Answer the below within a word limit of 800 words:
Q: Giving the fact that we have repeatedly observed the negative consequences of clearcutting forestry; why do you think that we, as a species or a modern culture, do not seem to acknowledge the dangers that history has already taught us?
A Brief History of Environmental Attitudes
Environmentalism didn't really begin until after the Industrial Revolution was underway. Thus, this lesson is really just a historical look at the positive and negative affects that we as a species have had on nature. The next module discusses the history of environmentalism in America. So here, we will begin with the earliest known evidence and work up to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
The story begins in the Kalambo Falls region of Africa. These falls are a single drop of 772 feet, the second largest in all of Africa. There is evidence indicating human activity from as far back as 300,000 BCE. However, we are interested in what was happening about 60,000 BCE. At this site we see what is probably the earliest evidence for using fire to clearcut a forest; most likely for establishing a settlement.
Next, we will jump forward to 7000 BCE, and over to Mesopotamia. For most of us, it is difficult to imagine many parts of the world as being covered with forests, but they used to be, including the Middle East. Various texts including the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh confirm that the Middle East used to be full of trees, which were systematically cut down to further civilization. Some sources argue that this deforestation is the impetus for the stories about the Garden of Eden. Ultimately, this deforestation led to the collapse of various communities in southern Israel by 6000 BCE.
For a quick tangent, we can take this particular issue and jump right up to the modern era and see how it is still relevant. On the modern island that holds the two countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the Haitian side of this island is in peril due to clear-cutting its forests to sell the timber. What happens once you clear out the trees is that there is nothing, such as roots, to hold the soil in place and it all washes away.
In 2700 BCE in Ur, a city located in what is now the DhiQarGovernate of Iraq, we get what is possibly the first decree on conservation, to protect the remaining forest. However, we continue to see large scale commercial timbering of cedar in both Phoenicia (Lebanon) and South India.
In 2500 BCE, we encounter the MohenjoDaro civilization in modern Pakistan - the name translates to "mound of the dead." This city housed approximately 5,000 citizens but it was part of the bigger Harappa civilization consisting of some 35,000 people. The city was about a square mile with streets that were laid out in a grid design. These streets included an advanced and extensive drainage system that helped with sanitation.
Between 1500 and 1200 BCE, we see several interesting events. First, about 1500 BCE in Central America, we see several city-states that due to growth and expansion had to contend with substantial soil erosion. These efforts were unsuccessful and the erosion led to the collapse of these city-states. Next, in about 1450 BCE, the Minoan civilization near Greece declines. Modern scholars are not in agreement as to exactly why. Some argue that it was a volcanic eruption, while others argue that it was due to deforestation and soil erosion, which also hampered manufacturing. About 1300 BCE we find Hebrew law which indicates that livestock should be raised with care and slaughtered as humanely as possible. Finally in about 1200 BCE, Troy (near modern Istanbul) experienced so much soil erosion due to deforestation that silt filled bays and river mouths and actually altered the coastline, moving it farther north.
In the 8th century BCE, the prophet Isaiah, yes the one from the Bible, spoke against animal sacrifice and for vegetarianism. Later, John the Baptist was also a vegetarian. There is also some serious scholarly research indicating that Jesus, following his predecessor John, also espoused vegetarianism. In the 7th and 6th centuries BCE we witness the birth of both Jainism and Buddhism, both of which teach that we should have compassion for all life, which means we do not eat animals. Skipping ahead for a minute, in 256 BCE, King Ashoka of India writes the Seven Pillars edict which protects 26 different species.
Pythagoras, a great Greek philosopher and mathematician, lived in the 6th century BCE. He argued that women should be treated as equals to men and also for vegetarianism. Towards the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th century BCE in Greece, several coastal cities became landlocked due to heavy deforestation which led to soil erosion, again as silt filled the bays and the mouths of rivers. Plato allegedly compared the hills and mountains of Athens to a decaying body, saying: "all the richer and softer parts have fallen away and the mere skeleton of the land remains." Hippocrates, the father of medicine, became the first to correlate what one consumes, where one works, and the climate in which one lives to one's health. His book, Air, Water, and Places, is the earliest work on human ecology. At the end of the 5th century Thucydides, a general and one of the first historians, wrote the history of the Peloponnesian Wars partly because of his failed mission to protect the forests in northern Greece.
Ancient Rome will bring us up the Common Era, but first, we should mention that the Cloaca Maxima (big sewer) and the aqueducts were invented to move water in and waste out of the city. Due to industry such as smelting, tanning, and metallurgy the pollution was pretty bad. The Roman writers often referred to gravioriscaeli, or heavy heaven, and infamusaer, or infamous air. However, one cannot forget that Rome also brought a new standard of public health - appointing doctors to tend to the poor, building hospitals across the empire, building public baths, and having a sewage system. This standard would not be seen again in Europe until the mid-18th century. In 80 CE, Rome passed a law to protect water stores during dry periods. Lead poisoning was common in Rome due to both the use of it as a sweetener and from mining.
In 535 CE, Emperor Justinian issued a legal code that included: "By the law of nature these things are common to mankind---the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea."
Now let's skip forward a bit and look at the time period from 1150 to the early 1500s CE. The Sri Lankan King MissankaMalla passed a decree that prohibited the slaughter of animals within a certain radius of the city. Around the same time we see the rise of the Cathari sect in southern France. Cathari is derived from the Greek word katharos, which means pure. They were a vegan sect of Catholicism that was eventually exterminated by the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition. During this same time St Francis was born and started the Franciscan Order of monks, which also argued for vegetarianism and fought for animal rights. In the early 1300s France passed the Forest Code as an effort regulate wood production for the navy. Paris in 1366 passed a law requiring butchers to dispose of animal waste outside of the city. Interestingly, both New York and Philadelphia would dispute similar laws nearly 400 years later. In 1388, the English Parliament passed a law forbidding people from throwing waste and garbage into ditches, rivers etc. And the city of Cambridge passed the first urban sanitation laws. 1452 introduces Leonardo da Vinci to the scene. He practiced and taught vegetarianism: "The time will come when humans will look on the slaughter of beasts as they now look on the murder of men." Bartholomew Chassenee, who died in 1540, became the first animal rights lawyer by defending rats before the ecclesiastical court of Autun. He argued, in part, that it would take too much time to notify all of the rodents, and that for them to appear would require them to face their mortal enemy: the cats. He won.
Now let's cover the entire 16th century, beginning with Akbar the Great. Akbar was a Mogul emperor in India who established zoos that far surpassed the quality of European zoos. At the various entrances he posted this sign: "Meet your brothers, take them to heart, and respect them," according to David Hancock in his book, A Different Nature. This may be the first clear distinction between exhibition for entertainment and exhibition for education. Sir Thomas More of England in 1516 wrote in his book Utopia that kindness towards animals, the abolition of animal sacrifice and sport hunting are signs of moral advancement. Michel de Montaigne, a French attorney who was born in 1533, denounced the abuse of animals as "the extremist of all vices." In 1556 Agricola, also known as Georgius Bauer, wrote De Re Metallica, a book on occupational hazards. In it he discussed the both the health concerns and the environmental damage resulting from mining. However, he sides with "man" and blames most of these incidents on careless workers. This theme of careless workers' responsibility repeats up to the mid-20th century. GirolamaFracastoro, an Italian physician, outlined a theory on contagious disease in 1546. He argued that diseases are spread three ways: simple contact, indirect contact, and on minute bodies over distances through air. Further, he claimed that the way to diminish epidemics was through isolation and disinfection. After 1600 rapid industrialization in England led to heavy deforestation and thus a growing dependence on burning coal instead of wood. Sir John Harrington invented the water closet (that is, toilet) in 1589 but due to a lack of interest or concern about filth and sewage, it went largely ignored until 1778. The dodo, a small flightless fowl, was discovered on the island of Mauritius. Within a century, however, it is driven to extinction due to the introduction of alien predators including cats, dogs, pigs, and humans.
Thomas Tryon was born in 1632 and was instrumental in convincing the Puritans that animals have souls. He also crusaded against slavery and spoke out for animal rights. Isaac Walton wrote The Compleat Angler in 1640, a book about fishing in which he espoused conservation. The Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1641 adopted the 100 Libertiesas the laws of the colony. Number 92 was about animal rights, and was the first such law adopted by any Western country. It required that livestock be treated without tyranny or cruelty. In 1661 John Evelyn wrote Fumifugium, a book about air pollution in London and how to deal with it. Afterwards in his diary he claims the smoke was so bad that: "Hardly could one see across the street, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one would scarce breathe." John Graunt published mortality statistics in 1662 that, although a bit inaccurate, were still a step towards epidemiology and an understanding of disease and public health. Japan's shogun in 1666 warned against the dangers of soil erosion, stream siltation and flooding due to deforestation. He encouraged people to plant trees and ultimately his efforts led to an elaborate system of woodland management by 1700. France again enacted stricter forestry codes to regulate wood production for their navy. Germany pilloried (put in the stocks and publicly scorned) a man for cruelty to a horse; Germany records at least two other similar incidents, one in 1765 and one in 1766. Jared Eliot, born in 1685, wrote an essay on Field Husbandry and how to reduce inefficiency and waste in colonial American farming, primarily focused on soil erosion and producing better pastures for livestock. In 1690, Governor William Penn required Pennsylvania settlers to preserve one acre of forest for every five that were consumed. In the 1690's Paris, catching up with ancient Rome, became the first European city to have an extensive sewer system.
Beginning at the end of the 17th century we start to see a movement towards increased mechanization. However, what really inflicted the death blow to the environment was Thomas Newcomen's steam engine, which greatly accelerated the ability to pump water out of mines and get to the coal. With this invention, and various improvements to it, the Industrial Revolution's assault on the environment powered up, seemingly perpetually gaining steam (pun intended).
Now, we are all aware of how metals played a role in history, so let's take a look at this article on the historical importance of wood.