Apr-03

The Physical World in International Affairs

The relationship of humans to the world around them has been an implicit theme of international affairs for millennia, although it has not always been in the forefront of IA until recently.

"Great statesmen have never lacked a feeling for geography" -- Friedrich Ratzel, Politische Geographie, 1903 [source, The Geopolitics of NATO Enlargement, © 1998 John Hillen and Michael P. Noonan http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/98autumn/hillen.htm

Human interaction with the physical world is mediated through political, economic, and cultural forces. These forces affect the decisions we make and can make vis-a-vis the physical world.

These are just a few issues that came to mind for me while thinking about this topic:

• State borders and the struggle for power and security; geographical explanations as a part of understanding sea power (Mahan) and land power (Mackinder, Spykman, de Tocqueville, etc.)
• The nature of money, trade, investment and capital accumulation (e.g., land is a factor of production in economics); problem of collective goods in a "marketized" world economy --"tragedy of the commons" (Hardin) has been mentioned before in class
• Human activity and deforestation/ desertification--do we
• Cultural factors--How do people connect with the land in a practical and spiritual sense? How do people view the time horizon of the future? There are many biblical images in both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and in other religious texts, that talk about our ties to nature and natural resources.

In the classical Greek world, thinkers spoke about the four elements: earth, air, fire and water There is a litany of subtopics about these four elements that relate to the physical world:

• Earth: food, natural resources and fossil fuels; surface and subsurface resources--issues that we rarely think about can be very important at a local level; Congo war is going on in regions of Central Africa known for large deposits of col-tan (with tantalum), essential for making cell phones
• Air: pollution (both visible and invisible), ozone layer, greenhouse gases and global warming
• Fire: energy regimes (what do we use for fuel?), energy consumption (how and why do we use the energy we use?)
• Water: Irrigation, industrial and municipal [McNeill, 120]; drinking and personal use, sanitation and water borne disease, hydropower and energy

One additional factor--population growth

Demographic transition defined--population growth stable in the past, because high birth rates are matched by high death rates. During the Industrial Revolution, death rates dropped before birth rates, so population in Europe exploded for about two centuries. Once the fertility rates began to drop (related to increasing general wealth), the population stabilized at a new level.

1750 in Europe: 140 million

1800: 187 million

1850: 266 million

1900: 401 million

1950: 576 million

1996: 728 million

Similar transitions elsewhere between 1750 and 1996 [in millions] cited in McNeill, 271

Asia: 480-3,501

Africa: 95-732

N. America: 1-295

S. and C. America: 11-486

Australia: 2-29

Concept of carrying capacity assumes that the earth has a natural population limit given available resources.

Malthusian and neo Malthusian perspectives-- Thomas Malthus [1798]-- Population growth faster (geometric increases) than agricultural production (arithmetical increases); massive starvation, disease

1972 Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth, makes similar hypothesis, making dire prediction about rapid population growth Proposals for zero population growth have come out of these neo-Malthusian predictions

Others disagree; Julian Simon, for example, is one of the main optimists on his issue. Technological change has historically outstripped arithmetical increases in agricultural growth. There is no likelihood that the earth is going to reach its carrying capacity anytime soon.

Issues like HIV/AIDS have had an impact on the discussions about the politics of population growth

J. R. McNeill, Something New Under The Sun, makes 4 key points:

1. 20th century unusual for intensity of environmental change
2. this is a consequence of social, political, economic and intellectual preferences and patterns
3. our patterns of interacting with the environment are related to our circumstance: cheap energy, fresh water, rapid pop growth, and rapid economic growth
4. "Éthese preferences are not easily adaptable should our circumstances change"

McNeill estimates that 1/3 of earth surface is affected by soil erosion [48]

Estimates vary widely about how much environmental damage is directly caused by human agency, as opposed to by external factors like climate conditions.

There is no doubt that human activity has had a significant changing effect, but it's not clear exactly what the causal connections are in some cases or what the direction of change is (this is especially the case in some elements of agriculture).

Examples:

• Ozone layer and CFCs
• Changing land use through new agriculture technologies
• Shift from human power to mechanical/ machine power
• Changing use of energy sources has changed scale of pollution, type of pollution shift from coal as an energy source to oil has altered the type of pollution we have, fuel additives (like lead) caused pollution, but those additives are gone; London and Pittsburgh have much cleaner air (less particulates) today than 10 years ago, because no one burns coal anymore
• Cars
• Use of water for irrigation has made some land areas agriculturally productive, while draining water from other areas where it naturally occurs--according to Reisner, Cadillac Desert (1986/92), there were less than a dozen free-flowing rivers in the US west of the 100th meridian.

The line was not solely selected for its neat round number - it actually approximates the twenty inch isohyet (a line of equal precipitation). To the east of the 100th Meridian, average annual precipitation is in excess of twenty inches. When an area receives more than twenty inches of precipitation, irrigation is often not necessary. Thus, this line of longitude represented the boundary between the non-irrigated east and irrigation-necessary west.

The 100¡ West matches the western boundary of Oklahoma, excluding the panhandle. In addition to Oklahoma, it splits North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas. The 100¡ line also approximates the 2000 foot elevation line as the Great Plains rise and one approaches the Rockies.

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011402a.htm

Politics and the Physical World

Security in the short term does not increase incentive to preserve resources for the long term; technological race toward potentially more powerful weaponry doesnÕt help the environment (nuclear, biological and chemical weapons), defoliants used in Vietnam (e.g., Agent Orange), nuclear weapons testing by US, USSR, China and others

Industrialization of warfare; preparation for warfare utilizes tremendous resources; Iraqis burning oil wells during both Gulf Wars

Energy security--expanded global drilling for oil and natural gas; not just discussions about ANWR, but others as well

Population pressures and migration patterns require new sources of drinking water, industrial and agricultural growth also pushes governments to build dams and reservoirs

Ideologies and economic systems; degradation under capitalism also matched by degradation under socialism--massive economic development growth programs (Stalinist five-year Plans) created huge economic havoc; collectivization of the farms, Khrushchev's Virgin Land Programs, Eastern European air and water pollution (James Scott calls this "authoritarian high modernism")

Does poverty accelerate environmental destruction? Are rich countries more careful than poor ones? Does technology transfer help or hinder environmental awareness?

Rachel Carson--Silent Spring (1960s); important book for the 20th century environmental movement; helped make the case for banning many pesticides, including DDT (which is now making a comeback in Africa and elsewhere)

1979 Three Mile Island disaster (radiation leak at PA nuclear reactor) virtually ended the expansion of nuclear power in the US.

European and North American Green Parties fighting to protect Black Forest, Danube River, etc.--expanded rapidly in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union

Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Earth First! Just a small number of environmental organizations that are affecting decision making through interest group lobbying or radical action (e.g., spiking trees)

Mainstream US political sensitivity increasing to environment in modest ways (not all successful, but awareness of issues):

• Nixon Administration passed Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, established the Environmental Protection Agency
• Jeb Bush (Governor of Florida) working with Republicans and Democrats to restore sections of the Everglades
• Jimmy Carter tried to shut down some Western US water projects
• Clinton Administration efforts to restrict mining on federal lands
• George Bush wants to expand federal spending on hydrogen cars, IRS has $2000 tax credit for hybrid cars, limit diesel fuel emissions for off-road engines (4/15/03)

Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy (social conservative writer, advocating vegetarianism and animal rights)

Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

Wangari Maathai in Kenya--Green Belt Movement (1980s and 1990s)

Genetically modified organisms (potatoes, corn, etc.); Zambia and other African countries refused to accept GM foods donated to help stem the 2002-03 famine in southern Africa