Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
In an interesting study of the relationships between ecology, economy and state
formation in early modern Germany, Paul Warde has characterized the type of
socio-environmental changes brought about by the dual development of wider
market networks and the political strength of state rule. According to Warde, a
previous
'
territorial ecology
'
sustained by local agrarian communities began to be
undermined by a
triggered by a new set of merchants,
tax-collectors and state-rulers that operated at a wider scale. As Paul Warde says,
“
'
transformational ecology
'
implies a repeatable set of actions happening at a par-
ticular place. It is a process that reinforces the
The
'
territorial ecology
'
'
integrity
'
of a particular way of
doing things. The
, put bluntly, does not. Eventually it
must result in the disturbance of local processes: it is a problem generator
'
transformational ecology
'
.
81
His
”
argument implies that
“
tracing the
'
integrity
'
of, and
'
disturbance
'
to, systems of
resource
ows, is one of the most useful tasks historians can undertake. It is
precisely because the results of ecological interaction can only be determined
empirically that ecology should be historical
fl
.
82
Perhaps we could generalize this
approach by saying that, when studying the various paths of economic growth taken
by early pre-industrial societies, we should adopt the working hypothesis put for-
ward by John McNeill:
”
In any case, human history since the dawn of agriculture is
replete with unsustainable societies, some of which changed not to sustainability
but to some new and different kind of unsustainability.
83
“
”
2.8 From One Unsustainable Path to Another: The First
Globalization as a Watershed
Rolf Peter Sieferle, Robert Shiel and other scholars have expressed their suspicions
concerning two major forces that perhaps led past organic agrarian societies away
from sustainability. The
rst was the lack of manure to sustain crop yields in a
highly intensive organic agriculture, and the second deforestation. According to
Shiel, estimates made for the European Atlantic bioregions, with no water stress,
practising a three-course crop rotation, and where the livestock grazed on pastures
kept separate from cropland, show that the highest level of nitrogen availability
would have been achieved when less than 15 % of useful agrarian area was sown
with grains.
84
Higher cropland proportions would lead either to diminishing
returns
after some decades during which the nitrogen reserves stored in the soil
would be exhausted
-
innovative responses aimed at
improving seeds or varieties and achieving a closer integration between cropland
—
or to new
'
Boserupian
'
81
Warde (
2006a
), p. 284.
82
Warde (
2006a
), p. 19.
83
McNeill (
2000
).
84
Shiel (
1991
).
