factors, outside forces or random features. All
creativity and productivity is assigned to first
causes, in this case to environmental condi-
tions. Social and human diversity is explain-
able, this doctrine would hold, solely in
terms of the environments within which they
develop. In this sense there is a strong assump-
tion thatnatureandcultureexist as a dual-
ism, and that cultures are shaped by Nature.
While it is accepted that cultures interact with
environments, and may alter them, it is never-
theless argued that the conditions for doing so
are shaped by the larger environment. There
are two major forms of critique of environ-
mental determinism. The first is a form of
humanism, arguing that far from being
reduced to their physical conditions, human
beings can transcend those conditions
through, variously, ingenuity, spirit, technol-
ogy and social organization. However, such
arguments tend to reproduce rather than over-
come the Nature/Culture dualism, and can
result in forms of voluntarism andidealism.
The second is a morematerialistargument,
suggesting that people and environments con-
tinuously evolve in relation to one another,
and in doing so necessarily co-produce one
another. In these versions, determinism is
debunked not because of any transcendent
human capacity, or any mysterious element,
but through the sheer randomness of matters
in relation.
Environmental determinism has a long
and varied history, from the ancient Greeks
(notably Aristotle’s climatic zones), the
Renaissance (notably Montesquieu’s Heaven
and Earth), to post-Darwinian writers
(Glacken, 1967). From the late nineteenth to
the mid-twentieth century, it is often argued
thatgeographywas complicit, through its
environmental determinism, with a north
European supremacism that linked human
‘achievement’ anddevelopmentto environ-
mental conditions (Livingstone, 1992).
Friedrich Ratzel in Germany and Ellen C.
Semple in the United States perhaps best
captured this geographical tradition. Yet even
here, and certainly in later writings of other
environmental determinists, the arguments
were rarely as clear cut as might be supposed.
O ́ Tuathail (1992) demonstrates Halford
Mackinder’s partialfoundationalism,where-
in he ceded to humans thepowerto transcend
formative environmental conditions. Twentieth-
century schools sought to blur the lines of
explanation, giving rise to such terms as
possibilismandprobabilism. The latter terms
are most often associated with the French
school of geography, most famously Paul
Vidal de la Blache. Yet, rather like the
berkeley schooland later forms of Marxist
and Russian geography, the notion that nature
conditioned subsequent actions remained.
Despite this recurrent naturalism and its
essentialist andfoundationaltones, many
of these works repay close scrutiny in a discip-
line that has been all too keen to leave non-
human matters aside. The task is now to avoid
any lurch to the cultural in an attempt to leave
environmental determinism behind once and
for all, and instead to return to the indeter-
minate question of how it is that human and
non-human histories and geographies are
intertwined. Finally, how to account for the
longevity of this form of explanation is itself
a complex question, one that would require
attention to processes as varied as scientific
authority and forms of reasoning (see
science),colonialismand academic discip-
line building. sjhSuggested reading
Livingstone (1992).environmental economics A branch of
market-based economics that advocates
applying economic instruments to solve envir-
onmental problems. Although environmental
economics can be traced to earlier work in the
1920s, it emerged at the same time as the
environmental movement in the 1960s.
At that time most academic, government and
corporate economists were insensitive to the
environmental impacts of economic growth.
Environmental economists claim that the eco-
nomic system, when the wrong price signals
are given, is a major cause of environmental
problems. The main solution pursued by
environmental economists is to send the right
price signals via market mechanisms. This
approach is now among the most dominant
approaches to diagnosing and managing envir-
onmental problems in developed countries. It
is increasingly popular given the pro-market
orientation ofneo-liberalismthat exists glob-
ally and dominates in particular countries.
Environmental economics is closely associ-
ated with neo-classical economics and
resource management. It expands the reach
of the market to factor in what environmental
economists label an ‘externality’, thereby
changing the pricing signals for existing mar-
ket transactions or creating newcommodities
and markets.watertrading, carbon credits
(seeglobal warming) and pollution credits
are all examples of environmental economicsGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_E Final Proof page 197 1.4.2009 3:17pmENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS