Nation-States and the Global Environment : New Approaches to International Environmental History

Hardly a day passes without journalists, policymakers, academics, or scientists calling attention to the worldwide scale of the environmental crisis confronting humankind. While climate change has generated the greatest alarm in recent years, other global problems-desertification, toxic pollution, species extinctions, drought, and deforestation, to name just a few-loom close behind. The scope of the most pressing environmental problems far exceeds the capacity of individual nation-states, much less smaller political entities. To compound these problems, economic globalization, the growth of non-governmental activist groups, and the accelerating flow of information have fundamentally transformed the geopolitical landscape. Despite the new urgency of these challenges, however, they are not without historical precedent. As this book shows, nation-states have long sought agreements to manage migratory wildlife, just as they have negotiated conventions governing the exploitation of rivers and other bodies of water. Similarly, nation-states have long attempted to control resources beyond their borders, to impose their standards of proper environmental exploitation on others, and to draw on expertise developed elsewhere to cope with environmental problems at home. This collection examines this little-understood history, providing case studies and context to inform ongoing debates. Hardly a day passes without prominent journalists, policymakers, academics, or scientists calling attention to the worldwide scale of the environmental crisis confronting humankind. While climate change has generated the greatest alarm in recent years, other global problems - desertification, toxic pollution, species extinctions, drought and deforestation, to name just a few - loom close behind. The scope of the most pressing environmental problems far exceeds the capacity of individual nation-states, much less smaller political entities. This disjuncture between the enormous scale of challenges confronting the global community and the inadequacy of existing governmental mechanisms is, of course, a familiar feature of international affairs in the era of accelerated globalization since the end of the Cold War. As flows of money, goods, labor, and information (not to mention pollutants) have become increasingly global, governments have failed to keep pace by establishing new cooperative regimes or ceding authority to supranational regulatory institutions. Moreover, just as the problems confronting them have become more acute, nation-states have seen their authority diminished by economic globalization, the growth of non-governmental activist groups, and the accelerating flow of information. If such challenges are becoming more extreme in recent years, however, they are not as new as some commentary might suggest. As this book shows, nation-states have long sought agreements to manage migratory wildlife, just as they have negotiated conventions governing the exploitation of rivers and other bodies of water. Similarly, nation-states have long attempted to control resources beyond their borders, to impose their standards of proper environmental exploitation on others, or to draw on expertise developed elsewhere to cope with environmental problems at home. This collection examines this little-understood history, providing context, reference points, and even lessons that should inform ongoing debates about the best choices for the future. -- Publisher's website Cover 1 Contents 6 Contributors 8 Preface 12 Introduction 16 Part I: Nature, Nation-States, and the Regulatory Dilemma 38 1. Europe’s River: The Rhine as Prelude to Transnational Cooperation and the Common Market 40 2. National Sovereignty, the International Whaling Commission, and the Save the Whales Movement 58 3. Global Borders and the Fish That Ignore Them: The Cold War Roots of Overfishing 77 4. Making Parks out of Making Wars: Transnational Nature Conservation and Environmental Diplomacy in the Twenty-First Century 91 5. Going Global after Vietnam: The End of Agent Orange and the Rise of an International Environmental Regime 112 6. The Paradox of US Pesticide Policy during the Age of Ecology 130 Part II: Nature, Nation-States, and Global Networks of Knowledge and Exchange 150 7. The Imperial Politics of Hurricane Prediction: From Calcutta and Havana to Manila and Galveston, 1839–1900 152 8. Biological Control, Transnational Exchange, and the Construction of Environmental Thought in the United States, 1840–1920 178 9. Bird Day: Promoting the Gospel of Kindness in the Philippines during the American Occupation 196 10. Salmon Migrations, Nez Perce Nationalism, and the Global Economy 222 11. The Brazilian Amazon and the Transnational Environment, 1940–1990 243 12. International Trash and the Politics of Poverty: Conceptualizing the Transnational Waste Trade 267 Afterword: International Systems and Their Discontents 290 Index 304 A 304 B 305 C 306 D 307 E 308 F 309 G 309 H 310 I 311 J 311 K 311 L 312 M 312 N 313 O 313 P 313 Q 314 R 314 S 315 T 316 U 316 V 317 W 317 Y 318 Z 318 Nation-states are failing to resolve global problems that transcend the abilities of single governments or even groups of governments to address. This book argues that this dilemma is not as new as is sometimes claimed. It offers crucial context and even lessons for present-day debates about resolving the most urgent environmental problems.