The End of American Environmentalism?

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Devall

The death of American environmentalism has recently been proclaimed by some commentators (Schellenberger and Nordhaus 2005). Such declarations tend to be limiting because they fail to explore and evaluate the historical context of international, national, and regional social forces and social changes that shaped the American environmental movement over the past century. In this essay, I propose to explore the important question of the decline of American environmentalism within the context of a recurring theme pursued by the American movement: the protection of places wherein we dwell. David Brower has called this the practice of Conservation, Preservation, and Restoration, or CPR (Brower 1995).

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 141-147
Author(s):  
Maria Faidi

Accordingly to Shay and Sellers-Young (2005) “the term “belly dance” was adopted by natives and non-natives to denote all solo dance forms from Morocco to Uzbekistan that engage the hips, torso, arms and hands in undulations, shimmies, circles and spirals.” Dance historian Curt Sachs depicted the dance as “the swinging of the rectus abdominis” (Sachs 1963). This movement has been performed by many oriental dancers in the past century and has become part of the routine of oriental dancers worldwide. This movement has even named the dance “belly dance,” and become one of the most representative elements of contemporary Egyptian culture.This paper will be organized as follows: firstly, I am going to explain succinctly how I use the term “subaltern” in relation to dance and colonialism. Secondly, I am going to present the main scenarios, actors, and factors in which the rolling and trembling of the abdomen was danced, watched, desired and hated at the end of the nineteenth century, provoking strong love/hate reactions among the fin de siecle public. The discourse intermingles both dance and feminist analysis observing how movement constituted a metaphor of the unequal power relations between the metropolis and the colony within the particular historical context of British colonialism in Egypt.


1981 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 83-83
Author(s):  
J. A. Allan

A three day conference jointly sponsored by the Society and the Middle East Centre of the School of Oriental and African Studies was held in London in July. The main purpose of the meeting was to review the development experience of the past century and to discuss the economic and social impact of the policies and investments of the numerous governments of Libya in the period. A secondary purpose was to bring together students of modern Libyan studies many of whom had not met each other before.Some 33 papers were prepared for the meeting including an inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Emrys Peters (University of Manchester) and a contribution by Dr Graeme Barker representing the Society, which placed current development experience in a broad historical context. The range of topics treated in the formal sessions was extremely wide and if there was one theme which emerged it was that there has been a tendency for Libyan administrations, new to their role in managing natural resources, to overestimate the country's agricultural potential. Over ninety people attended the meetings including twelve from Libya and most attended the dinner on the final evening kindly provided by the Libyan Bureau in London.Copies of the conference programme and abstracts are available from the secretary, and a limited number of the papers can be provided for members as long as stocks last. Arrangements are being made to publish most of the papers in English in London and it is hoped that papers for the third day of the conference, dealing with the period after independence, will also be published in France.


1983 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 249-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Roebuck

Despite the disadvantages they face, women in western nations have coped very successfully with the problems of aging during the past century and, with limited material resources, have responded positively to great social and personal changes. Although women make up the majority of the elderly population, these achievements have received little attention. As we face the continued aging of the population and its attendant massive social changes in a setting of increasingly scarce resources, it is essential that all aspects of female aging be studied more closely. They may well provide us with the insights necessary to clarify our vision of the past and future and provide us with appropriate models for survival in a less-than-ideal world.


Author(s):  
John A. Radano

This article looks at the Global Christian Forum (GCF) as a new initiative in the historical context of the modern ecumenical movement and from a Catholic point of view. It puts the GCF in three perspectives: as a new stage in ecumenical development, as part of a turning point in ecumenical history and as a new impulse of the Holy Spirit. By bringing in the Evangelicals and Pentecostals, the GCF has widened the range of church families in conversation with one another. The GCF may begin to make a substantial contribution in the situation since Vatican II in which some critical issues between divided Christians have been solved. The beginning convergence of the two movements that have marked the past century — ecumenical and Pentecostal/evangelical — may be the work of the Holy Spirit.


2004 ◽  
pp. 37-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick H. Buttel ◽  
Kenneth A. Gould

This paper examines the major structural characteristics of the anti-corporate globalization movement, its key bases and antecedents, its relationship with other global social movements (GSMs) and the key challenges it faces in the post-9/11 period. We suggest that despite the potential of the anti-corporate globalization movement to usher in major social changes, the movement faces a number of major crossroads in terms of ideology, discursive approach, and overall strategy. We argue that there has been coalescence of a good many GSMs, including the international environmental movement, under the banner of the anti-corporate globalization movement. We focus primarily on the interrelations of these two GSMs, noting that over the past decade there have been trends toward both the “environmentalization” and “de-environmentalization” of the anti-corporate globalization movement. While the defection of many mainstream environmental groups fromthe “Washington consensus” and the resulting environmentalization of the trade and globalization issue were critical to the “Seattle coalition,” there has been a signi?cant decline in the movement’s embrace of environmental claims and discourses, and a corresponding increase in its use of social justice discourses. One implication of our analysis is the hypothesis that while the current vitality of the anti-corporate globalization movement can be gauged by its having adopted an increasingly coherent ideological stance in which international inequality and global corporate dominance are targeted, to be successful the movement will need to coherently ideologically integrate social justice with environmental and sustainability agendas. The amenability of the environmental GSM to such ideological integration will have important rami?cations for the future trajectory of the anti-corporate globalization movement.


1969 ◽  
pp. 463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund A. Aunger

Language law deals with a matter of fundamental importance, and language rights haw been wide recognized as fundamental human rights. Yet very little is known about Alberta's legislative provisions for language use. This article examines those provisions that have had the greatest impact over the past century and places them in their historical context. It also presents a comprehensive overview of the many unheralded provisions and organizes them according to their thematic significance. During Alberta's early decades these language provisions commonly imposed English and repressed minority languages. In more recent years they have promoted a greater tolerance for French and other languages.


Author(s):  
Dan McKanan

For the past century, initiatives inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy have contributed to the evolution of environmental activism. Steiner’s 1924 course of lectures on agriculture initiated biodynamics, which became the first organized form of organic agriculture. Farmers and activists inspired by Steiner helped prepare the way for Rachel Carson’s campaign against pesticides, anticipated the major themes of Gaian spirituality, invented community-supported agriculture, and founded many of the world’s largest green banks. Waldorf schools and Camphill intentional communities, also inspired by Steiner, integrate concern for the environment into their practices of education and care for persons with special needs. Eco-Alchemy tells all these stories, with special attention to the ways anthroposophical initiatives have interacted with impulses rooted in other spiritual traditions. By placing anthroposophy within the broader history of environmentalism, Dan McKanan demonstrates that the environmental movement itself has a complex ecology and would not be as diverse or transformative without the contributions of anthroposophy. Anthroposophy’s greatest contribution has been its emphasis on the balancing of polarities, drawn from alchemy. By refusing the dichotomies of matter and spirit, nature and humanity, and science and spirituality, students of Rudolf Steiner help environmentalism evolve in new and creative ways.


Author(s):  
Károly Zsolt Nagy

"Democracy and the idea of progress became one of the most important attrib-utes of Hungarian Reformation in the 19th century, both as its self-image and socie-ty’s image of Calvinists (and, more broadly, of Protestants). These indicators are very important because, to this day, they are essential elements of Calvinist identity, but they also illustrate well the way heritage forged into identity. The part of the past reflected and “used” in community memory loosely relates to the actual legacy of the past. Different authors have defined in different ways which exact identity elements are representative of these attributes, and it also varies how long such an el-ement retains its representative quality, if it retains it at all. Without being exhaus-tive, the study outlines the ways the specific content of these attributes changes over the 20th century: that is, in the context of changes in the relationship between church and society, in what situations and what factors these attributes are identi-fied by individual opinion formers. The author first examines the historical context of the emergence of these topoi and then looks at some cases of their use, with par-ticular emphasis on the period of communist dictatorship. Keywords: democracy, Calvinism, heritage transformation, community memory, com-munism."


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-381
Author(s):  
Ny Anjara Fifi Ravelomanantsoa ◽  
Sarah Guth ◽  
Angelo Andrianiaina ◽  
Santino Andry ◽  
Anecia Gentles ◽  
...  

Seven zoonoses — human infections of animal origin — have emerged from the Coronaviridae family in the past century, including three viruses responsible for significant human mortality (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2) in the past twenty years alone. These three viruses, in addition to two older CoV zoonoses (HCoV-229E and HCoV-NL63) are believed to be originally derived from wild bat reservoir species. We review the molecular biology of the bat-derived Alpha- and Betacoronavirus genera, highlighting features that contribute to their potential for cross-species emergence, including the use of well-conserved mammalian host cell machinery for cell entry and a unique capacity for adaptation to novel host environments after host switching. The adaptive capacity of coronaviruses largely results from their large genomes, which reduce the risk of deleterious mutational errors and facilitate range-expanding recombination events by offering heightened redundancy in essential genetic material. Large CoV genomes are made possible by the unique proofreading capacity encoded for their RNA-dependent polymerase. We find that bat-borne SARS-related coronaviruses in the subgenus Sarbecovirus, the source clade for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, present a particularly poignant pandemic threat, due to the extraordinary viral genetic diversity represented among several sympatric species of their horseshoe bat hosts. To date, Sarbecovirus surveillance has been almost entirely restricted to China. More vigorous field research efforts tracking the circulation of Sarbecoviruses specifically and Betacoronaviruses more generally is needed across a broader global range if we are to avoid future repeats of the COVID-19 pandemic.


VASA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Gebauer ◽  
Holger Reinecke

Abstract. Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) has been proven to be a causal factor of atherosclerosis and, along with other triggers like inflammation, the most frequent reason for peripheral arterial disease. Moreover, a linear correlation between LDL-C concentration and cardiovascular outcome in high-risk patients could be established during the past century. After the development of statins, numerous randomized trials have shown the superiority for LDL-C reduction and hence the decrease in cardiovascular outcomes including mortality. Over the past decades it became evident that more intense LDL-C lowering, by either the use of highly potent statin supplements or by additional cholesterol absorption inhibitor application, accounted for an even more profound cardiovascular risk reduction. Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), a serin protease with effect on the LDL receptor cycle leading to its degradation and therefore preventing continuing LDL-C clearance from the blood, is the target of a newly developed monoclonal antibody facilitating astounding LDL-C reduction far below to what has been set as target level by recent ESC/EAS guidelines in management of dyslipidaemias. Large randomized outcome trials including subjects with PAD so far have been able to prove significant and even more intense cardiovascular risk reduction via further LDL-C debasement on top of high-intensity statin medication. Another approach for LDL-C reduction is a silencing interfering RNA muting the translation of PCSK9 intracellularly. Moreover, PCSK9 concentrations are elevated in cells involved in plaque composition, so the potency of intracellular PCSK9 inhibition and therefore prevention or reversal of plaques may provide this mechanism of action on PCSK9 with additional beneficial effects on cells involved in plaque formation. Thus, simultaneous application of statins and PCSK9 inhibitors promise to reduce cardiovascular event burden by both LDL-C reduction and pleiotropic effects of both agents.


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