Download Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism AudioBook Free
When most Us citizens think of environmentalism, they think of the politics still left, of vegans dressed in organic-hemp cloth, lofting protest signs. In reality, creates Jacob Darwin Hamblin, the movements - and its dire predictions - owe more to the Pentagon than the counterculture. In Arming Mom Nature, Hamblin argues that armed forces planning World Conflict III essentially created "catastrophic environmentalism": the theory that human being activity might cause global natural disasters. This understanding, Hamblin shows, emerged out of dark ambitions, as governments poured funds into environmental technology after World Conflict II, looking for ways to harness natural functions - to kill thousands of people. Proposals included the use of nuclear weapons to create unnatural tsunamis or melt the snow hats to drown seaside cities; setting flames to huge expanses of vegetation; and changing local climates. Oxford botanists suggested British generals about how to destroy foe crops through the war in Malaya; American scientists attempted to alter the weather in Vietnam. This work increased questions that gone beyond the goal of weaponizing nature. By the 1980s, the C.I.A. was studying the likely ramifications of global warming on Soviet harvests. "Perhaps one of the surprises of the reserve is not how little was known about environmental change, but instead how much," Hamblin creates. Driven primarily by proper imperatives, Cold Conflict scientists learned to believe globally also to grasp humanity's capacity to alter the surroundings. "We know how we can adjust the ionosphere," nuclear physicist Edward Teller proudly stated. "We've already done it." Teller never repented. But lots of the same individuals and companies that helped the Pentagon later warned of global warming and other potential disasters. Brilliantly argued and deeply investigated, Arming Mother Nature changes our knowledge of the annals of the Chilly Conflict and the beginning of modern environmental technology.
