Environmental Attitudes through Time

Unpacks humanness and how it shapes our interactions with the environment, helping readers to make responsible decisions about the future.

R. J. Berry (Author)

9781107679481, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 April 2018

276 pages, 53 b/w illus. 3 maps 1 table
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.45 kg

'This is a very enjoyable book, rich in detail and broad in perspective, exploring the history of human relationships with the natural world, and their longer term consequences. Clearly written and authoritative, it is informed by R. J. Berry's wide experience from a lifetime in ecology and his regular engagement with environmental policy and conservation. He considers human history, and people's progressive emancipation from environmental risks and hazards, but also their ultimate dependence on nature. He outlines the logical case for accepting a responsible environmental attitude. I recommend this to anyone interested in understanding the history of environmentalism. R. J. Berry shows clearly that this understanding is key to taking proper responsibility for the environment, but that to do so successfully we have to accept that we are a part of nature, while at the same time we are apart from nature.' Dame Georgina MacE, University College London

Our attitudes to our environment are widely and often acrimoniously discussed, commonly misunderstood, and will shape our future. We cannot assume that we behave as newly minted beings in a pristine garden nor as pre-programmed automata incapable of rational responsibility. Professor Berry has studied nature-nurture interactions for many years, and also been involved with many national and international decision making bodies which have influenced our environmental attitudes. He is therefore well-placed to describe what has moulded our present attitudes towards the environment. This book presents data and concepts from a range of disciplines - genetic, anthropological, social, historical and theological - to help us understand how we have responded in the past and how this influences our future. Beginning with a historical review and moving forwards to current conditions, readers will reach the end of this volume more capable and better prepared to make decisions which affect our communities and posterity.

Preface
1. Choices
2. No primeval Eden
3. Striving with nature
4. Nature's study
5. Scientific method and the new biology - controlling
6. Science in public affairs - organizing
7. National nature - a digression
8. The regulatory century
9. Running out of world
10. Reckoning, perhaps rueing
11. From scavenging to supermarkets
Index.

Subject Areas: Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Social impact of environmental issues [RNT], Pollution & threats to the environment [RNP], Conservation of the environment [RNK], Environmentalist thought & ideology [RNA]