Solving History

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Central to understanding why environmental problems are so difficult to "solve" is the recognition that the structures and processes of modern life, and the structures and processes which cause environmental problems, are identical. The increasing domination of the world by the globalizing forces of privatization, deregulation, and free trade pose a direct challenge to cultural diversity and biodiversity.In response to this increasingly unbridled economic agenda, conservation strategies over the last two decades have evolved from scientific, technical concerns to a consideration of broader social and political issues associated with the causes of environmental problems.Drawing upon his analysis of the failures of conservation set out in Nature and the Crisis of Modernity and The Oceans Are Emptying: Fish Wars and Sustainability, Rogers presents an activist response to environmental concerns.He argues that these increasingly ambitious multi-stakeholder, round table conservation agendas (although they recognize the increasing complexity of environmental problems) have failed to deal with these problems because they do not challenge the economic interests that benefit from the increasingly global level playing field. Because there is an aggressive agenda which currently promotes overexploitation, any conservation initiative which hopes to be successful has to begin by resisting these forces. Not only will it be necessary to "resolve issues", we may, in fact have to "solve history" in order to deal with environmental problems.