approaches. Each chapter begins with a “short history” of the object followed by a discussion of ways in which the characteristics of the object present a puzzle or conundrum, and then presents divergent ways of thinking about the object from competing points of view. In Chapter 11, we introduce carbon dioxide (CO2), a curious gas with a complicated history on Earth that shows it to vary widely over time, with enormous implications for the forms of life dwelling here. As one of the most important greenhouse gases, moreover, CO2 has become an increasingly contested object, with competing views about its control, regulation, and circulation. In Chapter 12, we discuss trees. These plants have been companions of human civilization since the beginning, though the long relationship has been marked by dramatic ebbs and flows. In this chapter we take the opportunity to introduce varying theories to account for deforestation and reforestation, as well as a startling ethical proposal for trees to legally represent themselves. Chapter 13 is dedicated to wolves, a species with which humans have a current love–hate relationship and whose return throughout North America and parts of Europe and Asia represents a dramatic change in the way humans and animals relate. This chapter stresses diverse cultural understandings of the same animals, and the implications of our ethics and institutions for the many animals that share the landscape with humanity. Chapter 14 addresses uranium, a natural element that has been harnessed for extraordinary power and benefit, but which has a history rich in danger, injustice, and environmental harm. The tuna takes center stage in Chapter 15, and with it the profound problems faced by the world’s oceans. Here, human economics and ethics collide in a consideration of how fish production and consumption are regulated and managed in a complex world. Chapter 16 discusses lawns and the risks posed by the artificial chemical inputs required to maintain them. Chapter 17 addresses one of the world’s fastest-growing commodities, bottled water. This object has the rare dual role as a solution to problems of water supply in some parts of the world, while being a clear luxury item – with attendant environmental problems – in others. We next examine French fries (also called “chips”!) in Chapter 18, a culinary invention that connects the complex centuries-old history of the transatlantic “Columbian Exchange” with the health controversies and industrial food economies of the twenty-first century. We close by addressing e-waste in Chapter 19, all the hazardous trash from cell phones, computers, and other electronics that continues to build up in landfills around the world, but which has also become a source of “treasure” for people and companies who mine it for recyclable materials.
Quite intentionally we have selected objects for exploration, rather than problems. We do this for two reasons. First, while many objects are obviously linked to problems (trees to deforestation, as we shall see in Chapter 12, for example), not all human relations with non-humans are problems. Second, we intend by this structure to invite people to think seriously about how different things in the world (giraffes, cell phones, tapeworms, diamonds, chainsaws …) have their own unique relationship to people and present specific sorts of puzzles owing to their specific characteristics (they swim, they melt, they migrate, they are poisonous when eaten …). This is intended as an opportunity to break away from the environment as an undifferentiated generic problem, one universally characterized by a state of immediate and unique crisis. While global climate change is a critical (and sprawling) suite of problems, for example, the long and complex relationship of people to carbon dioxide itself provides a focused entry point, filled with specific challenges and opportunities. We do indeed face enormous environmental problems, but we believe them to be best solved by exploring the specificities and differences, as well as commonalties, of both people and things.
We do not pretend to have provided an exhaustive list of socio-environmental situations, interactions, and problems. Instead we provide a few key examples to show how objects are tools to think with, and to demonstrate the implications of divergent ways of seeing environmental issues.
We have also provided boxed discussions throughout the text entitled: “Environmental Solution?” Our use of the question mark is both intentional and provocative. All the examples we describe have been considered, by someone, to be a solution to environmental problems. We invite readers to consider whether these solutions make sense but also to interrogate the theoretical assumptions that underpin each such solution, using the tools we have provided in the text to think critically about what constitutes a sensible way to address environmental challenges.
It is also important to note that this is not an environmental science textbook, though it is a book that takes environmental science seriously. Several key concepts and processes from a range of environmental sciences are described and defined, especially in the latter half of the book, including carbon sequestration, ecological succession, and predator–prey relationships, among many others. These are described in terms detailed enough to explain and understand the way human and social processes impinge upon or relate to non-human ones. Throughout we have drawn on current knowledge from environmental science sources (the report on global climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example), but we intend a book that requires no previous knowledge of such sciences or sources. We believe this book might reasonably accompany more strictly environmental science approaches, or be used in courses that seek to bridge environmental ethics, economics, or policy with issues in ecology, hydrology, and conservation biology, or vice versa.
The Authors’ Points of View
Finally, we provide many points of view in this volume that directly contradict one another. It is difficult, for example, to simultaneously believe that the source of all environmental problems is the total population of humans on Earth, and to hold the position that population growth leads to greater efficiencies and potentially lower environmental impacts. Even where ideas do not contradict one another (for example, risk perception in Chapter 6 might be seen as a sort of social construction in Chapter 8), they each stress different factors or problems and imply different solutions.
With that in mind, it is reasonable to ask what the points of view of the text’s authors might be. Which side are we on? This is difficult to answer, not only because there are three of us, each with our own view of the world, but also because, as researchers, we often try to bring different perspectives and theories to bear on the objects of our study, and to foster a kind of pluralism in our thinking.
Nonetheless, we do collectively have a point of view. First, we are each urgently concerned about the state of natural environments around the world. Our own research has focused on diverse environmental topics, including Professor Hintz’s work on the status of bears in the western part of the United States, Professor Moore’s research on the management of solid and hazardous waste, and Professor Robbins’ investigation of the conservation of forests in India. From these experiences, we have come to share an approach best described as political ecology: an understanding that nature and society are produced together in a political economy that includes humans and non-humans. What does this mean? To keep it as straightforward as possible, we understand that relationships among people and between people and the environment are governed by persistent and dominant, albeit diverse and historically changing, interactions of power (Robbins 2020). This means that we have some special sympathy for themes from political economy, social construction, feminism, and critical race theory.
Political
