Back to the future: environmental security in nineteenth century global politics

Abstract

Environmental security is generally held to be a contemporary or even futuristic concern. However, as with many facets of security thought, this overlooks how the unparalleled technological, economic and social changes of the 19 th Century forged much of the international political landscape we now inhabit. The tendency for ecological political enquiry to focus on the rise of ecocentric policy serves to obscure how many aspects of national and human security relating to environmental change were apparent in the 19 th century. Human insecurity in the face of pollution and resource depletion was a part of the emergence of ecological science in response to the industrialisation of Europe and North America. In addition, this was the era when European imperialism reached its apex and European nationalisms fully emerged; both of which contributed to the national securitization of the environment around much of the world in contrasting ways as the desire to both conquer and preserve nature became more evident. Environmental questions of national, human and ecological security are not peculiar to the present age and were very much apparent in 19 th Century global politics.

review contribution to environmental crime

“…The scope of environmental crime has generally been broadened. In the United Kingdom (UK, England), the Disraeli's Rivers Act of 1876 (Prevention of Pollution Act) was dominant as a legislative measure regulating environmental crime (Hough, 2019). In the United States (US), the Refuse Act of (1899) served as the first national regulation intended to control pollution as a form of environmental crime (Russo, 2017).…”

Indonesia's Forest Fire and Haze Pollution: An Analysis of Human Security

“…To be chosen in the world of security, human security faces 20 th century militarism. To understand the cause of proper conceptualisation and political prioritisation of such global problems, people have to move beyond their mindset in understanding how human security interest has been served by the protection of the environment (Hough, 2019).…”

The Agro Exports of Organic Native Products and Environmental Security in Peru

“…From a human or national security perspective, environmental security is a concept intended to give greater importance to environmental change issues that already apparent in the politicization of nature inherent in the emergence of political ecology from the 1990s (Hough, 2019).…”