Facing Limits: Abundance, Scarcity, and the American Way of Life

Climate had a key role in shaping the settlement and development of the West in the United States, according to Carson Fellow Lawrence Culver. By using historical sources, including government land surveys and travel accounts from settlers, Culver demonstrates the important role climate played for both survival and profit in the westward expansion process. Lawrence Culver is an associate professor in the Department of History at Utah State University, where his areas of research and teaching include the cultural, environmental, and urban history of the USA.

The intersection between neuroscience and history frames Carson Fellow Edmund P. Russell’s research project. Russell looks as the role of functional magnetic resonance imagining (FMRI) in historical research, especially with regard to its effect on human understanding of different types of environments. Edmund P. Russell is an associate professor at the Department of Science, Technology, and Society and the Department of History at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on environmental history and the history of technology.

In a unique approach to exploring transformations in land use, Carson Fellow Anne Milne uses poetry from the laboring class in eighteenth century Britain to understand different perceptions of nature during this era. These poets were often described as “natural geniuses.” Milne considers how nature figured in the representation of these poets as individuals; her work also aims to track changes in land use. Anne Milne is an ecocritic who specializes in restoration and eighteenth-century British literature. She currently teaches in the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences Program at the University of Guelph, Canada.

How have US American ideas about nature conservation influenced the conception of nature in China? Carson Fellow Hou Shen bases her research around the nature writings of three well-known American writers—Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson—in order to demonstrate how the idea of preserving nature for humans and for other species has been interpreted and transformed in Chinese culture. Hou Shen is currently an assistant professor at the history department of the Renmin University of China in Beijing. She explores the introduction, reception, and transformation of American ideas of nature conservation and its practices in China.

Carson Fellow Lajos Rácz explains the importance of climate history for the overall history of early modern Hungary. Documented climate data has only been in existence since the nineteenth century; therefore, Rácz reconstructs the pre-nineteenth century Hungarian climate from primary sources like diaries and letters. He uses such historical climate data in order to analyze how climate impacted the manner of everyday life during this era. Lajos Rácz is a professor at Szeged University and a visiting professor at Central European University, Budapest. He has specialized in climate and environmental history research since 1985.

How have humans changed rivers throughout history, and what issues of social and environmental justice shape human interaction with rivers and, more generally, water? These questions shape the research of Carson Fellow Melinda Laituri, who is engaged in a comparative study between the Danube and the Colorado River. By using remotely sensed data, Laituri tracks changes in the development of the river; Laituri’s research also examines the human right to water. Melinda Laituri is currently based in the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on the role of the internet and geospatial technologies of disaster management and cross-cultural environmental histories of river basin management.

Carson Fellow Martin Schmid discusses his work on writing the first environmental history of the Danube river; Schmid’s research is part of a larger project on the Danube at the Alpen-Adria-University in Vienna. The Danube has been substantially transformed since 1800 and is, according to Schmid, the most important river in Europe. In order to provide a better understanding of both the development and the importance of the Danube, Schmid begins his history in the 1500s. Martin Schmid is an assistant professor for environmental history and interdisciplinary communications at Alpen-AdriaUniversity Klagenfurt-Graz-Wien in Austria. A historian by profession, Martin is fascinated with environmental history as an interdisciplinary field, crossing the "great divide" between humanities and natural sciences.

Exposing a phenomenon overlooked by many historians, Carson Fellow Donald Worster explains the importance of New World resources on Western European society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Worster details the role that gold, silver, fish, lumber, and cotton had on the imagination and thought processes of Europeans in this time period. Donald Worster is an American environmental historian and is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1989.

Carson Fellow Donald Worster argues that the discovery of the New World dramatically shaped the very idea of freedom; it significantly altered perceptions of nature, economic growth, and concepts of individuality. Donald Worster is an American environmental historian and is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1989.

Carson Fellow and environmental historian Donald Worster argues that the discovery of the “New World” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the most important event in modern history. These explorations gave Western society a wealth of natural resources that has never since been duplicated. Based around the controversy of the 1970s global bestseller, Limits to Growth, Worster examines the implications of the discovery of the New World and how society has transformed from one of natural abundance to one that is faced with scarcity. Donald Worster is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1989.