Empire and Environment

Eco-emotions as the planetary boundaries: framing human emotional and planetary health in the global environmental crisis

The global environmental crisis has become a pressing issue, driven by various factors including industrial development and the changing relationship between nature and society. Despite increasing awareness and attention to ecological problems, crises have escalated in recent decades. This study aims to reassess the global environmental crisis from a philosophical perspective, exploring the underlying causes and conceptual framework of ecological crises. We conducted a philosophical analysis of the current state of ecological crises, examining historical and contemporary factors influencing these issues. The study integrates ecological theory with philosophical inquiry to offer new insights into the nature of these crises. Our analysis reveals that traditional approaches to understanding ecological crises may be insufficient. We identify a need for a paradigm shift in how we perceive and address environmental challenges, emphasizing the interconnections between industrial forces and ecological imbalances. The findings suggest that a philosophical reassessment of the global environmental crisis can provide a deeper understanding of its causes and potential solutions. By reevaluating the conceptual foundations of ecological crises, we can develop more effective strategies for addressing these urgent issues and fostering a sustainable future.

The plot of return from America to Asia to search for origins is central to Asian diasporic literature of the past 120 years. By returning to Asia and writing about their ancestors, Asian North Americans (those born or raised in the United States or Canada) expand their cultural understanding and produce narratives that serve as “countermemory,” contributing to a communal memory that is “oppositional . . . the memory of the subordinated and the marginalized, memory from below versus memory from above,” in the words of Viet Thanh Nguyen. For immigrants and their offspring, Asian diasporic narratives of return typically reflect experiences of “racial melancholia,” described as unresolved mourning for the losses associated with migration, in the context of social discrimination, exclusion, or marginalization due to race. For Asians, racial melancholia is exacerbated by its incompatibility with ideals of America as equal, inclusive, and race-blind. Writers sometimes use narratives of return to comprehend and resolve their parents’ melancholia by remembering their stories and articulating their grievances; this process of countermemory typically requires a lengthy cultural apprenticeship. In addition to family histories, narratives of return encompass essays, memoirs, novels, poems, plays, and films. They may also be written by or about protagonists born and raised in Asia who return, perhaps to reform or improve their homeland, after living abroad.

Modern humanity lives in the era of the third millennium, in a period of a huge number of global environmental problems. The majority of environmental scientists attribute the low level of ecological culture of the individual and society as a whole to the main cause of the global environmental crisis. Currently, environmental security has become a dominant element of the national security doctrine. The term ecological culture itself considers an individual to be a subject of public relations and relations, introduces it into various types of activity interaction between society and nature, due to certain reasons that are associated with technology, exchange and consumption, with the attitude to property, as well as with certain norms, rules, laws, services, codes, etc. Analyzing the works of scientists and the experience of interaction between the environment and society, ecological culture includes a great potential, is the guiding force of the scientific and technological revolution. It is the teacher who plays a central function in the development of the ecological culture of youth. During the training sessions and during extracurricular hours, teachers should form a complex of scientific knowledge, worldviews, and ideas among students that the global environmental crisis, which may soon turn into an environmental catastrophe, poses a huge danger to all mankind. These phenomena can be prevented only with the help of targeted environmental protection activities. Environmental protection activities include a set of environmental knowledge, skills and abilities that students can master in the process of special education and training in an educational institution (school, vocational school, university). It is necessary to have a reliable level of elementary ecological concepts from an early age, and this suggests that the teacher must be sufficiently competent in this matter. He or she must have the skills to apply theoretical knowledge in practice and develop this skill among students. But as practice shows, in most cases, teachers themselves are not yet ready to implement this function. This is manifested in the fact that they do not have enough skills to adequately assess the state of the modern natural environment, to carry out environmental protection activities. This paper substantiates the effectiveness of the desmoecological approach aimed at ecological culture formation among pedagogical university students. The authors defined the content of the conceptual and terminological composition of the pedagogical categories ecological culture and desmoecological approach, developed a model of the integrative course Ecological culture of the future teacher.

Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire

Exploding Colonial American History: Amerindian, Atlantic, and Global Perspectives Ian K. Steele (bio) Scholars have wonderfully expanded colonial America during Reviews in American History’s first generation, confirming the saying that “No one has changed the course of history as much as the historians.” 1 There is both pleasure and puzzlement in attempting to discern trends within this rich and disparate new literature. Any historiographical sketch is bound to categorize complex and subtle arguments, and to dissolve quickly in the continuing flood of new work. 2 If scholarship involves the testing of explanations, the dismantling of those found inadequate, and the offering of new hypotheses, colonial American history has been well served on the first two counts, but seems unlikely to be reassembled except within a much larger field. These tumultuous changes in perceptions of early America are more than entertainment for historians and their readers. The United States of America is defined and redefined by its “heritage,” even more than countries more coterminous with a language group or an ancient ethnicity. Americans, descended from immigrants, became “American” by reacting to foundation myths and sacred texts, most of which concern the American Revolution rather than the colonial period. Conflicts between professional historians and custodians of “heritage” have only intensified with the growing professional interest in social history, local history, excluded communities, and material culture, all of which coincide with the unprecedented popularity of museums and with the growing appreciation for folk and family heritage. 3 Changing views of America’s origins certainly owe much to genuine academic curiosity and the quest for accuracy and variety, but recent renovations of that history may also be in response to new realities. Exceptionalism, 4 an essential aspect of American culture long after the twentieth-century brought ambivalence towards isolationism, has become a very mixed blessing. Perhaps an increasingly multicultural society at the center of a global economy can appreciate more of its diverse colonial roots, and even be reassured by discovering a long pedigree for the cultural complexity of the present. What follows sketches only a few themes evident from recent scholarship in colonial American history, emphasizing first the explosion of “new social [End Page 70] history.” New work on Amerindian history illustrates how attention to marginalized groups has affected perceptions. A great deal of other new scholarship reasserts an Atlantic context for colonial America. Work on the British Atlantic empire, on early modern capitalism and consumerism, and on the history of migration and religion all contribute to a growing Atlantic perspective. Competing Amerindian and Atlantic aspects juxtapose uniqueness and replication, environment and heredity, as well as frontier and imperial history. Much recent scholarship has pulverized what is referred to as “consensus” colonial history, and uses rich description and statistical precision to reveal a wide variety of life in colonial towns and counties. 5 Many historians support a broader revolt against what might be called “the history of power.” Women, people of “the common sort,” and people of diverse origins and ethnicities are being studied in detail, with emphasis on the mutualities of power relationships. However, it is hard to know to what extent early modern people were preoccupied with seeking individual autonomy or social status. Thanks to God, in a variety of guises, and to a host of community loyalties and dependencies that were then deemed worthy, people could have lives of meaning and happiness without relentlessly seeking or achieving individual “freedom,” material equality, or social power. Some social historians have also consciously rejected the “intellectual history” associated with Perry Miller’s classic work on New England religion. Acceptance of the extremely useful anthropological definition of culture has enhanced our understanding of the symbolic function of goods, and has also encouraged considerable study of colonial religion as the sociology of church. 6 Community studies imply that life for most people was lived face-to-face, and that previous historians overlooked, suppressed, or distorted this reality. Recent community studies include some concern for external connections and imperatives, involving Amerindian and Atlantic features of European colonial life. 7 New England Puritans may have regarded unconverted Amerindians and Europeans as alien and morally corrupt, but now they are all part of the same enlarged story...

As the world approaches the 30-year anniversary of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and prepares to review progress made in the decade since Dublin and Rio, we are confronted with results that are mostly disappointing. When it comes to addressing the water resources crisis, the 1990s may well be remembered as a decade of debate rather than action. Recent assessments suggest a doubling to almost two-thirds of the world's population experiencing some water stress by 2025 and increased demands to withdraw more water for a new “green revolution” for irrigated agriculture. Both of these will accelerate environmental degradation to a new crisis level while the existing degradation that resulted from the first “green revolution” still awaits remedial action both in the North as well as in the South. It is now clear that the global water crisis and the global environment crisis are linked and are being exacerbated by unprecedented global pressure resulting from over-consumption, population growth, globalization of economic systems and trade, reduction in development assistance, and failure to enact necessary policy, legal, and institutional reforms. This article makes the case that the traditional sector-by-sector approach to economic development is a key contributor to the two global crises. Lessons of experience are presented on policy, legal, and institutional reforms necessary to address the inter-linked crises through integrated approaches to managing land and water resources and their biological diversity. Water pricing reforms, reductions in damaging subsidies, land tenure reforms, community participation, and institutional reforms are necessary. There is a need to build upon the linkages and synergies among the three Rio conventions (climate, biodiversity, and desertification) in order to create new global driving forces for actions to address the crises holistically in the context of a country's national sustainable development strategy. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) and its implementing agencies stand ready with incremental cost grant financing to assist countries willing to undertake the reforms for integrated basin management of land, water and biological resources as they transition towards sustainable development

Early in 2020, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread around the world, disrupting lives and societies. In some places, public responses to COVID-19 were remarkably rapid and forceful, particularly in comparison to global environmental crises. What can we learn from these responses to promote mitigation of global environmental crises? We hypothesize that supportive public responses to COVID-19 were partly promoted by strong personal norms: feeling morally compelled and responsible to act. We discuss what aspects of COVID-19 may have engaged antecedents of personal norms, and how these dynamics could be enhanced in global environmental crises to promote their mitigation. Aligned action to address the COVID-19 crisis contrasts with the heterogeneous response to tackle climate and sustainability challenges. The authors discuss the importance of strong personal norms and lessons for sustainability.

This study seeks to delve deeply into pivotal environmental principles, shedding light on their critical role in preserving an ecologically balanced and health-promoting environment for both current and future generations. The investigation unveils recurring clusters of moral dilemmas, underscoring the paramount significance of these principles in resolving specific ethical quandaries. At its essence, the research tackles the central problem of navigating conflicts between principles in the absence of a shared reference point. In response, the argument posits that judgments in virtue ethics are not universal or prescriptive but rather nuanced and ethical, guiding decision-making through a meticulous analysis of contextual intricacies surrounding each action. The chosen approach for this research is the deductive method, meticulously crafted through a comprehensive review of relevant literature. This review involves an analysis of publications extracted from scientific articles and books. Consequently, the study's contribution lies in the strategic application of principialism, its valuation, and the integration of the concept of the just mean within the realm of bioethics. This relevance is particularly underscored in the face of escalating global warming and the consequential environmental degradation on a global scale.

The decline of biodiversity is without a doubt one of the most important symptoms of what could be called a “global environmental crisis.” Our ability to stop this decline depends on the capacity to implement an effective, collective system of preservation on a global scale. In this paper, I will analyze the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the international agreement that aims at creating this type of global cooperation.While I consider that cosmopolitan governance is desirable, given the legitimacy of the preservation of global biological diversity, I will not attempt to directly argue for it here. Still, it is worth mentioning some of the reasons that might lead us to adopt this position. First, certain past conservation measures have been harshly criticized as imperialistic. For example, Project Tiger in India, which Western environmentalists often cited as a success, have had a deleterious effect on local populations.

Evidently, a globalized society causes global environmental crises. Undoubtedly, survival of human life on the planet Earth is threatened. Is there any connection between globalization, environmental crises and psychological manifestations? What are the psychological perspectives linking the ecological damages from local to the global scale? This article explores such intricate relationships and discusses the implications. The underlying principal cause is human’s unending greed to acquire maximum materials and power to control the planet and entire humanity. The greed is believed to be a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. The greedy people are supposed to have biological, psychological and sociological drives. Evidently, global destruction of the ecosystems and natural environment are directly or indirectly linked to unprecedented chronic human greed and self-indulgence. Undoubtedly, unencumbered chronic greed of a few elite institutions led by top capitalists has put the entire planet in havoc and infiltrated widespread sufferings at the global scale. Conclusively, psychological basis of environmental problems has a sociological and socio-historical scope within the frame of globalization. Psychological account of the environmental crisis is explained subsequently in this article followed by a case study of deforestation of Carpathian Mountains staged by a greedy Austrian man.

At the end of the twentieth century, with concern being expressed about the global environmental crisis, the world is being seen as the home for diverse cultures who share a common responsibility, the sustenance of place. The future health of communities lies in this recognition of the importance of creating and sustaining viable places on local, national, and global scales. The contextual turn, growing from past approaches in the research and practice of public health, is addressed. Geographers and public health practitioners will find it advantageous to work collaboratively toward creating healthy places. It is especially important to reconsider the senses of place from viewpoints of indigenous and nonindigenous peoples in Australia and Canada, to redefine whose health, whose place.

The introductory chapter formulates the main questions explored in the book, such as the history of imperialism and colonialism in international law and the role of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in this history, frequently ignored in literature. The Russo–Ukrainian war is used as a starting point for the discussion, showing also the continued relevance of the histories and questions discussed in this book, for example concerning the validity of treaties and state identity (continuity). There are different accounts of the history of imperialism and colonialism in international law, which the introductory chapter maps, before challenging, in the context of Russia’s and Soviet history, Lenin’s concept that imperialism is the ‘highest stage of capitalism’. It is suggested that Russia and the Soviet Union played a key role in the history of imperialism in international law, even though the Russian Empire did not formally have colonies and the Soviet Union vehemently insisted that it was an ‘anti-imperialist’ power.

The climatic conditions, global environmental crises and disasters and the exacerbation of the pollution problem have prompted global economic and financial organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to reconsider traditional economic models, Which resulted from it the emergence of the concept of green economy. Which made the economy more efficient by increasing the productivity of used resources and directing investments towards sustainable management of natural resources to increase their economic and environmental productivity and their ability to create green jobs and support the poor to the maximum extent possible. Because of the modernity of this economy, developing countries requested not to impose a single model that includes developed and developing economies at the United Nations Conference (Rio + 20) held in the Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro in 2012, and the necessity to create a broad concept for a green economy that is flexible and takes into account the disparity in levels of economic development and transformation policies Towards a green economy. Many scientific studies have proven that the development of the relationship between man and the environment was characterized by an increase and an imbalance between environmental degradation and human progress. The earth, with all its surrounding organisms, is the natural home of man who gets it, and many studies and research revealed that the environments in which a person lives can be It causes an increase or decrease in stress on his body, as the uncomfortable environment causes feelings of anxiety or sadness in contrast to a comfortable environment, and a person finds pleasure in nature regardless of his age or culture, and more than two-thirds of people choose to be in a natural environment to get rid of psychological pressure and cure many diseases Psychological and physical. The research aims to activate the role of the green economy in achieving sustainable development and focus on the health aspect. To achieve the aim of the study, the descriptive and analytical approach was used to study the reality of the trend towards a green economy in Iraq and its role in achieving development. A quantitative approach is used to analyze and interpret the impact of the green economy on sustainable development. And through the benchmarks, it was found that there is a relationship between the sustainable development indicators and the green economy index.

Human health and well-being are threatened by the global environmental crisis. Not only is vulnerability threatened at the juncture of climate change, ecological loss, and environmental injustice but also through explicitly human-induced environmental destruction and natural disasters. The impacts are intensified when environmental injustices disproportionately impact poor and vulnerable communities, particularly communities of color. This chapter explores the global environmental changes that impact human health including heatwaves, food systems, air and water quality, ecological loss, and the spread of infectious diseases. We examine the more personal and interpersonal impacts on the emotional/mental health and well-being of individuals and communities along with ways we can adapt and mitigate the concerns. Further, we highlight the injustice of environmental changes by discussing particular impacts on vulnerable and marginalized populations.