User:Mrjohnson007
Bio
Hello my name is Ryan Johnson and I am a student at Bucknell University. I am majoring in economics and political science. I look forward to learning more about the History of Ecology through my professor, and through the vast world of wikipedia. I never knew there was so much to do on this site. It truly is the people's encyclopedia.
Best,
(Mrjohnson007 (talk) 19:46, 5 February 2014 (UTC))
Possible Research Topic
This is a controversial topic that has caught my eye as I was scouring wikipedia. I am interested in warfare and all the aspects that go along with it. One thing that is often overlooked in the environmental devastation that war has on a region. Not only does the human population suffer, but also the ecosystem as a whole. I noticed the current article lays out the facts of some environmental disasters due to warfare. I want to improve on the description of what actually happened during these events. What were the immediate effects? Was that particular method of warfare the best option for the environment? What happened in the long run? Can we fix our mistakes? I will attempt to answer all of these question in order to gain a behind the scenes look into the hidden aftermath of war.
Sources to Consider
1) Kanyamibwa, Samuel. "Impact of war on conservation: Rwandan environment and wildlife in agony". Biodiversity and Conservation. (1998): 1399-1406.
2) King, Jessie. "Vietnamese wildlife still paying a high price for chemical warfare". The Independent, sec. Environment. (2006).
3) Peluso, Nancy Lee, and Michael Watts. Violent Environments, (New York: Cornell University Press, 2001).
4) Readman, J.W., S.W. Fowler, J.P. Villeneuve, C. Cattini, B. Oregioni, and L.D. Mee. "Oil and combustion-product contamination of the Gulf Marine environment following the war." Letters to Nature. (1992): 662-664.
5) Robinson, J.P. The Effects of Weapons on Ecosystems, (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979).
6) Russel. Edmund. War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
7) Shapiro, Judith. Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
8) Westing, Arthur. Cultural Norms, War and the Environment, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Outline
War has been analyzed, documented, and critiqued for decades. Historians look at the results of war, and base their research on a nation’s capability during wartime and the costs associated with war. However, the detrimental effects that war has on the environment are often overlooked. When the war ends, there are human, monetary, and also environmental costs. Scorched earth policies, Chemical warfare, and even Nuclear warfare have been used during wartime. Not only are these events tragic, but they also leave a wake of environmental devastation that last for decades and even centuries after the war. Two elements accurately capture the extent of the environmental impact of war; the evolving relationship between war and nature, and the progression of international conflict from World War I to the Rwandan Civil War.
The relationship between war and nature has existed since the origins of conflict between men, but only in recent human history has man completely dominated and exploited nature for his war endeavors. This section will analyze the harmful effects, both intended and unintended, of the production, testing, stockpiling, and use of Weapons of mass destruction and Chemical warfare. Since ecosystems are all closely interdependent and some are more brittle than others, man’s effect on the environment directly effects the existence of humans. The evidence from scholars’ research suggests that military devastation and environmental exhaustion are the two main threats to mankind; both of which are interconnected.
The next section will focus on the events that led up to the current relationship between war and nature. Prominent events that highlight the environmental impact of war include: World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, and the Rwandan genocide. The culmination of chemical weapons used during WWI and Vietnam crippled the environment, and led to the desertification of entire ecosystems along with the death of hundreds of thousands of people. More specifically in Vietnam we see the use of Agent Orange and Agent Blue in order to flush out the Viet Cong and destroy the countries food supplies. This kind of mass destruction is only surmounted by the atomic bombs used to end the war in the pacific during WWII, which poisoned thousands of square miles of soil, caused genetic mutations in plants and animals, and disrupted the atmospheric composition over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Progressing forward into time, the extent of environmental devastation can also be shown by looking at the Rwandan Civil War between 1990-1994, which led to the elimination of conservationist efforts to preserve wildlife and a complete disregard for future sustainability of the environment in Rwanda.
Mrjohnson007 (talk) 16:49, 25 March 2014 (UTC)