Introduction / 13Ecology grew partly out of theories of evolution that were being discussed during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Darwinism is an ecological theory, after all, but this line of development branched,
the other strand leading into German Romanticism. This was a very influential intellectual movement
based on the idea that individual freedom and self-expression would bring people into close touch
with a sublime reality surrounding us all and of which we long to become part. The discipline of
ecology also originated in a quite different concept, that of the ‘economy of nature’. This led to an
idyllic view of nature as the harmonious product of all the countless interactions among living
organisms and well able to supply human needs. Indeed, the view had strong links to natural theology,
according to which God had so endowed all plants and animals with needs and the means to satisfy
them as to guarantee that harmony among them would be preserved. This is the origin of the idea of
a ‘balance of nature’ and, sentimental though it sounds, it taught that the interactions among organisms
relate them in complex ways, and by early in the eighteenth century, long before the word ‘ecology’
was coined (by Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) in 1866), it had generated some ideas with a startlingly
modern ring. The writer Richard Bradley (1688–1732), for example, noted that insect species tend to
specialize in the plants on which they feed and he advised farmers not to kill birds in their fields,
because the birds feed on insects that would otherwise damage crops.
Environmental science ranges so widely that much of the history of science is relevant to its own
development. Even such apparently unrelated discoveries as the gas laws relate very directly to
meteorology, climatology and, through them, to weather forecasting and considerations of possible
climate change. Today, many disciplines contribute to environmental science and its practi-tioners
are equipped with instruments and techniques that enable them to begin compiling an overall, coherent
picture of the way the world functions. The picture remains far from complete, however, and we
must be patient while we wait to discover whether some of what are popularly perceived as
environmental problems are really so and, if they are, how best to address them.
5. Changing attitudes to the natural world
When Julius Caesar (100–44 BC) became emperor of Rome, in 47 BC, traffic congestion was one of
the pressing domestic problems he faced. He solved it by banning wheeled traffic from the centre of
Rome during daytime, with the predictable result that Romans were kept awake at night by the
incessant rumbling of iron-shod wheels over cobblestones. Nevertheless, Claudius (10 BC-AD 54,
reigned from 41) later extended the law to all the important towns of Italy, Marcus Aurelius (AD
121–80, reigned from 161) made it apply to every town in the empire, and Hadrian (AD 76–138,
reigned from 117) tightened it by restricting the number of vehicles allowed to enter Rome even at
night (MUMFORD, 1961). The problem then, as now, was that a high population density generates
a high volume of traffic and no one considered the possibility of designing towns with lower population
and housing densities, as an alternative to building more and bigger roads.
If environmental science has a long history, so do the environmental problems that concern us today.
We tend to imagine that urban air pollution is a recent phenomenon, dating mainly from the period
of rapid industrialization in Europe and North America that began in the late eighteenth century. Yet
in 1306 a London manufacturer was tried and executed for disobeying a law forbidding the burning
of coal in the city, and the first legislation aimed at reducing air pollution by curbing smoke emissions
was enacted by Edward I in 1273. The early efforts were not particularly successful and they dealt
only with smoke from the high-sulphur coal Londoners were importing by ship from north-east
England and which was, therefore, known as ‘sea coal’. A wide variety of industries contributed to
the smells and dust and poured their effluents into the nearest river. The first attempts to reduce