ENVIRONMENTAL CRISES IN THE CONTEMPORARY TIME: AN EXPOSITION
AUTHOR: JOSHUA NNADIMMA AYOZIE
EMAIL:michealjoshua6@gmail.com
Phone contact: +2347061124641
Classroom assignment/paper
University of Nigeria,Nsukka
OUTLINE
1. Introduction
2. Thesis
3. Definition of term
4. Background of the study
5. Contemporary Issues in Environmental Crisis
: (a) Pollution(air, water and soil) (b) Global warming , (c) Overpopulation(causing short of resources such as food, water and fuel etc), (d) Waste disposal, (e) Ocean acidification, (f) Loss of biodiversity (g) Deforestation (h) Ozone Layer (I) Acid rain (J) Public health Issues
6. Philosophers on Environmental Crises and their various views
7. Philosopher of my choice, his thought and my evaluation on it.
8. Conclusion
1. Introduction
The crises that the non-anthropocentric environment faces have been there from time immemorial but it is obvious that as time passes by the mayhem dished out by human to his non human environment continue to grow from stage to stage that the situation in the contemporary time is such that it is not something to be written home about easily.
The crises that the nonhuman environment faces are such that if nothing is done urgently then many of these entities would go into extinction. One thing man may have failed to understand is that man has caused and created many problems for himself by the harm he thinks he is inflicting on the non human things around him and the environment he dwells in. It is not a new thing to state that a healthy Ecology is a healthy living for man.
It is based on this backdrop that this paper thinks that the environment is facing problems and many of these seem to be worsening with time, bringing man into a time of a true environmental crisis. Be that as it maybe, it is becoming increasingly and important to raise awareness for the existence of these issues, as well as what can be done to reduce their negative impact. Hence, this paper would discuss the following key issues:
1. Pollution
2. Global Warning,
3. Overpopulation
4. Waste Disposal
5. Ocean acidification
6. Loss of Biodiversity
7. Deforestation
8. Ozone Layer depletion
9. Acid rain
10. Public health
2. Thesis
This paper tends to investigate into the dramatic, unexpected, and irreversible worsening of the environment which has lead to significant welfare losses.
3. Definition
Simply put, the harmful effects of human activities on the environment. These include pollution, over-population, waste disposal, climate change, global warming, greenhouse effect etc.
4. Background/Historical Context
While recognizing that many different kinds of problems can threaten the stability or survival of society, this presentation will focus on environmental crises arising from imbalances between human demands and the ability of the natural environment to satisfy those demands. It will distinguish three broad and very different categories of environmental crisis and will discuss their implications for human society.
These three categories are: 1) those caused by purely natural conditions, 2) those caused or aggravated by human activity, and 3) those arising from increasing human demand for sources of energy to power infrastructures that have become increasingly energy-dependent over time. This is admittedly a highly biased approach in that it considers environmental crises from the perspective of only one species. It may nevertheless have some values, however, if it is able to yield a framework that facilitates analysis of relationships between human beings and the natural environment over the long term, and if it is also able to create a deep historical context for the understanding of contemporary environmental issues.
A. Environmental Crises of Purely Natural Origin
Changing environmental conditions have influenced the evolution of human and other species since the appearance of life on earth. Indeed, until the Upper Paleolithic era, environmental crises arose almost entirely from natural conditions. A growing consensus among archeologists recognizes that global climatic and environmental changes over geological time created the conditions under which biological evolution took place. Dinosaurs ruled the earth for some two hundred million years, for example, but disappeared rather suddenly, perhaps because of a purely natural global environmental catastrophe caused by collision of the earth with an asteroid. About thirty million years ago, the earth entered a long-term cooling phase that devastated the extensive forest cover that had nourished the dinosaurs. A cooler and drier global climate favored the development of savannas, prairies, and grasslands, which in turn favored the increase of large herbivorous mammals like horses, cattle, and antelopes, as well as their predators. The bounty of the grasslands was so great that it lured some primates from their original homes in the forest to the savannas. Except for this larger environmental context, arising purely from natural causes, it is possible that hominids and human species might never have evolved
Once human species had appeared on the face of the earth, purely natural conditions continued to influence their fates far more than human species themselves influenced environmental change. Like other animals, human beings – including Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo neandertalensis, and Homo sapiens among other human species – adapted to conditions through learning or evolution or both. Thanks to superior brainpower, ability to communicate complex messages accurately, and capacity to accumulate knowledge, Homo sapiens proved to be a particularly effective competitor for the earth’s resources. Yet even Homo sapiens were liable to unpleasant environmental surprises. Many of these surprises produced environmental crises that threatened social stability or even human survival. Most of them probably posed threats on a regional rather than global basis, as when volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, or massive storms afflicted local populations. A much larger and far more serious crisis took place about seventy thousand years ago, when human species flirted with extinction. Geneticists have detected indications in the human genome of a population bottleneck at that time resulting from a precipitous decline in human numbers. Genetic analysis suggests that the population of Homo sapiens declined to about ten thousand individuals, or even as low in some estimates as one thousand breeding pairs. In either case, assuming the basic accuracy of the genetic models, the human species stood on the brink of extinction. Stanley H. Ambrose has advanced the hypothesis that this abrupt population decline resulted from eruption of the super volcano Toba on the island of Sumatra about seventy thousand years ago. Toba was the second-largest known volcano of the past 450 million years. Its eruption caused a volcanic winter lasting six years, followed by a long period of the coldest temperatures of the Late Pleistocene epoch (from about 1.8 million to twelve thousand years ago). Summer temperatures in Europe and northern China instantly dropped about 12 degrees Centigrade, with devastating effects for ecosystems and their inhabitants, including humans.
Indeed, only two human species survived the Toba event: Neandertals, who had evolved to survive cold environments in Europe and western Asia during the ice ages, and Homo sapiens. Cold temperatures endured globally for the next thousand years. Under these conditions, the best places for human survival were tropical refuges, principally in Africa, which to judge from the high incidence of genetic diversity there was the home for all ancestors of humans living today.
It is obviously impossible to arrive at certainty about the details of causes and effects in such a remote era. Yet it is clear from more recent experience that purely natural conditions have brought environmental changes and created local and regional environmental crises, even if not in such a dramatic way as the Toba event. William S. Atwell has argued persuasively for volcanic activity as a cause of short-term but sometimes nevertheless sharp climate change in historical times, and the well known case of the Little Ice Age demonstrates the potential of purely natural processes to produce environmental effects with significant consequences for human societies. Eruptions of volcanoes like Thera (1628 B.C.E.), Tambora (1815), and Krakatoa (1883) clearly threatened the stability and survival of neighboring societies, but none of them posed a threat on a continental or global basis.
Humans have been able to make adjustments and survive the effects of volcanically generated climate change and the effects of the Little Ice Age, but adjustments brought their own stresses, particularly for outposts of society occupying agriculturally marginal lands. In any case, while emphasis in contemporary discussions of environmental crises falls heavily and quite correctly on anthropogenic effects on the natural environment, it is worth remembering that human activity takes place in a much larger context of natural processes, some of which stand well beyond human control or influence. Indeed, the earth remains vulnerable to a large number of purely natural processes such as collisions with extraterrestrial objects, volcanic activity, global warming, rising ocean levels, hurricanes and typhoons, and others as well.
B Environmental Crises Caused or Aggravated by Human Activity
Since the emergence of large-scale hunting, and especially after the invention of agriculture, environmental crises have increasingly reflected the influence of human behavior and human policies. During the course of the Holocene epoch (the period from about twelve thousand years ago to the present), anthropogenic effects on the natural environment have influenced ever-larger parts of the earth and have posed threats to social stability in regional contexts. Since widespread use of fossil fuels in the industrial era, anthropogenic effects have extended their reach to literally global proportions. Indeed, some earth scientists suggest that since about the eighteenth century, the earth has entered a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – in which human activities play major roles in environmental change and hence in the creation of environmental crises as well. Purely natural processes have by no means disappeared. Indeed, it is likely that purely natural processes created a set of conditions favoring the expansion of human prominence in the biosphere by warming the earth to the point that agriculture was a viable option in many world regions. Once they became established as a dominant species throughout the world, though, human beings soon began to register their own influence back on the natural environment.
Human activity had environmental influence before the invention of agriculture. After they developed effective hunting techniques, human beings placed pressure on some animal species. It has been quite clear for some time now that human arrivals in Australia and the Americas coincided with the rapid decline of megafauna in those regions. It is less clear what role humans played in megafaunal extinctions. Paul S. Martin and Tim Flannery have argued passionately that overhunting by humans was the principal reason for the extinctions. Purely natural processes have by no means disappeared. Indeed, it is likely that purely natural processes created a set of conditions favoring the expansion of human prominence in the biosphere by warming the earth to the point that agriculture was a viable option in many world regions. Once they became established as a dominant species throughout the world, though, human beings soon began to register their own influence back on the natural environment. For the moment, the scholarly consensus clusters around the less dramatic view that climatic change probably accounted for most of the difficulties megafauna faced. Human overhunting may well have aggravated a difficult situation further, but it was not likely the only or even the main cause of extinctions. Even this attenuated interpretation recognizes, however, that human beings were fully capable of aggravating natural processes in remote times. Meanwhile, there is general agreement that human predation was responsible in later centuries for large-scale extinctions of avifauna in Pacific islands.
Yet the environmental effects of hunting were minimal compared to the influence of agriculture, including herding as well as cultivation, and especially industrialization. Indeed, the environmental effects of agriculture and industry have been so numerous that it is difficult even to catalogue them and much more so to understand the many ways various effects have overlapped and reinforced one another.
There are obviously many differences between agriculture and industry as forms of economic organization, and the two forms have had different effects on the natural environment. From an environmental viewpoint, though, mechanical industry reinforced and amplified long-standing effects of cultivation, even as it also introduced new effects of its own. In keeping with the purposes of this presentation, emphasis here will fall on effects that contributed to environmental crises rather than distinctions between agricultural and industrial production. Continuing the focus on land animals for the moment, agriculture and herding brought several very different prospects for the animal kingdom. For some animals, the eras of agriculture and mechanical industry brought domestication and much larger populations, although the animals paid for this advantage by undergoing genetic changes and serving human interests.
In other cases, agriculture and industry facilitated the dispersal of animal species beyond the range of their original homelands. For the past five hundred years – during the late centuries of agrarian empires and the era of industrialization – human methods and technologies of hunting have been so powerful as to drive some animal species to the point of extinction when concentrated demand has created markets for their products: examples are elephants, tigers, and even Atlantic cod fish. Finally, agriculture and industry have also brought habitat destruction and chemical pollution that have pushed numerous animal species toward extinction even when there has been little or no commercial demand for their products. All of these fates clearly reflected anthropogenic environmental effects rather than purely natural processes
B. Energy Crises
Two points are already clear: first, environmental crises have threatened humans (and other species) for as long as there has been life on the earth, and second, because of their high intelligence and abilities to communicate and innovate, human beings have found their own ways to amplify natural effects or even to create new environmental threats in the course of pursuing their individual and collective interests. Meanwhile, also following from their intelligence, humans have discovered increasingly ingenious ways to exploit energy resources for their own benefit. Over the past twelve thousand years or so, human beings have turned ever-larger portions of the energy available in the world to their own uses. This is a remarkable and even stunning development. Before the turn to agriculture, human beings consumed little more energy than was necessary for subsistence – about two thousand calories per capita per day. After they learned to control fire, they captured more energy for their own uses than other animals but only marginally so, consuming about five thousand calories per day in food and other energy uses combined. With the adoption of agriculture, human energy use more than doubled to about twelve thousand calories per capita per day, including food consumption for both humans and animal stocks as well as energy used for heat, construction, agriculture, commerce, production, and crafts. By the time of advanced agricultural societies around 1000 C.E., consumption more than doubled again to about 26,000 calories per day.
The advent of industrial production and early exploitation of fossil fuels almost trebled per capita energy consumption to 77,000 calories per day by 1850. Today the rate of human energy consumption is almost a quarter-million calories per capita per day. Their remarkable record of success in extracting energy from natural resources is the foundation of a special category of environmental crisis having to do with the sources of energy. The distribution of this consumption is highly unequal – individuals in some world regions consume many more while those in other regions consume many less than a quarter-million calories per day – but with a population surpassing six billion, it is obvious that human beings have managed to capture an astonishing portion of the world’s available energy and turn it to their own uses.
Considering the world’s history from the viewpoint of energy production and consumption, Edmund Burke, III recognizes “two major energy regimes in human history: the age of solar energy (a renewable resource) from 10,000 B.C.E. to 1800 C.E., and the age of fossil fuels (a nonrenewable resource) from 1800 C.E. to the present.” Sxviiixvii Energy sources deriving from solar energy were not necessarily renewable on the schedule that human consumers preferred. Time and again before the age of fossil fuels, humans ran up against limits of fuel resources. John F. Richards has documented fuel shortages throughout the world during the early modern era. Surging populations and increasing demand for industrial products that required heat (such as salt and beer) placed enormous pressure on biomass fuels. The results were rising prices and rationing, as well as a search for new sources of fuel.
Meanwhile, Kenneth Pomeranz has shown that by about 1750, both Europe and East Asian lands were experiencing shortages of fuel resources that sharply limited their ability to serve the material needs of increasing populations. First in Europe, and later in other lands as well, human beings escaped this energy crunch by turning to fossil fuels. In early days these fuels were so abundant and held so much potential energy that humans made profligate use of the newly discovered resources. During the past two centuries, they have devised so many uses for relatively inexpensive energy, and they have built such energy-consuming and energy-dependent infrastructures that they have begun to test the limits of fossil fuel resources while also bringing new problems of pollution and global warming into clear focus. There is no danger that exploitable fuels are on the point of imminent exhaustion. Reserves of natural gas and coal are enormous, and even reserves of petroleum are substantial and increasing.
There are several dangers, however, that arise from the widespread use of fossil fuels, and they have the potential to trigger environmental crises beyond the local to transregional and even global scales. The menaces of pollution and global warming are clear enough, and they certainly pose threats to the stability of human societies and even to the survival of many low islands and coastal regions. Moreover, human beings have built such dense populations and outfitted them with such energy-dependent infrastructures that a major decline or interruption in flows of energy sources would have strong potential to create severe difficulties in the provision of food, water, and essential services, such as electricity and sanitation, that modern societies depend upon. Although efforts have been underway for some time to develop alternative sources of clean and reliable energy, it will in the nature of things take time to develop alternatives at attractive prices and then to retrofit infrastructures so that they can make use of the alternatives. In the meantime, an energy-based environmental crisis would in all likelihood lead to serious collateral damage by weakening economic systems throughout the world.
5. Contemporary Issues in Environmental Crises
Our environment faces several problems, and many of these seem to be worsening with time, bringing us into a time of a true environmental crisis. It is therefore becoming increasingly important to raise awareness of the existence of these issues, as well as what can be done to reduce their negative. Some of the key issues are:
1)Pollution of the air, water and soil caused by toxins such as plastics, heavy metals and nitrates, caused by factors such as toxins and gases released by factories, combustion of fossil fuel and acid rain, oil spill and industrial waste.
2)Global warming
The emission of greenhouse gases due to human activity causes global warming, which in turn causes an increase in temperature that then leads to rising sea levels, melting of polar ice caps, flash floods and desertification.
3) Overpopulation
we are facing a shortage of resources such as food, water and fuel to sustain the rising global population, particularly in developing countries. Intensive agriculture attempting to lessen the problem actually leads to more damage through the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.
4) Waste disposal
an excessive amount of waste is produced and dumped in the oceans. Nuclear waste is particularly dangerous, as well as plastics and electronic waste.
5) Ocean acidification
the increase in the production of carbon dioxide by humans causes the oceans’ acidity to rise, which has a negative impact on marine life.
6) Loss of biodiversity
Species and habitats are becoming extinct due to human activity. This causes an imbalance in natural processes like pollination and poses a threat to ecosystems – coral reef destruction is particularly affected.
7) Deforestation
Loss of trees in order to make space for residential, industrial or commercial projects means that less oxygen is produced, and temperature and rainfall are affected.
8) Ozone layer depletion
Pollution caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the air creates a hole in the ozone layer, which protects the earth from harmful UV radiation.
9) Acid rain
Pollutants in the atmosphere such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides cause acid rain, which has negative consequences for humans, wildlife and aquatic species.
10) Public health issues
Lack of clean water is one of the leading environmental problems currently. Pollutants in the air also cause issues such as respiratory disease and cardiovascular disease.
6. Philosophers on Environmental Crises and their different Views
Environmental crises cuts across different disciplines and as such have recorded good numbers of scholars who have contributed to the academic investigations and papers on these phenomena. Be that as it maybe, this paper aims at presenting to its readers the fathers or key authorities on these issues and their views. A. HOLMES ROLSTON III: Is known as the father of environmental ethics with his published article “Is there an Ecological Ethic?” in the year 1975. Rolston has argued that when humans encounter wild nature they are not under any duty or obligation to alleviate any wild animal suffering and that since animals in the wild have no claim to a pleasant life free of pain then humans have no moral duty to provide them with one. B. Richard Routley: “Human Chauvinism”: this work was alongside Naess’s the first published work in environmental ethics and began a central debate in the area, one concerned with intrinsic value in nature. Elaborated on Routley and Routley(1979 b) and (1980a), this work developed arguments against what he termed “ human chauvinism”-the view that humans are exceptional in being the sole onus of intrinsic value, all else having merely instrumental value. Alongside this work in environmental ethics more broadly, which was to continue until his death, he also published in defense of pacifism, against nuclear war and was one of the first philosophers to point to the emerging moral issues associated with anthropogenic global warming. Naess: / AR-nə NESS; Norwegian: [ˈnɛsː]; 27 January 1912 – 12 January 2009) was a Norwegian philosopher who coined the term “deep ecology”, an important intellectual and inspirational figure within the environmental movement of the late twentieth century, and a prolific writer on many other philosophical issues.[7] Næss cited Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring as being a key influence in his vision of deep ecology. Næss combined his ecological vision with Gandhian nonviolence and on several occasions participated in direct action.
Næss averred that while western environmental groups of the early post-war period had raised public awareness of the environmental issues of the time, they had largely failed to have insight into and address what he argued were the underlying cultural and philosophical background to these problems. Naess believed that the environmental crisis of the twentieth century had arisen due to certain unspoken philosophical presuppositions and attitudes within modern western developed societies which remained unacknowledged.
He thereby distinguished between what he called deep and shallow ecological thinking. In contrast to the prevailing utilitarian pragmatism of western businesses and governments, he advocated that a true understanding of nature would give rise to a point of view that appreciates the value of biological diversity, understanding that each living thing is dependent on the existence of other creatures in the complex web of interrelationships that is the natural world.
Rachael Carson’s Environmental Ethics: MODERN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Environmental ethics became a philosophical discipline in the 1970s as concerns grew about the effects of technology and industry on the environment. Popular writers during the 1960s were able to disseminate scientific information to the public by raising awareness about toxic chemicals, natural resource depletion, and destruction of wildlife. Rachel Carson was one such writer, as detailed below, she informed readers of toxic pollution that directly affected humans.
We owe these writers and other naturalists for shaping our ethical understanding of nature today. Advances in technology mean reading and sharing information about Earth Law, rights of nature, and environmental ethics is more accessible than ever before. As we advocate for Earth Law we should ask ourselves: what responsibilities we have as humans towards nature, and why it is important to us. Environmental thinkers like Rachel Carson are role models we can reflect on today as we face increasing environmental challenges. Born in 1907, Carson was an avid young writer, eventually working as a science editor with the Fish and Wildlife Service for fifteen years. During her time with the Fish and Wildlife Service, Carson became aware of many issues which later shaped her environmental writing and values about nature.
In the early 1950’s her naturalist and writing background helped her find success as a popular nature writer. Carson’s first two books about ocean formation and ecology drew great reviews from the scientific and public spheres. As the decade wore on she turned her eye to the detrimental use of chemical pesticides, specifically DDT.
Silent Spring was one of the most controversial books in the early 1960’s because of it documentation of environmental damage caused by highly toxic compounds. Carson reveals how synthetic pesticides, like DDT, can go beyond killing pests, the compounds may bioaccumulate in other organisms like birds and fish. Carson further argues that these poisons can move through the food chain, threatening animal populations and potentially harming people, linking it to health issues such as cancer.
Chemical companies staunchly opposed Carson’s research and supported the soundness of new technology. But it was too late, the scientific community backed the research and now it was in the public domain. President John F. Kennedy acknowledged the national concern, and in 1963 Carson appeared before the President’s Science Advisory Committee and a Senate subcommittee investigating pesticides. Today Silent Spring stands as testimony that without environmental advocacy, the chemical companies of the mid-century may have carried on using DDT and other toxic chemicals to the devastation of many ecosystems. By 1975 most of the toxic chemicals Carson wrote about became banned or heavily regulated in the United States.
Rachel Carson poses her Silent Spring readers with a moral dilemma: to act upon the knowledge she shares about toxic chemicals or accept the chemical industry’s solution to deal with pests. Illuminating her book with case studies readers can relate to, Carson illustrates a common community and the dangers of passiveness. Carson’s work urged for precautions in our relationships with ecosystems and to understand the interconnectedness of nature.
Rachel Carson’s environmental ethic is driven by awareness and sharing knowledge, so that we can live harmoniously with nature. Carson teaches us to not blindly accept assurances for safety when it comes to applying chemicals like pesticides and the importance of regulations and enforcement measures. Silent Spring challenges the thinking that nature is to serve people and is to be controlled, and implies our moral responsibility to nature, that we must not cause unnecessary loss of non-human or natural life and reminds us we share the same environment.
Philosopher of my choice, his thought and my evaluation on it: Biodiversity on Naess. He advocated that a true understanding of nature would give rise to a point of view that appreciates the value of biological diversity, understanding that each living thing is dependent on the existence of other creatures in the complex web of interrelationships that is the natural world. It is simple. Live and let live. Man needs non human to exist longer and healthier and non human also needs man to have a complete meaning of its existence. Extinction of particular specie has not solved any problem but has created much vacuum in the chain of existence and its meaning and beauty
NOTES
Available at bjus.com>biology>environment…
Jerry H. Bentley, Environmental Crises in World History available at www.sciencedirect.com
For a comprehensive argument along these lines see Richard Potts, Humanity’s Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability (New York: Morrow, 1996).
Stanley H. Ambrose, “Late Pleistocene Human Population Bottlenecks, Volcanic Winter, and Differentiation of Modern Humans,” Journal of Human Evolution 34 (1998): 623-51
William S. Atwell, “Volcanism and Short-Term Climatic Change in East Asian and World History, c. 1200-1699,” Journal of World History 12 (2001): 29-98. For a sophisticated discussion of the Little Ice Age in the context of other natural and human considerations, see Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005).
Diamond, Collapse; and Ian Whyte, World Without End? Environmental Disaster and the Collapse of Empires (London: Tauris, 2008), pp. 124-37.
For a particularly persuasive analysis, see Vaclav Smil, Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next 50 Years (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008)
Paul J. Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind,” Nature 415 (2002): 23; Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer, “The ‘Anthropocene,’” IGBP Newsletter 41 (May 2000): 17-18.
Paul S. Martin, “Prehistoric Overkill: The Global Model,” in P.S. Martin and R.G. Klein, eds., Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984), pp. 354-403, and Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and Peoples (New York: Braziller, 1995).
For a summary of relevant scholarship, see Patrick V. Kirch, “Oceanic Islands: Microcosms of ‘Global Change,’” in Charles L. Redman, Steven R. James, Paul R. Fish, and J. Daniel Rogers, eds., The Archaeology of Global Change: The Impact of Humans on Their Environment (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 2004), pp. 13-27
For general discussions of the topic, see Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994); and Edmund Burke, III, “The Big Story: Human History, Energy Regimes, and the Environment,” in Edmund Burke, III, and Kenneth Pomeranz, eds., The Environment and World History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), pp. 33-53.S
I.G. Simmons, Changing the Face of the Earth: Culture, Environment, History, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), p. 27.
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 211-63.
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