Rafi Youatt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694112
- eISBN:
- 9781452950617
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694112.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Three decades of biodiversity governance have largely failed to stop the ongoing environmental crisis of global species loss. Yet that governance has resulted in undeniably important political ...
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Three decades of biodiversity governance have largely failed to stop the ongoing environmental crisis of global species loss. Yet that governance has resulted in undeniably important political outcomes. In Counting Species, Rafi Youatt argues that the understanding of global biodiversity has produced a distinct vision and politics of nature, one that is bound up with ideas about species, norms of efficiency, and apolitical forms of technical management. Since its inception in the 1980s, biodiversity’s political power has also hinged on its affiliation with a series of political concepts. Biodiversity was initially articulated as a moral crime against the intrinsic value of all species. In the 1990s and early 2000s, biodiversity shifted toward an association with service provision in a globalizing world economy before attaching itself more recently to the discourses of security and resilience. Even as species extinctions continue, biodiversity’s role in environmental governance has become increasingly abstract. Yet the power of global biodiversity is eventually always localized and material when it encounters nonhuman life. In these encounters, Youatt finds reasons for optimism, tracing some of the ways that nonhuman life has escaped human social means. Counting Species compellingly offers both a political account of global biodiversity and a unique approach to political agency across the human–nonhuman divide.Less
Three decades of biodiversity governance have largely failed to stop the ongoing environmental crisis of global species loss. Yet that governance has resulted in undeniably important political outcomes. In Counting Species, Rafi Youatt argues that the understanding of global biodiversity has produced a distinct vision and politics of nature, one that is bound up with ideas about species, norms of efficiency, and apolitical forms of technical management. Since its inception in the 1980s, biodiversity’s political power has also hinged on its affiliation with a series of political concepts. Biodiversity was initially articulated as a moral crime against the intrinsic value of all species. In the 1990s and early 2000s, biodiversity shifted toward an association with service provision in a globalizing world economy before attaching itself more recently to the discourses of security and resilience. Even as species extinctions continue, biodiversity’s role in environmental governance has become increasingly abstract. Yet the power of global biodiversity is eventually always localized and material when it encounters nonhuman life. In these encounters, Youatt finds reasons for optimism, tracing some of the ways that nonhuman life has escaped human social means. Counting Species compellingly offers both a political account of global biodiversity and a unique approach to political agency across the human–nonhuman divide.
Judith A. Layzer and Alexis Schulman
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036580
- eISBN:
- 9780262341585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036580.003.0007
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Popularized by scientists in the 1970s, adaptive management is an integrative, multi-disciplinary approach to managing landscapes and natural resources. Despite its broad appeal many critics complain ...
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Popularized by scientists in the 1970s, adaptive management is an integrative, multi-disciplinary approach to managing landscapes and natural resources. Despite its broad appeal many critics complain that adaptive management rarely works in practice as prescribed in theory. This chapter traces the history and evolution of the concept and assess its implementation challenges. One reason adaptive management has not always delivered on its promise to make natural resource management more “rational” is that in the real world of policymaking scientists and natural resource managers must contend with advocates that have conflicting values and goals. Scientists and managers also operate in the context of institutions that create particular constraints and opportunities, and are generally inflexible and resistant to change. In recognition of these sociopolitical realities, the focus of much adaptive management practice and scholarship has shifted to governance, particularly collaboration with stakeholders, transformation of the institutions responsible for management, and the process of social learning.Less
Popularized by scientists in the 1970s, adaptive management is an integrative, multi-disciplinary approach to managing landscapes and natural resources. Despite its broad appeal many critics complain that adaptive management rarely works in practice as prescribed in theory. This chapter traces the history and evolution of the concept and assess its implementation challenges. One reason adaptive management has not always delivered on its promise to make natural resource management more “rational” is that in the real world of policymaking scientists and natural resource managers must contend with advocates that have conflicting values and goals. Scientists and managers also operate in the context of institutions that create particular constraints and opportunities, and are generally inflexible and resistant to change. In recognition of these sociopolitical realities, the focus of much adaptive management practice and scholarship has shifted to governance, particularly collaboration with stakeholders, transformation of the institutions responsible for management, and the process of social learning.
Erik Swyngedouw
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262029032
- eISBN:
- 9780262326957
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029032.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
In this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity ...
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In this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity and environmental transformation, Swyngedouw shows that every political project is also an environmental project. In 1898, Spain lost its last overseas colony, triggering a period of post-imperialist turmoil still referred to as El Disastre. Turning inward, the nation embarked on “regeneration” and modernization. Water played a central role in this; during a turbulent period from the twentieth century into the twenty-first -- through the Franco years and into the new era of liberal democracy -- Spain’s waterscapes were completely transformed, with large-scale projects that ranged from dam construction to irrigation to desalinization. Swyngedouw describes the contested political-ecological process that marked this transformation, showing that the Spain’s diverse and contested paths to modernization were predicated on particular trajectories of environmental transformation. After laying out his theoretical perspectives, Swyngedouw analyzes three periods of Spain’s political-ecological modernization: the aspirations and stalled modernization of the early twentieth century; the accelerated efforts under the authoritarian Franco regime -- which included six hundred dams, expanded hydroelectricity, and massive irrigation; and the changing hydro-social landscape under social democracy. Offering an innovative perspective on the relationship of nature and society, Liquid Power illuminates the political nature of nature.Less
In this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity and environmental transformation, Swyngedouw shows that every political project is also an environmental project. In 1898, Spain lost its last overseas colony, triggering a period of post-imperialist turmoil still referred to as El Disastre. Turning inward, the nation embarked on “regeneration” and modernization. Water played a central role in this; during a turbulent period from the twentieth century into the twenty-first -- through the Franco years and into the new era of liberal democracy -- Spain’s waterscapes were completely transformed, with large-scale projects that ranged from dam construction to irrigation to desalinization. Swyngedouw describes the contested political-ecological process that marked this transformation, showing that the Spain’s diverse and contested paths to modernization were predicated on particular trajectories of environmental transformation. After laying out his theoretical perspectives, Swyngedouw analyzes three periods of Spain’s political-ecological modernization: the aspirations and stalled modernization of the early twentieth century; the accelerated efforts under the authoritarian Franco regime -- which included six hundred dams, expanded hydroelectricity, and massive irrigation; and the changing hydro-social landscape under social democracy. Offering an innovative perspective on the relationship of nature and society, Liquid Power illuminates the political nature of nature.
Rafi Youatt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694112
- eISBN:
- 9781452950617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694112.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
The introduction introduces the global environmental and political context within which biodiversity operates, argues for a broadening of political agency to living things, and outlines the structure ...
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The introduction introduces the global environmental and political context within which biodiversity operates, argues for a broadening of political agency to living things, and outlines the structure of the book.Less
The introduction introduces the global environmental and political context within which biodiversity operates, argues for a broadening of political agency to living things, and outlines the structure of the book.
Erik Swyngedouw
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262029032
- eISBN:
- 9780262326957
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029032.003.0005
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Chapter five documents the post-Civil War developments. It focuses on how General Franco’s ideological-political mission was predicated upon cultural and material national territorial integration, ...
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Chapter five documents the post-Civil War developments. It focuses on how General Franco’s ideological-political mission was predicated upon cultural and material national territorial integration, the eradication of regionalist aspirations and a concerted discursive and physical process of cultural and material national(ist) homogenization and modernization. Attention is paid to the political enrolling of diverse interests and social actors (peasants, capital, engineers, scientists) in a hegemonic assemblage that supported the hydraulic transformation of the country. In addition, the mobilization of water in a particular socio-political discourse, and integrated within a supporting cultural vision, is documented. Finally, the chapter shows how Spain’s geo-political isolation and limited economic-financial capacity prevented the full implementation of the program during the first decade and a half of fascist rule.Less
Chapter five documents the post-Civil War developments. It focuses on how General Franco’s ideological-political mission was predicated upon cultural and material national territorial integration, the eradication of regionalist aspirations and a concerted discursive and physical process of cultural and material national(ist) homogenization and modernization. Attention is paid to the political enrolling of diverse interests and social actors (peasants, capital, engineers, scientists) in a hegemonic assemblage that supported the hydraulic transformation of the country. In addition, the mobilization of water in a particular socio-political discourse, and integrated within a supporting cultural vision, is documented. Finally, the chapter shows how Spain’s geo-political isolation and limited economic-financial capacity prevented the full implementation of the program during the first decade and a half of fascist rule.
Rafi Youatt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694112
- eISBN:
- 9781452950617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694112.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Chapter 4 compares the rise of two new initiatives, urban biodiversity and rewilding, in the context of a more explicitly designed global nature made by humans. Looking both at global policy ...
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Chapter 4 compares the rise of two new initiatives, urban biodiversity and rewilding, in the context of a more explicitly designed global nature made by humans. Looking both at global policy initiatives and at New York City as a local case, the chapter considers how urban biodiversity is a comparatively new object of environmental governance. Pointing towards a new politics of wilding, the chapter also considers how rewilding as a form of practicing biodiversity might able to be less beholden to the technical, market-driven, and anti-political processes considered in the preceding chapters.Less
Chapter 4 compares the rise of two new initiatives, urban biodiversity and rewilding, in the context of a more explicitly designed global nature made by humans. Looking both at global policy initiatives and at New York City as a local case, the chapter considers how urban biodiversity is a comparatively new object of environmental governance. Pointing towards a new politics of wilding, the chapter also considers how rewilding as a form of practicing biodiversity might able to be less beholden to the technical, market-driven, and anti-political processes considered in the preceding chapters.
Rafi Youatt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694112
- eISBN:
- 9781452950617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694112.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
The conclusion revisits questions surrounding human and nonhuman agency first raised in the introduction, and considers what a new, revitalized form of biodiversity politics might look like.
The conclusion revisits questions surrounding human and nonhuman agency first raised in the introduction, and considers what a new, revitalized form of biodiversity politics might look like.
Erik Swyngedouw
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262029032
- eISBN:
- 9780262326957
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029032.003.0009
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
The concluding chapter summarizes the wider theoretical and practical implications of the arguments advanced in the book, in particular with an eye towards understanding the relationship between ...
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The concluding chapter summarizes the wider theoretical and practical implications of the arguments advanced in the book, in particular with an eye towards understanding the relationship between water and modernity in a variety of geographical contexts. In addition, the implications of the perspectives discussed in the book to grapple with a host of contemporary global water problems are explored. The chapter offers key pointers for a socio-ecological or political-ecological perspective on water and its transformation. Such perspective is vital if the mounting global water problems are to be taken seriously.Less
The concluding chapter summarizes the wider theoretical and practical implications of the arguments advanced in the book, in particular with an eye towards understanding the relationship between water and modernity in a variety of geographical contexts. In addition, the implications of the perspectives discussed in the book to grapple with a host of contemporary global water problems are explored. The chapter offers key pointers for a socio-ecological or political-ecological perspective on water and its transformation. Such perspective is vital if the mounting global water problems are to be taken seriously.
Rafi Youatt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694112
- eISBN:
- 9781452950617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694112.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Chapter 1 identifies the important conceptual innovations in the birth of biodiversity hotspots in the 1980s, including the intrinsic value of species; the power of pattern and systems, and a global ...
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Chapter 1 identifies the important conceptual innovations in the birth of biodiversity hotspots in the 1980s, including the intrinsic value of species; the power of pattern and systems, and a global mapping of key points of efficiency for species conservation, and explores the politics that innovations helped motivate.Less
Chapter 1 identifies the important conceptual innovations in the birth of biodiversity hotspots in the 1980s, including the intrinsic value of species; the power of pattern and systems, and a global mapping of key points of efficiency for species conservation, and explores the politics that innovations helped motivate.
Rafi Youatt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694112
- eISBN:
- 9781452950617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694112.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Chapter 2 focuses on the global biodiversity census started in the 1990s. It suggests that the biodiversity census is one example of the change in disciplinary power when nonhuman life explicitly ...
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Chapter 2 focuses on the global biodiversity census started in the 1990s. It suggests that the biodiversity census is one example of the change in disciplinary power when nonhuman life explicitly becomes an object of political governance. While the census, aimed at conservation goals, has mixed outcomes, nonhuman species manage to disrupt biopolitical impulses towards smooth governing of populations in interesting ways.Less
Chapter 2 focuses on the global biodiversity census started in the 1990s. It suggests that the biodiversity census is one example of the change in disciplinary power when nonhuman life explicitly becomes an object of political governance. While the census, aimed at conservation goals, has mixed outcomes, nonhuman species manage to disrupt biopolitical impulses towards smooth governing of populations in interesting ways.
Rafi Youatt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816694112
- eISBN:
- 9781452950617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816694112.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Until recently, World Heritage Sites were selected using separate natural criteria and cultural criteria. Because of the problematic political implications of these categories as well as the ...
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Until recently, World Heritage Sites were selected using separate natural criteria and cultural criteria. Because of the problematic political implications of these categories as well as the pragmatic difficulties in cleanly identifying natural or cultural sties, UNESCO moved towards articulating hybrid selection criteria. Chapter 3 analyzes the evolution of UNESCO’s heritage site classification over time, focusing particularly on two sites in Meteora, Greece and Uluru Rock, Australia.Less
Until recently, World Heritage Sites were selected using separate natural criteria and cultural criteria. Because of the problematic political implications of these categories as well as the pragmatic difficulties in cleanly identifying natural or cultural sties, UNESCO moved towards articulating hybrid selection criteria. Chapter 3 analyzes the evolution of UNESCO’s heritage site classification over time, focusing particularly on two sites in Meteora, Greece and Uluru Rock, Australia.
Mahesh Rangarajan
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226322667
- eISBN:
- 9780226024134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226024134.003.0016
- Subject:
- Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
India is clearly at a crossroads with fierce contest over the fate of its forests. Claimants of this space include those who see forests as the last redoubt of endangered life forms and others who ...
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India is clearly at a crossroads with fierce contest over the fate of its forests. Claimants of this space include those who see forests as the last redoubt of endangered life forms and others who see access to them as birth right of under-privileged peoples. The roots of the conflicts lie in the distant past. Till as recently as 1800 much of India was forest, whether secondary or primary, with cultivated arable being only islands in a sea of green. Polities embraced incorporated such lands, their resources, and peoples in complex ways. Today, as in the past, forest issues are linked to larger questions of polity and economy. The shape of the forests hinges on the outcomes of hard political choices. Even as global factors loom larger than ever, national and regional politics will play a critical role. It is this creative space for rainbow alliances and coalitions of interest that may well hold the key to the endurance of forests in the coming century. Science as well as history may yet have a role to play: to help create new opportunities while transcending the worst of the past.Less
India is clearly at a crossroads with fierce contest over the fate of its forests. Claimants of this space include those who see forests as the last redoubt of endangered life forms and others who see access to them as birth right of under-privileged peoples. The roots of the conflicts lie in the distant past. Till as recently as 1800 much of India was forest, whether secondary or primary, with cultivated arable being only islands in a sea of green. Polities embraced incorporated such lands, their resources, and peoples in complex ways. Today, as in the past, forest issues are linked to larger questions of polity and economy. The shape of the forests hinges on the outcomes of hard political choices. Even as global factors loom larger than ever, national and regional politics will play a critical role. It is this creative space for rainbow alliances and coalitions of interest that may well hold the key to the endurance of forests in the coming century. Science as well as history may yet have a role to play: to help create new opportunities while transcending the worst of the past.
Erik Swyngedouw
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262029032
- eISBN:
- 9780262326957
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029032.003.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
“Not a drop of water should reach the ocean without paying its obligatory tribute to the earth”, notes a 1912 parliamentary document from the Spanish Cortes. A commentator at the time noted that ...
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“Not a drop of water should reach the ocean without paying its obligatory tribute to the earth”, notes a 1912 parliamentary document from the Spanish Cortes. A commentator at the time noted that “Spain would never be rich as longs as its rivers flowed into the sea”. The project of modernization, articulated around the hydraulic nexus, became formulated in Spain after 1898. Indeed Spain’s torturous modernization process after the US-Spanish war of 1898, when Spain lost its last overseas colonies, has been characterized by a continuous reconfiguration of the country’s hydro-social cycle. Whilst throughout the 20th century, this process focused around engineering the flow of mainland waters, the 21st century’s techno-natural configuration extends the engineering of Spain’s hydro-landscapes to the Mediterranean waters by means of large scale desalination projects. The chapter considers the contested political-ecological process that marked the transformation of Spain’s hydro-social landscapes during the 20th century and into the new century. The chapter explores how this emblematic entry guides the narrative of the book through which a wider set of issues related to nature, the environment, modernity and socio-political power are explored.Less
“Not a drop of water should reach the ocean without paying its obligatory tribute to the earth”, notes a 1912 parliamentary document from the Spanish Cortes. A commentator at the time noted that “Spain would never be rich as longs as its rivers flowed into the sea”. The project of modernization, articulated around the hydraulic nexus, became formulated in Spain after 1898. Indeed Spain’s torturous modernization process after the US-Spanish war of 1898, when Spain lost its last overseas colonies, has been characterized by a continuous reconfiguration of the country’s hydro-social cycle. Whilst throughout the 20th century, this process focused around engineering the flow of mainland waters, the 21st century’s techno-natural configuration extends the engineering of Spain’s hydro-landscapes to the Mediterranean waters by means of large scale desalination projects. The chapter considers the contested political-ecological process that marked the transformation of Spain’s hydro-social landscapes during the 20th century and into the new century. The chapter explores how this emblematic entry guides the narrative of the book through which a wider set of issues related to nature, the environment, modernity and socio-political power are explored.
Daniel Barber
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199394012
- eISBN:
- 9780190274467
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199394012.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, Political History
A House in the Sun describes experiments in solar house heating in American architectural, engineering, political, economic, and corporate contexts from the beginning of World War II until the late ...
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A House in the Sun describes experiments in solar house heating in American architectural, engineering, political, economic, and corporate contexts from the beginning of World War II until the late 1950s. Solar houses were built across the United States, and also proposed for sites in India, South Africa, and Morocco. These experiments developed parallel to transformations in the discussion of modern architecture, relying on new materials and design ideas for both energy efficiency and claims to cultural relevance. These experiments also developed as part of a wider analysis of the globe as an interconnected geophysical system. Perceived resource limitations in the immediate postwar period led to new understandings of the relationships among energy, technology, and economy. The solar house—both as a charged object in the milieu of suburban expansion, and as a means to raise the standard of living in developing economies—became an important site for social, technological, and design experimentation. A House in the Sun argues that this mid-century solar discourse was one of the first episodes in which resource limitations were seen as an opportunity for design to attain new relevance. Furthermore, discussion of and experimentation in solar technology established both an intellectual framework and a funding structure for the articulation of global environmental concerns in subsequent decades. In presenting evidence of resource tensions at the beginning of the Cold War, the book presents a new perspective on the histories of architecture, technology, and environmentalism, one more fully engaged with geopolitical and geophysical pressures.Less
A House in the Sun describes experiments in solar house heating in American architectural, engineering, political, economic, and corporate contexts from the beginning of World War II until the late 1950s. Solar houses were built across the United States, and also proposed for sites in India, South Africa, and Morocco. These experiments developed parallel to transformations in the discussion of modern architecture, relying on new materials and design ideas for both energy efficiency and claims to cultural relevance. These experiments also developed as part of a wider analysis of the globe as an interconnected geophysical system. Perceived resource limitations in the immediate postwar period led to new understandings of the relationships among energy, technology, and economy. The solar house—both as a charged object in the milieu of suburban expansion, and as a means to raise the standard of living in developing economies—became an important site for social, technological, and design experimentation. A House in the Sun argues that this mid-century solar discourse was one of the first episodes in which resource limitations were seen as an opportunity for design to attain new relevance. Furthermore, discussion of and experimentation in solar technology established both an intellectual framework and a funding structure for the articulation of global environmental concerns in subsequent decades. In presenting evidence of resource tensions at the beginning of the Cold War, the book presents a new perspective on the histories of architecture, technology, and environmentalism, one more fully engaged with geopolitical and geophysical pressures.
Daniel A. Barber
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199394012
- eISBN:
- 9780190274467
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199394012.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century, Political History
The period surrounding World War II saw a remarkable amount of growth in energy technologies. This book examines the development of renewable technologies, especially solar energy, in this context. ...
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The period surrounding World War II saw a remarkable amount of growth in energy technologies. This book examines the development of renewable technologies, especially solar energy, in this context. The solar house, in particular, was of great interest, and was at the center of a vibrant discussion of potential resource scarcity, and the technological and political means to manage it. Discussion of the solar house intersects with many familiar themes of architectural modernism—both the basic premise of engaging technology in design, and also more specific design tropes of open plans, flexible rooflines, and the use of new materials. These discussions also reveal new contours in the history of knowledge about the global environment, and of the new forms of political intervention that emerged as a result of this increased knowledge. The solar house was a catalyst to global interest in how new technologies could lead to new social conditions.Less
The period surrounding World War II saw a remarkable amount of growth in energy technologies. This book examines the development of renewable technologies, especially solar energy, in this context. The solar house, in particular, was of great interest, and was at the center of a vibrant discussion of potential resource scarcity, and the technological and political means to manage it. Discussion of the solar house intersects with many familiar themes of architectural modernism—both the basic premise of engaging technology in design, and also more specific design tropes of open plans, flexible rooflines, and the use of new materials. These discussions also reveal new contours in the history of knowledge about the global environment, and of the new forms of political intervention that emerged as a result of this increased knowledge. The solar house was a catalyst to global interest in how new technologies could lead to new social conditions.
