disaster – American Environments to 1893

May 4, 2014

My Interpretation of Environmental History and Nature

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Looking back on this past semester, I realize how little I knew about environmental history before I began this class. I have never been to a state park, and I only went on my first hike, to the top of “Arthur’s Seat,” when I was abroad. I had always thought of the definition of “natural” as something untouched by mankind, mysterious in its sheer expanse, and beautiful. I looked at nature the way Henry David Thoreau viewed nature, as something mystifying and necessary:

We need the tonic of wilderness… at the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. (From Walden: Or, Life In the Woods)

This class and the works that we have read, however, have completely changed my perspective on how I view nature and the wilderness. Nature does not encompass solely the peaceful and tranquil sceneries I once associated with the term, but now I include devastating tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, and floods as natural. To me now, nature includes things not touched and touched by man, because we as humans are as much a part of this natural ecosystem as any other animal. We interact with our environment, affect it, change it, help it, and hurt it, just as other creatures of this world. The environment influences us in the same ways. Our interaction with nature often impacts our decisions, our lifestyles, and our future. Whether the environment dictates military strategy of the Civil War or makes scholars wonder why Los Angeles was placed in a danger zone, mankind’s balance with nature tips back and forth throughout time. This tipping of the scale is certainly natural.

But to what extent? Will there ever be a point where we as humans will tip the scale too far in our direction and forever upset the world as we know it? Will there be a point at which we cannot go back, when nature is forever affected without the capability to recover? These questions are a few that environmental historians study as well as wonder if, perhaps, we have already crossed over the point of no return. Mike Davis believes there is no helping Los Angeles from disaster. William Cronon studies the rise of Chicago as a metropolis and its positive contribution to our American way of life.

American capitalism and market economy contributes to our destruction of our wilderness, yet also contributes to our survival. The line remains blurry between protecting our environment and protecting our American values and way of life. Justin’s comment, that “the environment has the potential to destroy humans as well,” resonates with me because many of the conversations we hear are one sided, placing mankind as the “evil” destroying “good” nature. This course has taught me that there is no duality when it comes to environmental history. Historians analyze this gray area and determine at what points in history men or nature have tipped the scale. I will forever look at nature and study environmental history with a more encompassing and expansive definition while trying to answer who the actors at play are and who appears to be at “fault.” This course has taught me that the answer to that question might not ever be solved, but that environmental history can help us make better and more intelligent decisions about how we interact with the world around us.

April 7, 2014

Chicago’s Purifying Flames

In “Faith and Doubt: The Imaginative Dimensions of the Great Chicago Fire,” Carl Smith discusses how two clusters of beliefs arose from the flames of Chicago’s great fire of 1871. From it came a belief in Chicago’s transcendent purpose as a sort of divinely sanctioned landscape with boundless potential and a special place in history. The other belief was a worry that at any moment, places like Chicago could explode into anarchy if the social order weren’t carefully guarded. After the Chicago fire occurred, residents and interested parties across the country recognized the needs for a city to have stable society. For many concerned citizens, the fire was an act of God purifying the city of sin and allowing those left to start anew on moral high ground.

This reading is strongly related to Henry’s in that natural disasters came to be an indication of God’s judgment in the American conscience. Though Smith didn’t mention it, I thought that Henry’s point about Bradford’s “City upon a hill,” and American exceptionalism would have been pertinent. Indeed some citizens believed Chicago to be this “City upon a hill.”: “Bright, Christian capital of lakes and prairies/Heaven had no interest in the scourge and scath;/Thou wert the newest shrine of our religion,/The youngest witness of our faith” (135). In this line of thought, Chicago is no longer unique, and the Great Fire fits into a larger narrative about the relationship between God and America rather than God and Chicago.

April 5, 2014

Ecology of Fear Chapter 1

What is a disaster and what makes a disaster a disaster? These are two of the most difficult questions to answer about nature. Disasters are very unpredictable occurrences and how they relate to humans are difficult to determine. As Steven Biel notes in his article many see disasters as the antithesis to everyday life (5). Others such as Jonathan Bergman believe that disasters have a profound influence on our everyday lives. For Mississippians disaster was what forced them to develop their coast into a major tourist attraction thus establishing a stable component of their economy.

Bergman’s ideas seem to speak to a similar idea that Justin brought up in his post from last week. Justin talks about the interconnectedness of nature and humanity. One could not exist without the other. He also makes an interesting comment when he speaks about the constant reworking and repositioning of man’s relationship with nature.

When it comes to natural disasters humanity has two options. One, It can adapt like the Mississippians. For Bergman disasters operate as a check on human society. It provides them with opportunities to expand but also warns against overextension. It can act as a framework that allows us to build society on a strong and stable foundation. The second option is to try and build independently of nature. As Biel notes in his article “disasters evoke the defense of established ways…” (5) Despite what nature may deem necessary, man reverts back to the established ways.

This second option is what Mike Davis argues was the course for Southern California in the first chapter of his book Ecology of Fear. The goal of Davis in this chapter was to try and understand SoCal’s relationship to disaster and how this shaped the development of its cities and society. He begins the chapter by highlighting several of the natural disasters that hit the region. Despite these disasters Californians continued to present their state as the Mediterranean on the Pacific. It was supposed to be a perfect land that would see a disaster only once or twice a decade. According to Davis however, this belief in consistency was a flawed belief. The perfect nature of California landscape was a myth and that the perfectness of the landscape was overemphasized.

Due to this flawed understanding of the environment Californians constructed their societies without much thought to the tremendous power of natural disasters such as earthquakes. When they did devote some thought to safety they based their safety procedure on a limited and shortsighted disaster record. They assumed that the frequency and magnitude of these disasters would hold constant in the future. Recent science has indicated differently and has portrayed current patterns of disasters as an anomaly.

Most likely the future will bring about greater disasters and consequences. Regardless of these warnings politicians and businessmen have been unwilling to refit the structures of their buildings for they believed the cost to be too high. They have also failed to develop an effective enough emergency services program and so when disaster does strike the response will be relatively ineffective in comparison to what it should have been. Davis’ ultimate criticism of Southern California in this chapter was that politicians and industrialists have overlooked the power of disasters. They have expanded beyond the check that nature institutes on society. Even when science has indicated that a change is necessary, no change has occurred. Instead the established ways are reaffirmed which in time will reap a heavy price.

January 26, 2014

Nature’s Destructive Power

For our first day of class, we went to the rare book room of the library and got to look at some old maps and pictures of Davidson’s campus, showing everything from topography and vegetation to building layouts. It really gives a sense of how the campus has evolved and grown over time (personally, the change I most appreciate is not having to live in the same building where classes are held). However, the thing that I noticed most in the maps and pictures was how the old Chambers building burned in 1921, and how the lot where it once stood remained untouched for many years after.

In many ways, mankind’s history, particularly in the United States, has been a story of a slow but sure mastery over nature. As technology has advanced, humans have conquered many of the obstacles nature presents. We have cities full of buildings, some a hundred stories tall, which protect us from the cold and other elements. To cross North America was once a long, dangerous task—now, one can simply fly across the country in six hours. Unsurprisingly, this has given humans a sense of superiority over nature, a belief that nature no longer poses us a threat. However, disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis strike often enough for most people to retain a healthy respect for the power of nature.

Davidson seems to have gotten its own lesson in nature’s wrath when the old Chambers building, the focal point of its campus, burned down. In a letter to his mother, one student present for the fire writes that he “never saw such a magnificent, awe-inspiring, heart-rending sigh in all my life and never hope to again,” also noting that people could see the glow from the fire from as far away as Winston-Salem. The student also describes that the building looked “ghastly,” with only its walls and pillars still standing. That leads me to the next thing I found interesting—the school’s choice to, after leveling the ruins, leave the empty lot, which became known as the “Ghost of Old Chambers” where the building once stood. One could look at the decision to leave the Ghost as a simple memorial to the old building. However, one could also view the Ghost as constant reminder to Davidson students and faculty that, no matter how much we advance, we are still vulnerable to the powers of nature. Looking at a picture of the Ghost on the school’s online archive, one must admit that it functions as an ominous reminder not to become overconfident in our dealings with nature.

Link to page with letter: http://sites.davidson.edu/archives/encyclopedia/fire-old-chambers-primary-sources

Link to photographs: http://sites.davidson.edu/archives/encyclopedia/fire-old-chambers-photographs