299
See also: Global warming 202–203 ■ A plastic wasteland 284–285
■ Humankind’s dominance over nature 296 ■ Environmental ethics 306–307T
he widely held view that
the natural world existed to
be exploited by humankind
saw a major rebuttal in the form of
the 19th-century environmental
movement. Arguments against
the “imperial” attitude to nature,
which had prevailed since the dawn
of global exploration in the late 15th
century, began with naturalists such
as Gilbert White, and were echoed
in the sentiments of Romanticism.
Such ideas tended to focus on the
idealization of nature, rather than
examining the harm done by human
conquests of the natural world.
In contrast to the emotive
Romantic responses to modernism,
American polymath George Perkins
Marsh took a close look at humans’
impact on the environment and
suggested changes. Marsh was
horrified by the destructive effects
of human management of natural
resources. In his book Man and
Nature, Or, Physical Geography as
Modified by Human Action (1864),
he pointed in particular to the mass
deforestation which had virtually
desertified some areas of the US.Marsh believed that people must
be made aware of their destructive
impact and find new ways of
managing natural resources to
preserve the natural equilibrium.
An activist as well as writer, he
helped establish the principle
of protected areas, and inspired
the idea of sustainable resource
management that became a core
element of the 19th-century
environmental movement. ■ENVIRONMENTALISM AND CONSERVATION
MAN EVERYWHERE
IS A DISTURBING
AGENT
HUMAN DEVASTATION OF EARTH
IN CONTEXT
KEY FIGURE
George Perkins Marsh
(1801–82)BEFORE
1824 Joseph Fourier, a French
physicist, describes the
greenhouse effect—later
identified as a contributing
factor in global warming.1830s Scientists posit that the
Dutch colonization of Mauritius
in the 17th century caused the
dodo to become extinct.AFTER
1962 In the US, Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring
describes the harmful effect of
pesticides on the environment.1971 Greenpeace is founded
by American environmentalists.1988 The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) is set up to assess the
“risk of human-induced
climate change.”George Perkins Marsh in an
engraving from 1882. As well as being
an environmentalist, the Vermont
native was also a skilled linguist,
lawyer, congressman, and diplomat.US_298-299_Romanticism_and_Devastation.indd 299 22/11/2018 17:51