Glossary - Sustainable Development in the USA - page 226

annexation by the United States. Between 1846 and 1848, a series of agreements
were made between the United States and Great Britain, leading to adoption of the
49th parallel as the line of demarcation between British Canada and the American
territory of Oregon. The agricultural colonization of Oregon lost its momentum as a
result of the California gold rush beginning in 1848.
Overshooting : A key concept in the theory of the Ecological Footprint,
overshooting suggests that human environmental use exceeds the regenerative
capacity of a particular biosphere. Overshooting is a measure of the severity of the
environmental crisis facing the earth since the 1980s.
P
Paleotechnical : One of three divisions of technological progress according to
Lewis Mumford [MUM 34]. The paleotechnical era extends roughly from 1750 to
1930. The paleotechnical era of industrial production followed the neotechnical era
which was dominated mainly by agriculture and handicrafts. The paleotechnical era
marks the rise of man by use of fossil fuels. It is an era of coal and steel, of capitalist
exploitation and intensive pollution. The paleotechnical era was, in Mumford's
view, a transitory period during which quality of life was sacrificed to the rising
power of humanity. In the transport sector, it is the railway that best represents the
paleotechnical era. In his lecture on the construction of the American nation, D.W.
Meinig [MEI 04] reprises Mumford's time divisions examining the development of
transport technologies in terms of the energy sources employed, in this way making
hydrocarbons and fossil fuels characteristics of the neotechnical era.
Parish (parish) : Counties in the state of Louisiana are known as parishes.
Permafrost : Term for the permanently frozen top layer of soil.
Polarization : A false cognate and clear example of differing cultural values
among French and American geographers. For a French geographer, polarization
refers to the attraction of an urban center for the territory that surrounds it, a sort of
anchoring effect. Polarization is thus synonymous with centralization. In American
usage, the concept of polarization refers to the territorial manifestation of economic,
social, and political divisions. In this way polarization is synonymous with
segregation.
Postmodernism : A cultural and philosophical movement which is linked to the
collapse of ideologies in the late 20th century. Postmodern thought is characterized