Table Of ContentNATURE, CHOICE
AND SOCIAL POWER
We are at an environmental impasse. Many blame our personal choices about the
things we consume and the way we live. This is only part of the problem. Different
forms of social power – political, economic and ideological – structure the choices
we have available. This book analyzes how we make social and environmental
history and why we end up where we do.
Using case studies from different environmental domains – earth and water, air
and fire – Nature, Choice and Social Powerexamines the form that social power takes
and how it can harm the environment and hinder our efforts to act in our own best
interests. The case studies challenge conventional wisdoms about why gold is
valuable, why the internal combustion engine triumphed and when and why
suburbs sprawled. The book shows how the power of individuals, the power of
classes, the power of the market and the power of the state at different times and in
different ways were critical to setting us on a path to environmental degradation. It
also challenges conventional wisdoms about what we need to do now. Rather than
reducing consumption and shrinking from outcomes we do not want, it proposes
growing toward outcomes we do want. We have invested massive resources in
creating our problems; it will take equally large investments to fix them.
Written in a clear and engaging style, the book is underpinned with a political
economy framework and addresses how we should understand our responsibility to
the environment and to each other as individuals within a large and impersonal
system.
Erica Schoenberger is Professor of Geography and Environmental Engineering
at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
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NATURE, CHOICE
AND SOCIAL POWER
Erica Schoenberger
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Erica Schoenberger
The right of Erica Schoenberger to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN: 978-0-415-83386-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-83387-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-48384-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
for Reds
A thoughtful, measured and ultimately compelling analysis of our collective
inability to take the obvious measures needed to prevent the downward spiral
of environmental degradation that currently threatens so much of the world
around us. Beautifully written, this text is thoroughly recommended for
student audiences at all levels as well as for general readers.
David Harvey, City University of New York Graduate Center, USA
Utterly original, always provocative, never predictable, Erica Schoenberger
rethinks the environmental crisis here as a deeply sedimented social problem,
and as a problem of social power. Nature, Choice and Social Power takes a
fresh look at the underlying causes and consequences of the environmental
impasse, matched with refreshing responses to a host of stubborn questions.
Schoenberger argues that getting by in a different, and less environmentally
damaging way is a challenge too big for environmentalism-as-we-know-it on
its own; moving forward must involve the renovation of democracy and the
taming of markets too.
Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia, Canada
Erica Schoenberger has produced a truly stimulating and provocative book.
Through detailed historical analyses she shows how environmental problems
are the product of the configurations of social power and that our choices are
constrained by such configurations. The wonderfully clear writing style makes
her argument highly accessible to all. Invaluable.
Peter Dicken, University of Manchester, UK
CONTENTS
List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction:nature,choice and social power 1
PART I
Mining: earth and water 19
1 Mining nature 21
2 Miners 51
3 Why is gold valuable? 79
PART II
The car and suburban sprawl: air and fire 111
4 Henry Ford’s car 113
5 Sprawl 140
6 Los Angeles:a brief biography 175
Conclusion:social power,choice and nature 194
References 203
Index 216
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1.1 The Ok Tedi mine site in Papua New Guinea 34
1.2 The McLaughlin mine site in Northern California 37
2.1 Ancient Egypt, showing the location of Wadi Hammamat 55
6.1 The Pacific Electric railway system, 1912 179
6.2 Los Angeles Basin oil fields 182
6.3 Aerial view from Wilshire and La Brea Avenues, 1932 186
Table
3.1 Monetary gold, 1845–1950 103
