question and his next publication will be a book for the wider market entitled Headline History. Paul Thompson is research professor in sociology and director of Qualidata at the University of Essex. He is also founder of the National Life Story Collection at the British Library National Sound Archive and founder-editor of Oral History. His previous publications include The Voice of the Past, The Edwardians, and The Work of William Morris.

"As uncontrolled development forces crises in the natural world, deep and long-standing human connections with the earth are changing. Understanding these shifting relationships is essential to framing our responses to issues of industrial development, population growth, and climate change. The use of oral history methodology in environmental research acknowledges and subjectively defines these human connections to the natural world enriching our understanding of both what the earth means to us as well as what the earth needs from us to find balance once again. Oral History and the Environment: Global Perspectives on Climate, Connection, and Catastrophe is the first book to provide a global perspective on the use of oral history in environmental research. It presents excerpts from interviews with environmental activists, victims of environmental catastrophe, and those whose life experience gives them special insights into the natural world; combined with commentary by oral historians who have been exploring how these commentaries can be used to better understand our relationship with the natural world. In this anthology, oral histories with farmers, wildlife rescue volunteers, activists, environmental disaster survivors, elders, water system managers, indigenous voices, tribal trustees, wilderness rangers, reindeer herders, fishers, and foresters, help readers understand a wide range of issues related to our relationship with the environment. These stories and expert analysis touch on a wide range of topics including drought, chemical leaks, oil spills, nuclear disaster, indigenous control of resources, natural resource management, wilderness, and environmental protest"--

Are profits and sustainability compatible? This book brings unique perspectives to this key debate by exploring the history of green entrepreneurship since the nineteenth century, and its spread globally in industries including renewable energy, organic food, natural beauty, ecotourism, recycling, architecture, and finance. The book uses the lens of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who defied convention and imagined that business could help save the planet, rather than consume it. The social and religious beliefs that drove many of these individuals are explored as the book looks at how they overcame huge obstacles to execute their strategies. The green entrepreneurs seen here are shown to have created new markets and industries, and driven innovations in sustainable practices, even at times when most consumers and governments marginalized the entire subject. The struggles of early pioneers appear to have been rewarded by the growth of environmental awareness among consumers, business leaders, and others in recent years, but the Earth's environmental health continues to deteriorate. If profits and sustainability have proved challenging to reconcile, the book argues that one reason was how they were both defined.

The concept of ’natural heritage’ has become increasingly significant with the threat of dwindling resources, environmental degradation and climatic change. As humanity’s impact on the condition of life on earth has become more prominent, a discernible shift in the relationship between western society and the environment has taken place. This is reflective of wider historical processes which reveal a constantly changing association between humanity’s definition and perception of what ’nature’ constitutes or what can be defined as ’natural’. From the ornate collections of specimens which formed the basis of a distinct concept of ’nature’ emerging during the Enlightenment, this definition and the wider relationship between humanity and natural history have reflected issues of identity, place and politics in the modern era. This book examines this process and focuses on the ideas, values and agendas that have defined the representation and reception of the history of the natural world, including geology and palaeontology, within contemporary society, addressing how the heritage of natural history, whether through museums, parks, tourist sites or popular culture is used to shape social, political, cultural and moral identities. It will be of interest to scholars and practitioners within heritage studies, public history, ecology, environmental studies and geography.

Based on empirical studies of European energy and environmental policies, this book suggests that, in combination, these two policy fields form a consensus in the EU which might also become the basis for a new European ideology, namely European ‘sustainabilism’. It asks why an environmental conscience has grown since the late 1960s in the industrialised world and shows that whilst there is undeniable environmental degradation during this time, and that a European environmental conscience has mainly developed through successive steps of European integration in energy policy. In this connection between energy and the environmental we find one driver for European integration and indeed European identity. If sustainabilism should become a European ideology, it will substantially influence the way future Europeans will live. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European Studies, International Relations, Political Science, History, Economics, Sustainability Studies, Environmental and Energy Policies in Europe.

The future of economic growth is one of the decisive questions of the twenty-first century. Alarmed by declining growth rates in industrialized countries, climate change, and rising socio-economic inequalities, among other challenges, more and more people demand to look for alternatives beyond growth. However, so far these current debates about sustainability, post-growth or degrowth lack a thorough historical perspective. This edited volume brings together original contributions on different aspects of the history of economic growth as a central and near-ubiquitous tenet of developmental strategies. The book addresses the origins and evolution of the growth paradigm from the seventeenth century up to the present day and also looks at sustainable development, sustainable growth, and degrowth as examples of alternative developmental models. By focusing on the mixed legacy of growth, both as a major source of expanded life expectancies and increased comfort, and as a destructive force harming personal livelihoods and threatening entire societies in the future, the editors seek to provide historical depth to the ongoing discussion on suitable principles of present and future global development. History of the Future of Economic Growth is aimed at students and academics in environmental, social, economic and international history, political science, environmental studies, and economics, as well as those interested in ongoing discussions about growth, sustainable development, degrowth, and, more generally, the future.

This volume brings together the best of T. C. Smout's recent articles and contributions to books and journals on the topic of environmental history.

This book presents diverse processes of crafting that bring humans, more than-humans and the environment closer to one another and, by doing so, addresses personal and educational developments towards ecological awareness. It discusses the human-material relationship, introduces posthuman theoretical entry points and reflects on the implementation of such theoretical perspectives in education. The practical examples of crafting-with the environment, the material practices and reflections posed in the book, provide insights into possible ways of levelling out human and material hierarchies. The chapters of this book give examples of artists' and crafts people's processes of thinking through materials and with materials, but also their reflections on how more-than-humans (animals and plants) craft from available materials, and how the environment and landscapes re-craft themselves through tedious processes of transformation. These case examples are founded on the authors' own experiences with phenomena they are trying to understand and critically explore. This book is of interest to professional creative practitioners, art and craft educators, art teacher educators or researchers in the field of creative practices. It has power to inspire rethinking of present educational practices, to ignite critical reflections about materials and more-than humans, and, hopefully, motivate transformations toward more ecologically sustainable ways of life. Chapters "Crafting in Dialogue with the Material Environment" and "Soil Laboratory: Crafting Experiments in an Exhibition Setting" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.se via link.springer.com.

Environmental Consciousness in China: Change with Social Transformation discusses the status of environmental consciousness within China from both an economic and political view. It then compares and contrasts the situation in China with Western nations. This is the first book that includes a comparison of urban and rural groups based on China's unique modernization background. - Considers China's environmental record from an historical perspective - Assesses the current state of environmental consciousness in China - Discusses likely future trends in environmental consciousness - Compares China's record on environmental consciousness with Western nations

Travel writing presents stories of human journeys and can guide us towards a better perception of our connections with the nonhuman world. This book is a collection of essays by writers and scholars from China, England, France, India, Tunisia and the United States of America. It discusses sustainable travels and travel writing, and explores the sense of connection with nature. From travels around one’s home to mountain hikes and bicycle rides, it also reminds us that planes can be used in a responsible way. It discusses conscious travelling and shows the important role texts play in educating us on this issue. This multidimensional book encompasses several literary genres: essays, autobiographies, mountain reports, novels, poetry, journals, graphic novels and scientific reports. It is aimed at all those who have some interest in travel, ecology, and the philosophy of place.