The paper is due Friday March 6, 2000.

Be sure to check the other web pages for this course for suggestions on the research and writing process, on making citations of sources, and on possible sources from which to draw. Consult the Evaluation rubric to see how your paper will be evaluated.

TOPICS AND PURPOSES

• "Reproductive rights" versus population explosion.
• National sovereignty and global warming, or fisheries depletion, or another international problem.
• Nuremberg War trials: A model for individual ecological conscience, or not?
• A conceptual problem in deep ecology, or social ecology, socialist ecology, or another school of thought. Alternatively, you might compare their approaches to a common issue.
• Issues in defining obligations to future generations in regards to nuclear waste, or biodiversity, or some other area or areas.
• Ethical dimensions of resource allocation in the development of a third world country.
• Schisms (or - convergences?) in Christian environmental thought (or, pick another religion with active thinkers in the area).
• A conflict between cultural traditions and protection of an endangered species.
• Animal rights versus ecological ethics.
• Alliances between hunting & fishing groups and environmentalists.
• Use of aluminum, plastics and fiberglass in outdoor equipment.
• Accessibility (under the Americans with Disabilities Act) of parks and wilderness.
• A critical appraisal of contingent valuation, 'green' accounting or another trend in environmental economics.
• Moral standing of systems versus individuals: tensions in environmental ethics.

You could think of your audience as those whom you read in your research, or as a decision-maker who is unclear about the goals to be sought in a relevant policy, or as a citizen who wishes clearer criteria for how to think about a particular proposal, public servant, or cause.

Option B: Choices and conflicts in environmental history.

to approach the history of American relations to the natural world with a Manichean orientation - the bad guys (frontiersmen, pioneers, and exploiters of the virgin land) versus the good ones (those who tried to protect nature). Such a representation unjustly uses the emotions of the present to describe the actions of the past. It fails to employ historical sympathy to understand the past in its own terms. [The pioneers and later the resource developers] acted in a manner consistent with their environmental circumstances and intellectual heritage. (AE, p. 7)

For this option, you are to identify a choice made in the past, in which values were in conflict, and which led to important environmental consequences (positive or negative). Although it might not have been articulated at the time, the conflict of values is essential: some social or environmental good was traded-off in favor of some other social and/or environmental good. We face many such issues today, but we do not have the luxury of hindsight, of being able to look back at the ways people saw it at the time, and of being able to weigh these against the consequences. History, however, if well done, can indulge us a little. The purpose of this option is to attain the holistic grasp of a human choice which only history allows. Here are some leads:

• Environmental preservation vs. affordable housing.
• Decision to build interstate highway system in the '50's.
• Spraying DDT on a tropical urban area infested with malarial mosquitoes.
• Green Revolution agriculture and the environment.
• Construction of systems of dikes to produce high-quality farmland on a river delta in Washington (i.e. the Skagit), or elsewhere.
• Provision of publicly subsidized grazing for private ranchers in part of the American West.
• U.S. policy of agricultural subsidy to provide cheap food and maintain farming population.
• Policies and other inducements to eliminate predators near American frontier towns, and in National Parks.
• Priorities on the Columbia: apples, wheat & seed crops, versus salmon.
• Decision to encourage low-sulfur coal mining and oil-shale development in the West over high-sulfur Eastern coal.
• A timber corporation's decision to invest in pulpwood production in the Southeastern states, divesting from Northwest forests.
• Post-W.W.II international health agencies' efforts to lower infant mortality.
• Introduction of organophosphate fertilizers or organochlorine pesticides in post-W.W.II agriculture.
• Encouragement of use of preservatives in foodstuffs.
• Policies inducing settlers to clear forests for farmland in Washington, 1900-1930.
• Emergence of the policy of suppressing fires on forests at the turn of the century.
• Change in production philosophy of manufacturers: planned obsolescence, versus a way of providing jobs and driving increased efficiency of production & product.

Second, in hindsight, weigh the consequences that stemmed from this choice. What were the trade-offs? Was the decision justifiable? Were any other decisions possible? What would have been entailed if a different decision was actually made? Were any alternative principles actually available, but not followed? How does your understanding of the actors' beliefs and intentions temper your judgment of the action? Of its consequences? You must be careful to ask how present values, including your own, may be influencing contemporary judgments as you examine evidence and construct your argument!

Option C: Biography of an important figure in environmental history.

Once you have identified the person you want to study, you have some research ahead. You will need to present the significant influences in the person's life that led him or her in the particular direction pursued. Discuss what were his or her key contributions, important battles fought, organizations with which he or she was involved, etc. Be sure to address the context in which the person worked (historical, cultural, institutional, geographical, etc.) and how it limited, enabled, conditioned, facilitated, and/or challenged what was accomplished. Please pay attention to the IDEAS he or she used, developed, or had to address in his or her work for the environment. (Remember, the point of these term paper topics is to get you to delve below the surface and see how ideas and other forces (including individuals) work in history.) Structure your paper around a thesis that concerns the impact of your figure on environmental history or philosophy.

For sources, you may need to be creative for some of these figures. Whenever possible, use primary sources that reveal their work (letters, writings, newspaper reports from the time, etc.). Probably you will have to rely on secondary sources, but be creative here, too; use the phone, internet, old periodicals, maps, archives, etc.

FORMAT:

Sources:

Length:

Parts:

Technicalities:

Be sure to consult sources listed on the Research and Writing Process web page for more on writing well.

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