Wednesday, October 3, Paul Wapner, Professor of Global Environmental Politics in the School of International Service at the American University, was presented as the 2012-2013 Dean Helen LeBaron Hilton Endowed Chair.

Wapner is an author of two books; Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism, and Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics. He received the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award.

Dr. Robert Bosselman, Chair of Apparel, Events, and Hospitality Management, described Wapner as “someone who is visionary, and exemplifies the integrative, holistic, synergistic vision and themes of our College of Human Sciences in advancing the well-being of all people”.

Wapner took the podium with his lecture, Environmentalism without Nature, to discuss the causes of environmental harm and how and in what ways to respond. 

 

Wapner began by pointing out the immediate attention necessary toward environmentalism, which is the belief that a person’s behavior is affected chiefly by that person’s environment. 

“We face dramatic challenges on the horizon. Not just on the horizon, they’re already here: climate change, loss of biological diversity, ozone depletion, freshwater scarcity”.

In order to address the issue properly, Wapner explains that political organization and organization of power plays a large role in the resolution, as well as government involvement and environmentalists.

Environmentalists believe in protecting, conserving, preserving and sustaining. The belief now is that the human population has failed at protecting the non-human world.

There are two elements to the end of nature: Empirical and Conceptual.

Empirical: Wapner explains empirical as, “Billions of people with more access to technology which allows us to intervene in the non-human world, greater affluence which allows us to buy and get more stuff, and you put that together and you realize we humans are now everywhere”.

Empirical is an intrusion. The population has extended as far and as wide as possible.

There have been 5 great evolutionary processes. The last one was the extinction of dinosaurs.

Wapner states, “We are in the midst of the sixth great extinction right now.”

The human population can no longer allow the Earth to take all the credit for a beautiful day that the population helped manufacture.

Conceptual: Wapner describes conceptual as “Most of us are used to thinking of nature as an independent realm; a realm that sort of operates on its own. The conceptual end of nature is not so much about intrusion. Nature is an idea that we use to tell ourselves about the non-human world. It is something we project”.

Conceptual is describing the meaning of hurt and describing nature as a social construct.

Wapner asks, “What happens when the ground falls out of environmentalism”?

There is skepticism about the argument of “no such thing” as nature. There are those that believe it is an “academic irrelevance” as Wapner puts it, and there are those that believe if there is no such thing as nature, humans have rights over it.

In order to reshape our ideas Wapner describes in his book the Dream of Naturalism, which explains us as natural creatures. The human species is just another species.

In contrast to the Dream of Naturalism is the Dream of Mastery, which describes the human species not only as another species, but an exceptional species that can overcome almost anything.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 states wilderness is, “an area where the earth and its community of life are untraveled by man, where man is a visitor who does not remain.”

Wapner states, “Wilderness may not, in fact, be a place or a condition. Rather I would suggest that wilderness could be a relationship.”

Climate, as an example, is not about humans getting uninvolved in the atmosphere. It’s about getting involved in the atmosphere with more creative ideas. Wapner gives examples such as building solar wind and geothermal systems, planting trees, and learning to adapt to a warmer planet.

As Wapner concludes he explains how the movement can be more powerful. The Earth is now a “co-evolutionary world.”

Nature cannot be left alone nor can the human population treat it with arrogance.

Wapner will return to Iowa State University during February of 2013. He will present another lecture as Hilton Chair and continue to guest speak for classes.