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Unnatural history. (Book Review).-

Article Excerpt
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century by J.R. McNeil (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001).

In late October 2001, the Washington Post ran an article entitled "War Effort Pushes 'Green' Issues Aside," detailing the extent to which anti-terrorism and national security concerns were affecting U.S. environmental policy. Congressional advocates of drilling in the ecologically sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge argued that the project would reduce the country's dependence on foreign sources of oil. Environmentalists countered with calls for energy conservation. Administration promises to provide a proposed alternative to the Kyoto climate treaty were shelved. Critics observed that the United States, in attempting to hold together an international anti-terrorism coalition, could no longer afford to act unilaterally on climate change and other global issues.

All this provides a reminder that ecology cannot be separated from domestic and international politics. Indeed, the twentieth century human impact on the environment, as described by Georgetown University professor J.R. McNeil in his new ecological history Something New Under the Sun, was profoundly shaped by "security anxiety," imperialism, decolonization, democratization, and war.

Most of the environmental changes we set in motion in the twentieth century are actually unintentional byproducts. And the international response to many ecological calamities has been less than comprehensive, as environmental policies and politics are still quite young and immature, only really having been forged in the tumult of the 1960s. And even then, many of the policies that have had significant impact were not necessarily directed toward ecological ends. "For good and ill, real environmental policy, both on...