Environmental history is about human interaction with the natural world or, to put it in another way, it studies the communication between culture and nature. The prime goal of environmental history is to expand our understanding of how humans have been affected by the natural environment in the past and also how they have affected the environment and accounting their results. The most common definition of environmental history is as follows: environmental history the study of the interaction between humans and the environment in the past. We must understand how the interaction between the humans and environment work to understand their relationship. The field of Environmental history was born in the United States from the Environmental Movement in 1960s and 1970s, and much of its momentum still stems from modern-day environmental concerns. The field was founded on conservation issues but has broadened in scope to expanded to include more social and scientific history and now deals with population or sustainable development too.
Components of environmental history
The subject of environmental history can be broadly classified into three main components:
- First, nature and its ever changing; physical impact which humans have on the resources of earth, land, water, atmosphere, biosphere.
- Second, usage of nature by humans; environmental consequences like pollution by thus usage, better technology, changing patterns of production and consumption.
- Third, transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled agriculture in the Neolithic revolution, colonial expansion and settlements, and the environmental and human consequences of the industrial and technological revolutions. Study how people think about nature - their attitudes, beliefs and values influence interaction with nature, interestingly in the form of myths, religion and science.
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Evolution and study of environmental history was a straightforward consequence of the growing awareness for environmental problems such as pollution of water and air by pesticides, depletion of the ozone layer and growing greenhouse effect caused by human activity. In modern environmental history, ecological concepts are used to study the geographical environment and help in analysing the past environmental structure.
Anthropology: Anthropology is the study of humans, past and present. To understand the full extent and complexity of cultures across all of human history, anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social and biological, humanities and physical sciences.
Archaeology: the study of the ancient and recent past through material remains is known as archaeology. It is a subfield of anthropology, study of all the human culture. Archaeology analyzes the physical remains of the past in pursuit of a broad and comprehensive understanding of human culture. It studies million-year-old fossilized remains of our earliest human ancestors in Africa, to 20th century buildings in present-day cities.
Factors determining analysis of environmental history
With the impact of human actions on the natural world we have entered the third level of environmental history which deals with understanding nature itself, the natural realm. Environmental history includes analysis of data on ocean currents, tides, winds, the position of continents in relation to each other and geology. It also includes the history of climate and weather and the pattern of diseases. Environmental history is also the memoir of human exploitation of the natural world. It is about the impact of primary sector of the economy like agriculture on soil and landscape, the history of forests, the effects of hunting and grazing; but also about the environmental impact of secondary sector of economy mining, transportation, urbanisation and industrialisation. And last, but not least, environmental history is about baring all the myths and gnarled perceptions of the past. Myths and false perceptions are not based on historical facts. It is an important task of environmental history to correct these misconceptions of the past. It can aid us to understand our current problems better and to make befitting decisions to deal with these problems, now and in the future.
Environmental history can cover billions of years of history over the entire Earth, it can equally concern itself with local scales and brief time periods. Many environmental historians are occupied with local, regional and national histories. Some historians link their subject exclusively to the span of human history while others include the period before human presence on Earth as a legitimate part of the discipline. There is a tendency to difference in time scales between natural and social phenomena: the causes of environmental change that stretch back in time may be dealt with socially over a comparatively brief period.
Present and Future of environmental history
In the last 40 years environmental history grew into a full-fledged academic discipline. In the United States environmental history gained a firm institutionalised base which is reflected in the fact that the annual meetings of the American Society for Environmental History, established in 1975, attracts over 500 participants.
In the past 20 years there have been similar initiatives in other European countries as well. One of the barriers preventing this is the language barrier that restricts historians from finding environmental history books and journals in other European languages than their own or in English.
Environmental history, gives the hope that through an extensive examination of past events it can be possible to forge a very considered future. A greater depth of historical knowledge can caution environmental controversies and guide policy making decisions.
The subject will carry on to providing new attitude, offering collaboration between scholars of different disciplinary backgrounds and providing an improved historical situation to resource. There is little doubt that, with growing concern for our environmental future, environmental history will go along the path of environmental assistance from which it arises as “human impact on the living systems of the planet bring us no closer to utopia, but instead to a crisis of survival” with key words being climate change, population growth, conflict over environmental policy at different levels of human organisations, biological invasions, extinction, the environmental consequences of technology notably biotechnology, the reduced supply of resources - especially energy, materials and water. Hughes comments that environmental historians “will find themselves increasingly challenged by the need to explain the background of the world market economy and its effects on the global environment. Supranational instrumentalities threaten to overpower conservation in a drive for what is called sustainable development, but which in fact envisions no limits to economic growth”. Hughes also notes that "environmental history is notably absent from nations that most adamantly reject US, or Western influences".
The internationalisation and institutional recognition of environmental history continues, although it is becoming increasingly part of the emerging environmental humanities. The future of the field looks bright, particularly if environmental historians embrace the emergence of the environmental humanities as a guiding field.
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