10.2 The industrialization of nature: a modern history (1500 to  (Page 12/9)

Learning objectives

After reading this module, students should be able to

• reproduce a basic timeline of global economic development since 1500, and outline the historical webs of trade linking sources of major raw materials—e.g. spices, cotton, oil—to their consumer markets on a world map
• define the historical development of core and periphery nations in the world economy
• understand the concept of externalization of environmental costs, and its role as a principle driver of unsustainable industrial development

Introduction

It is a measure of our powers of normalization that we in the developed world take the existence of cheap energy, clean water, abundant food, and international travel so much for granted, when they are such recent endowments for humanity, and even now are at the disposal of considerably less than half the global population. It is a constant surprise to us that a situation so “normal” could be having such abnormal effects on the biosphere—degrading land, water, air, and the vital ecosystems hosting animals and fish. How did we get here? How can we square such apparent plenty with warnings of collapse?

Raw figures at least sketch the proportions of global change over the last 500 years. In 1500, even after several centuries of rapid population growth, the global population was no more than 500 million, or less than half the population of India today. It is now fourteen times as large, almost 7 billion. Over the same period, global economic output has increased 120 times, most of that growth occurring since 1820, and with the greatest acceleration since 1950. This combination of rampant population and economic growth since 1500 has naturally had major impacts on the earth’s natural resources and ecosystem health. According to the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, by the beginning of the 21 ^st century, 15 of the world’s 24 ecosystems, from rainforests to aquifers to fisheries, were rated in serious decline.

Economic development

Fundamental to significant changes in human history has been social reaction to resource scarcity. By 1500, Europeans, the first engineers of global growth, had significantly cleared their forests, settled their most productive agricultural lands, and negotiated their internal borders. And yet even with large-scale internal development, Europe struggled to feed itself, let alone to match the wealth of the then dominant global empires, namely China and the Mughal States that stretched from the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia to the busy ports of the Eastern Mediterranean. As a consequence of resource scarcity, European states began to sponsor explorations abroad, in quest initially for gold, silver, and other precious metals to fill up their treasuries. Only over time did Europeans begin to perceive in the New World the opportunities for remote agricultural production as a source of income. Full-scale colonial settlement was an even later idea.