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Global Environmental History 10,000

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a
Reginald Victor
a
Sultan Qaboos University , P.O. Box 17, Al Khod, PC 123,
Sultanate of Oman
Published online: 26 Apr 2010.

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International Journal of Environmental Studies, 67:2, 257-265, DOI: 10.1080/00207231003726157

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 International Journal of Environmental Studies,
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Book reviews

Global Environmental History 10,000 BC to AD 2000, by I.G. Simmons, Edinburgh

International
10.1080/00207231003726157
GENV_A_473137.sgm
0020-7233
Original
0Taylor
00
regvictor@gmail.com
ReginaldVictor
2010
00000&and
Article
Francis
(print)/1029-0400
Francis
Journal of Environmental
(online) Studies
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University Press, Edinburgh, hardback, £70 (ISBN 978-0-7486-2158-3)

Although the author of this book is an eminent scholar who knows the art of writing environ-
mental history, I picked up this book with a fear of being put to sleep in short order. I did not
feel unjustified since my earlier trysts with the works of historians writing for historians had
been slightly disappointing. History is capable of captivating even lay-people with its magi-
cal charm, but most academic historians have an uncanny ability of turning away readers
other than historians by meandering into a quagmire of references, cross-references, quota-
tions, opinions and evidences that spoils the flow of the intended (hi)story. As an environ-
mental scientist with three decades of experience in teaching students of environmental
studies, I am not only interested in environmental history but also feel that all students of
environmental studies should have a fair knowledge of the history for the period specified in
this book.
This book has six chapters excluding the prologue and each chapter on the outset seems
artfully crafted to hold the attention of the reader despite the complexities of the patterns and
processes discussed. A chapter titled ‘Resonances’ and sections of chapters like ‘No God
Like One’s Stomach’, ‘Prometheus’ Next Bound’, ‘Ignoring the Snap-locks’, and ‘Indra’s
Internet?’ are certainly captivating. If I cursorily thumb through the pages of this book in a
bookstore, I will certainly put it in my shopping basket. But, for the purposes of a review, a
closer look at the substance of each chapter has to be attempted.
The prologue, ‘Mustering the Marks’, is constructed cleverly by starting with a simple
model of human–non-human interactions on Earth based on the DNA molecule with an
accompanying set of graphs for the period AD 1000–2000. These show the increase in the
quantities of greenhouse gases, explaining the relationships of growth in human numbers,
changes in economy and the increases in gas emissions to the atmosphere (although I needed
a lens to read the details in the figure). This section outlining the approach is an excellent
survey of what is in store in the rest of the book. Notes at the end of the section give the first
indication that this book is meant for students, scholars and professionals and probably not
for all and sundry. The author offers an opportunity for the reader here to decide whether he
wants to carry on or close the book and call it a day.
The first chapter begins with a picture of the ‘small organ’ in Lübeck as a metaphor to
explain the role and interplay of various environmental fields in natural sciences and the
humanities-social sciences. There are six sections. The first deals with the general assump-
tions. Some, as the author claims, are common knowledge while others are debated in
scholarly circles. This chapter provides a good introduction to environmental ethics. There
is a good set of simple models relating humanity to cosmos, and the author recognises the
two main common features of these models. The second section on basic demography is

International Journal of Environmental Studies

ISSN 0020-7233 print: ISSN 1029-0400 online © 2010 Taylor & Francis
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DOI: 10.1080/00207231003726157
 258 Book reviews

easy to read. The third section on material links between man and environment is grounded
in energetics. Readers with a good background in natural sciences are at an advantage here.
Others desiring to cut down the entropy in their understanding could simply refer to the
table presenting gross energy expended by mankind in history and get a fair idea of this
section.
The fourth section, ‘Talking to Ourselves’, is the most interesting and thought-provoking.
The three categories of knowledge – facts, values and myths in the narration of environmen-
tal history – are skilfully presented. The section is littered with statements and arguments of
great scientists, philosophers and thinkers. There is a feeling of overload. This is a good
section to plop in the middle of dreaming armchair environmentalists and watch them tear
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each other apart. The fifth section discusses environmental phenomena and processes at
local, regional, continental, hemispherical and global levels. The last brief section informs
the reader of the direction the book intends to follow in the subsequent chapters. The chapter
ends with three pages of numbered notes referenced in text. Some of these are just listings;
others are annotated.
The next chapter is on the gatherer-hunters and their world. It begins with a finger painting
of an owl in a cave in France and confronts questions about its environmental significance.
Again there are six sections of varying lengths in this chapter. The most important is the
cultural ecology of gatherer-hunters. We have been such for 90% of our evolutionary history.
The first two subsections take us through human dispersal since the Pleistocene and the
energy relationships of gatherer-hunters. The subsection ‘The First Great Force Employed by
Man’ is one of the best I have read on fire as an ecological factor and its role in the culture
and economy of human race. The evidence of fire use turning up everywhere, especially in
Africa and South America is now questioning the nature of tropical forests, long considered
as primary.
The next section discusses the impact of gatherer-hunters on the environment. Examples
show that gatherer-hunters have been large-scale exterminators with the ability to alter the
ecology at local, regional and even global scales. The question whether gatherer-hunters
were conservationists in their approach to animal management is also considered. There are
traditional agro-forestry and fisheries systems in existence today that indicate a conservation
approach by gatherer-hunters [1], but this may be merely our interpretation of the techniques
and technologies used by these people and not their original intent. Many authors debunk the
myth of the ‘noble savage’ and argue that early man has always been an exploiter [2]. The
final subsection discusses the two major phases in which gatherer-hunters have disappeared.
The next three sections on hunter-gatherers in a cohesive world (why hunters take prece-
dence over gatherers from hereon is not clear), fragmentation of the forager’s world and
representing hunters and gatherers, logically flow into the final section on the outcomes,
with the last paragraph bringing us back to the interpretation of the cave art where we
started. The outcomes are discussed in terms of hunter-gatherers in their ecosystem and the
foundations of the foragers’ environmental history. Annotated notes on this chapter are
extensive.
Chapter 3 titled ‘Pre-industrial Agriculture’ begins with a delightful depiction of the
emperor of the Inca not only singing with a llama, but apparently taking a note from it!
Simmons draws out the meaning of this portrait to domestication, communication between
humans and domesticates and the closeness of the human–non-human relationships in pre-
industrial agriculture. There are seven sections of varied lengths in this chapter. The key
section is on the cultural ecology of agriculture. Man during this phase changed from totally
food-collecting to a food-producing species. We learn here that the spread of agriculture was
 Book reviews 259

not spatially uniform and there was more human food under agriculture than there was for
hunter-gatherers. Simmons discusses the early history of agriculture including evolution,
dispersal and environmental relationships, especially the domestication of plants and animals
and the types of pressures under which agriculture survived. The role of fire in agriculture
supplements the information on fire as an ecological factor. Under the subsection on manage-
ment and impact, the second paragraph provides a summary of what is to follow: land-based
systems for organic production; accessory changes; forests, hunting and gardens; inorganic
production; minerals and cities and water and life.
All these subsections are treasure troves for the history of early cultivation practices,
pastoralism, waste management and the needs of seafaring. The next section discusses the
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decline and disappearance of pre-industrial agriculture and uses terms like Disneyfication.
‘Sewing the World Together’ describes the transfer of materials, ideas and even diseases
between human societies during the pre-industrial period and its impact on economy and
ecology. The section on ‘All Coherence Gone’ discusses the cultural and environmental
consequences of fragmentation and alteration. ‘Representing the World’ is the concluding
section that illustrates the self-representation of human beings and nature during the agricul-
tural era. This section also brings in the ill represented women, the enslaved, the colonised
and the natives of most regions previously labelled as savages and gently lands back on lines
from a Yoruba poem ‘God of the stomach’ and the llama giving a singing tip to the Inca
King. As in earlier chapters, the outcomes of this chapter are discussed under three sections,
the world on the cusp of industrialisation, technologies of the solar powered era and the
emergence of philosophies. The extensive notes cover 11 pages.
Chapter 4 goes under the title ‘An Industrious World’. We are now given a 2006 photo-
graph of Derwencotes Steel Mill, a heritage site in northeast England, a lunch time stopping
point for a ramblers’ club. Where is the connection of this picture to an industrious world?
Industrialisation has given people more leisure time that permits the gathering of people who
live apart, but have common interests as opposed to those who live and work together. The
reader must now see the same starting block for another long race! This chapter also has
seven sections, some with curious titles like ‘Prometheus’ Next Bound’. The confusing
charm of the pun!
After a brief section on a second iron age introducing the use of fossil fuels and industrial-
isation, we have a long section on the cultural ecology of industry with subsections very simi-
lar to those of the previous chapter. Man now has the ability to supplement solar energy with
fossil fuels. Production now has a new element called manufacturing and human communi-
ties have access to more energy than did their predecessors, with opportunities for industry-
based infrastructure and development. But, the development of this new ecology depended
on the availability of raw material and favourable social conditions and so its spread was
uneven in space and time. The subsection on evolution and dispersal starts at the harnessing
of water power and moves through the use of coal and steam power to the internal combus-
tion engine in the nineteenth century. Simmons identifies the core of industrial growth.
A summary of the development of fossil fuel-powered industry from 1750 to 1950 recognises
four main phases.
The history of industrialism for the first 100 years was based on extraction processes, with
further processing in factories. Goods appeared in environmental and social arenas. Simmons
illustrates the environmental consequences of these interrelated processes. The subsection on
environmental relationships discusses the growth of human populations, the climate and
the status of technological change in the early nineteenth century and the cultural climate for
the adoption of technology. The major features of the industrial age are the spread of the
 260 Book reviews

ecological footprint of humanity driven by the population–technology interaction, accompa-

nied by environmental change.
The next subsection on management and impact has interesting case histories. Anecdotes
like that of William Brown, the farmer planting the churchyard with turnips, break the
monotony. The copious use of technical names for flora and fauna in this section is impres-
sive, but there are errors even in names, not to mention technical incorrectness in ignoring
synonymies (e.g. Larix europaea). Examples: the teak is Tectona grandis not Tectonia gran-
dis and similarly the red deer is Cervus elaphus not Cervus elephas. Table 4.1 giving a
comprehensive summary of the environmental impact of city, is very user friendly, but
should also include light (i.e. city glow). The subsections on fishes and whales and an age of
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minerals are thankfully brief. ‘Prometheus’ Next Bound’ encapsulates the three trends of
industrialisation: crop production, increase in the traffic of commodities and people, and the
use of fossil fuels. The descriptive data presented are good and perhaps we should seriously
consider calling ‘greenhouse effect’ instead ‘Enhanced Greenhouse Effect’ or ‘Simmons
EGE’.
The section ‘Moral, Intellectual and Material’ claims to examine the coalescing tendencies
of the two centuries. The flow of text is smooth and flowery, but thought processes are some-
times jumpy and difficult to follow. The author’s love for the language is extraordinary. For
example, print became a validating medium ‘like men in pulpit in an earlier era’. Print as ‘a
validating medium’ is a fact, but the idea of preachers could be contentious. Boltzmann,
Rutherford and the likes of Karl Marx star through the narrative. We learn that pervasive
environmental consequences follow two main trends: the demands of Western economies
and the growth of population. Examples to illustrate the spread of species are excellent. The
narrative on the globalisation of chemical compounds is appropriate. The point about gas
emissions ‘no matter who emits, everybody will receive consequences’ is emphatic.
The section ‘The Collapse of Continuity’ is easy to read and shows Simmons’s breadth of
scholarship. He indicates the process of transferring technologies and response to fragmen-
tation of ecologies as leading to the loss of continuity between humanity and its coexisting
units of nature. The next section, ‘Representing Industriousness’, covers printing and the
power and spread of the written word and literacy, industry as an entity in itself instead of
being a human attribute and the advent of neoclassical economic theory and its impacts. The
last rhetorical section, ‘A Waste Land?’, describes the transformation in science, technol-
ogy, culture and environment associated with the industrialisation of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. This questioning title evokes T.S. Eliot’s poem of 1922. This section
summarises several generalisations running through the changes from 1750 to 1950. Indus-
trialisation during this period has certainly impacted the ecology and also redirected some
paradigms. Anthony Trollope’s observation reminds one of photographs depicting the lives
of British Civil Servants in pre-independence India. The chapter ends with 10 pages of
scholarly notes.
Chapter 5 titled ‘A Post-industrial Era?’ begins with the photograph of Joseph Beuys’s
‘The End of the Twentieth Century, 1982–83’. When in Kassel, Germany next time, look for
7000 Oaks. By now, the reader will be very familiar with these grand chapter entries. This
chapter has eight sections, on the same pattern as earlier ones. We begin with the TV and
move on to the next large section, the cultural ecology of the world after 1950. This chapter
is easy to read because it talks about ‘our world’ today. It begins with the exploration of the
chapter title itself and we come to grips with PIE (the post-industrial economy). The subsec-
tion titles are familiar. We see that changes are driven by technology which has the power to
create its own world with distinct divisions of prosperity and poverty. The environmental
 Book reviews 261

relationships begin with the advent of nanotechnology, the universal digital chip, the
specialist and the ‘Renaissance men’. The narrative ploughs through population growth,
HIV/AIDS, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, hydro-(electric?) power generation
(HEP), plastic, digital computers and genetic engineering. Table 5.1 presenting the environ-
mental surprises must be printed as a poster and should be updated every year with new
disasters.
This is the period in which ecological science focused on social concerns and their interre-
lationships with the environment resulting in concepts like sustainable development, biodi-
versity and climate change as global issues. Economic growth is still the primary issue, but
there are questions about its nature, its beneficiaries and its environmental costs. The subsec-
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tion on management and impact considers the resource processes. Simmons touches on
energy and environment after 1950, agriculture, forests, recreation, warfare, minerals, cities
and marine complexities. The narrative is littered with interesting examples. How many lay-
people think about Danish bacon in a pig-less Denmark or the environmental costs of golf
courses they are playing on? All students in environmental studies ought to read the descrip-
tive data in this section.
The next section, ‘Insider Knowledge’, covers the search for and use of new resources and
their impacts, increased population, consumption characteristics, technology and progress.
The section on ‘Superpower’ considers some aspects of globalisation, the role of the US and
the environmental consequences of the global reach. The section on ‘No Power Here’ tells us
that the two processes that dominated the environmental history in the twentieth century are
miniaturisation and advanced biotechnology. Issues raised here are thought-provoking, for
example, ‘If we all subscribe to my news then what information do we have in common?’
The next section screens the world through illustrations starting from how technology
provides information about the world in different ways, how the direct connection between
the earth and mind is made through the world of art including films, and the power of the
written word in environmental representations. The section ‘Tensions’ examines the interplay
of coalescence and fragmentation. Simmons discusses here trends in loss of total life on the
planet, the advanced state of domestication, the changes in carbon-based economies, the real-
ity of climate change, the demand for more fish production, the demands of tourism and the
need for a living space, all leading to environmental instability. We confront ideas like chaos
theory, international actions to reduce instability and unpredictability, lobbyists clamouring
for equilibrium as opposed to the growth model of neoclassical economics, Vernadsky’s
conception of noösphere, the question of authority and consumerism. Table 5.2 summarises
the data on levels of consumption.
The final section of this chapter, ‘A Haste Land?’ (the creative pun yet again!), describes
the changes in fundamental factors during the 50 years of post-industrial development. These
include the increasing capacity for communal action through international agencies, break-
down of politically unacceptable colonial regimes, changes in the world market for cheap and
precious goods, and less emphasis on population growth that is still increasing despite the
unknown impact of factors like HIV/AIDS. Simmons explains ready access to technology
and impacts of all these changes resulting in the promulgation of environmental laws.
Simmons sees the demand for meat and fish and the use of motors powered by hydrocarbons
as two great environmental manipulators. The chapter ends with a few incisive remarks.
There is also an extensive section of notes.
The final and concluding chapter considers the emerging themes. It begins with a portrait
of the garden of the Ryoanji temple in Kyoto and we are told about satori of the Zen, which is
almost impossible to achieve in the post-enlightenment tradition of scholarship. This is a
 262 Book reviews

relatively short chapter with four sections. The first, ‘Ignoring Snap-locks’, sets the mood for
the long second section ‘Under the Sun’. We need to remember that the drivers of environ-
mental change from 1500 to 1800 were gold, faith and empire and after 1900, meat and
motor. The subsection ‘Minding the Language’ discusses the role and usage of language in
the study of environment with very interesting examples that include Japanese fudosei and
Chinese shi-zen. The message is that language is not a reporting device, but a defining frame-
work. Is this what McLuhan meant, ‘the medium is the message’? The next subsection
discusses postmodernism and its beliefs. Fragmentation of ideas separating stakeholders
from shareholders empowering transnational companies (TNCs) to control the environment
and its resources is a frightening reality. The slogan ‘nature limits, technology enables’ leads
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to the death of ecosystems. Postmodernists should remember that technology often provides
many solutions for which there are no problems! The ecology of emotions is an interesting
subsection. Almost all who commune with nature at some stage in their lives experience
varying but indescribable emotions (e.g. awe, fear, pleasure, etc.). Environmental assess-
ments at personal and professional levels at times tell you that something is terribly wrong,
but there are no words to convince others. There are several cases in the world where such
failure of emotions/feelings/intuitions to communicate persuasively has resulted in disasters
including loss of human lives. Emotion is difficult to discuss in relation to environment, but a
fair attempt is made here. There is truth in Hume’s (1739) statement that ‘Reason is and
ought always to be a slave of passions’.
Religions have mostly had an attitude to nature and Simmons discusses the role religion
has played in meeting environmental concerns. Simmons also discusses the role of myth,
symbol and value in environmental thinking and attitudes. Myth exhibited in symbolic form
as public rituals is not hard to understand, but try to work out why the consumption of meat is
the greatest of all symbols. The next subsection on ‘Parts and Wholes’ takes the reader
through a complex discourse on thought processes like categorising phenomena and behav-
iour into binary pairs, and expressions of total unity as in Japanese Shinto and the Jewel Net
of Indra. Ecology as a discipline is credited with contributions to holistic thinking culminat-
ing in Lovelock’s Gaia.
Simmons looks at the contribution of social studies leading to the notion of ‘The Limits of
Growth’ and its consequences. The analyses here as well as in the following subsections,
‘Unpredictable Woods and Pastures’ and ‘The Balance of Nature’ must be read by all those
pushing the ‘sustainability’ bandwagon. Equilibrium in nature is not a normal state, whereas
disequilibria and their consequences are ubiquitous. The next subsection on ‘The Nature of
Consciousness’ examines the question whether ‘consciousness’ has changed during human
history or is a constant that adopts new views without altering its basic characteristics. One
must of course accept that there is a holistic entity called ‘consciousness’. The narrative
begins at the study of Mithen locating the origin of consciousness to the Middle Palaeolithic
and ends up at the present day. The last subsection, ‘The Drive to Dominion’, asks whether
coalescence and fragmentation are parts of the same thing. Simmons discusses the human
need for a sense of identity and the need to control others and nature.
‘At the Year 2000’ is the penultimate section of the chapter with one subsection ‘Knowing
Where We Are’ – another evocation of T.S. Eliot. Simmons reviews the rapid environmental
changes during the period 1950–2000. He explains the degradation of ecosystem services. The
rate of change of man-driven processes is variable. Table 6.1 provides a good summary of the
changes in the understanding of land-cover and land-use changes. The economics-based view
of environmental impacts is explained with good examples. Table 6.2 provides a summary of
shifts in attitudes in recent decades. There is a cautionary account of the correlation between
 Book reviews 263

population density and species richness, especially the decline in avian abundance. It is
encouraging that Simmons endorses the view that few societies deliberately managed their
resource base with the aim of ‘conservation’ and the effects on biodiversity were through
impacts, not management objectives. We seem to give overrated credits to societies where no
credits are due.
The last section, ‘Rolling Smithy – Smoke’, frankly declares where we are in terms of
environmental history. It is bold enough to state that there was no era that was golden in
terms of environmental history. The idea of ‘sublime’ attitude changing to that of ‘existen-
tialist’, increasing acceptance of Gaia and the holistic approach, the resurgence of environ-
mental determinism (e.g. climate change), the well-being of fatalism and the existence of
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binary concepts all pass solemnly. Ideas are mutable and the material world definitely exerts
an influence. Simmons notes that some themes in the environmental history have not
changed in the last 10,000 years. There seems to be a common agreement that the atmosphere
and the surface of the Earth have changed as never before in the period 1950–2000. The
major factor is population growth. The next subsection, ‘Indra’s Internet?’, provides an inter-
esting discourse on the power of communication, its effects, and the role of chance and
contingency in undermining the predictability of historical events. Authority is recognised as
a factor in the communications net. Authority has always been a part of societies irrespective
of the era. Spirits exercised authority through elders or shaman; authority could be exercised
at a local level, expanding further with conquest and empire. Authority is also hierarchical
including those akin to ‘God’ handing down through ‘Moses’ a written set of instructions like
the ‘Ten Commandments’.
The industrial era has experienced the power of the printed word, followed by telegraph
and telephone with the subsequent addition of photography. In the post-industrial era, tele-
vision and films took over and now the computer nerd is the replacement for the newspa-
per, the sermon and the shaman. Natural science offers us the authority to accept, test and
refute the findings of science. Authority is often challenged. Simmons discusses the reasons
for the refusal to accept scientific facts. Technology may also be seen as a solution provider
for environmental problems. Although there is resistance to the hyper-technological view of
the world, environmental activism and thinking have not been perceived as influential.
Environmental activists certainly are not using donkey transport and pigeon post! What is
perceived as ‘nature’ becoming an ‘environment’ and then becoming a part of the network
of urban settlements is a distinct possibility. Simmons reminds us that this is a book of
history, not prophecy. Nevertheless, he has told us that the Earth needs saving, from
ourselves. Finally, Simmons withdraws to his pipe-organ in Lübeck where it all started and
eloquently concludes the chapter that also contains several pages of scholarly notes. The
book also provides a list of further reading.
Is this book a text for scholars or for everyone? Stupid question – this book is published by
a university press and so must be meant for scholarly pursuits. But there is no rule that
university presses should not produce outreach publications targeting a wider audience. In
fact, global environmental history in the present era of extreme environmental awareness,
ably supported by celebrities like Al Gore, should reach such an audience.
I took my time to reach a conclusion because I read the book as fast and as carefully as
I can, wrote my overall impressions and sealed them in an envelope. I then gave the book to
two environmental scientists, a biologist and a chemist and two social scientists, an
anthropologist and a demographer, all with a number of years of experience in their fields.
The natural scientists found the historical and sociological aspects difficult to get through, the
demographer enjoyed certain sections and the anthropologist stopped after reading the
 264 Book reviews

chapter on ‘The Gatherer-Hunters and their World’. I gave the chapter on the ‘Industrious
World’ as a reading assignment to a small group of graduate students in Environmental
Science including native and non-native speakers of the English language and they all had a
tough time. My ‘guinea pigs’ may not have been the best representatives of the audience
Simmons had in mind, and I may be guilty of a grievous sampling error, but they serve as my
‘rules of thumb’. When I retrieved my overall impressions, I was not too far off the mark in
concluding that this book may be attractive to everyone interested in environmental history,
but it is meant for scholars and that too for those with a good knowledge of the global envi-
ronment in its holistic sense combined with good proficiency in the English language (I do
not mean everyone whose mother-tongue is English!).
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Let us first get rid of one matter which may be perceived as criticism, although I would
like to think of it as constructive, at least for the editors of the publishing houses. The author
made impressive starts to each chapter with photographs (e.g. pipe-organ in Lübeck; Joseph
Beuys’s ‘The End of the Twentieth Century’) that established the premise for the text to
follow. But, pages of text, loaded with an amazing array of information despite its continuity
are sometimes tiring. All human brains that read or want to read the text in its entirety may
not be able to withstand the demands made on them without needing a break, especially
students of environmental science. Imagine one who has no background sense of history. He
or she may find it extremely difficult to hang on to the coattails of an author who enjoys
jumping from realm to realm with apparent ease derived from years of experience. The
tedium caused by the lengthy text could be broken by other techniques of the academic narra-
tive. A good example is the use of ‘landmark’ diagrams on historic time scales showing the
appearances and occurrences of processes as illustrations (must be better than those in the
Prologue). Use of flowcharts with iconic symbols, dingbats if you prefer, instead of boxes in
addition to tables could also facilitate easy reading. This of course is irrelevant when the
specialist scholar is writing mainly for his colleagues, to some extent for his students and not
for a wider audience. After reading this book, I reread a couple of books by James A.
Michener. For example, in his Alaska, the protagonist is the history of Alaska and all other
fictitious characters are nothing but minor players who provide a link to the various phases of
the state’s history. It is the physical, natural, social and political history of Alaska I remember
with clarity, while the dramatis personae are forgotten in a few days. There is some merit in
this type of (hi)story telling!
Now to some kudos. This is a well written scholarly work and it did not put me to sleep
(but I could not read it in a few sittings either!). This is not just a book of history; it is a trans-
disciplinary work of arts and sciences with plenty of original ideas contributed by the author,
even though some issues are opinionated, contentious and need further debate (e.g. several
ecological issues; see [3]). After reading the book, I immediately reacted by requesting a few
copies for our university library and strongly recommended it to several other intellectually
motivated colleagues. The publisher should seriously consider translating this work in at least
a few major languages including Arabic and widely used dialects of Chinese!

References
[1] Victor, R., 1998, Traditional sustainability: a case study of floodplain fisheries management in West Africa, in:
J. Lemons, L. Westra and R. Goodland (Eds), Ecological Sustainability and Integrity: Concepts and
Approaches (Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers), pp. 182–202.
[2] Oates, J.F., 1999, Myth and Reality in the Rain Forest: How Conservation Strategies are Failing in West
Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press), 310 pp.
 Book reviews 265

[3] Shrader-Frechette, K. and McCoy, E.D, 1993, Method in Ecology: Strategies for Conservation Problems
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 328 pp.

© Reginald Victor, 2010

Sultan Qaboos University
P.O. Box 17, Al Khod, PC 123
Sultanate of Oman

The Economics of the Yasuní Initiative: Climate Change as if Thermodynamics

Downloaded by [Sultan Qaboos University], [Reginald Victor] at 00:28 13 February 2014

Mattered, by Joseph Henry Vogel, with foreword by Graciela Chichilnisky, 2009, Anthem
Press, London, ISBN-10: 1843318741, 148 pp, RRP £25.00/£12.50, US$40/$20 (hardback/
paperback), free internet accessibility

The Economics of the Yasuní Initiative joins a growing body of lobbying and academic liter-
ature that rejects the sterility of classical economics as a means of analysing the problem of
co-operation in mitigating climate change. The inability of economic models adequately to
value ecosystems and natural capital and to incorporate considerations of ethics and fairness
in forging international deals has drawn criticism from within the economics profession (e.g.
Stern [1]). More radical and popular thinkers, like Diamond [2] have also been vocal. The
distinctive departure made by Professor Vogel is to propose thermodynamics and the theory
of second best as substitute for the language of classical economics. He does this in advocacy
of the Yasuní Initiative – a proposal by President Rafael Correa that would see the developed
world pay Ecuador to forego its exploitation of the oil reserves underneath the Yasuní
Biosphere Reserve. Although the chances of Vogel’s physics lexicon entering popular
discourse about climate change are small, the book is refreshing and persuasive. It poses
important questions for mainstream economics and co-operation theory.
This short book is topped and tailed well, with an introduction by Graciela Chichilnisky
and a selection of YouTube links. The Internet selection underscores the work’s progressive
and radical credentials and while some of the choices are unappealingly populist – such as
The Story of Stuff, chosen as an example by Janny Robles – some of the videos chosen by
students aptly support the arguments set out in the body of the book. It is worth the effort to
follow these links. Professor Chichilnisky, on the other hand, lends academic gravitas to the
work. Her Foreword makes it clear that the ideals of the Yasuní Initiative are not a world
away from the mechanisms already supported by international carbon markets. This both
reinforces the sentiment of the book while undermining some of its claims to originality. The
advances toward a deal on reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
(REDD) made at COP-15, for example, show that Vogel’s work is far from fantasy.
Vogel sets out to provide a new perspective on the ethical dilemma that confounds co-
operation to solve the tragedy of the commons that is leading to climate change [3]. Vogel’s
argument has three core components: a proposal to swap the discourse of classical economics
for thermodynamics in discussions about climate change; an application of the theory of
second best to the problem; and a set of policy ideas for Ecuador and the wider climate
regime. The first and third elements are interesting, but it is the application of the theory of
second best that forms the book’s most valuable contribution.
The book draws extensively on the work of Garrett Hardin and benefits from a synoptic
look at all Hardin’s work, rather than peddling the choice quotations that appear as
standard. In particular, Vogel makes good use of Hardin’s political and psychological