Paul Josephson Industrialized Nature

Paul Josephson's book Industrialized Nature: Brute Force Technology and the Transformation of the Natural World, discusses an analyzes various governmental forces that brought about change to nature for various states. In his book, Josephson coins a term "brute force technology", to cover anything such as large dams, susceptible engineers, large machines for deforestation, and government officials, that cause great damage and change to nature. With this paper, I do not necessarily wish to look at the technologies themselves, but rather the changes that the technologies had on the various environments. Although Josephson, discusses various nations, United States, USSR, Brazil, and Norway, who have different ideologies and cultures, one will …show more content…
Brute force technology, such as the Tucuri hydroelectric power station, had huge effects on its surroundings lands and people. Planners cannot anticipate all of the problems that will occur, and governments tend to overlook any glaring issues as necessary for "progress." What the governments, who build these large dams, do not understand is that the cost of progress is not often worth the asking price. When you tamper with nature, nature will fight back; as is the case with the Tucuri station, where three insect-breeds were "thrown out of their natural equilibrium (160) and exposed family field workers to "500 insect bites in an hour (160)." The field workers were unable to settle a land dispute with a lumber company, in a state of emergency declared because of the invading insects, and violence ensued. Tucuri was not the only dam to cause major issues with the surrounding land and citizens; according to Josephson "in the last two decades of the twentieth century, at least 80 million people were displaced by dam construction and urban transportation projects worldwide (161)." Displacement of these people leads to rebellions, homelessness, and other problems that the governments fighting the great fight for progress do not consider or just do …show more content…
In Norway and in the United States, fishermen were forced to expand their knowledge and job skills when "the big boats drove the fishermen in small villages out of business (247)." Issues like this are just a smaller reflection of a huge problem we have today, where a few large corporations run everything, and mom-and-pop shops disappear because they cannot handle the competition. Like we saw in Weller's text, where nature had to become a tourist trap in an effort to save itself, the same became true for our seas and oceans. "Aquaculture", the government subsidized education and promotion of modern aqua science and technology, is a way for countries to try and stop overfishing and destruction of our waters, but I think it is just a ploy to distract people and make the populace think that the government is trying to solve the problem, when it reality, it just wants to promote the usage of fish and aqua-life to expand its profit. We are losing the natural culture of the water so that companies and governments can make more money. We are losing the natural cultures of indigenous peoples thanks to brute force technology and the hubris of government officials. In Siberia, the indigenous people were in the way of "modernizing" Siberia for the usage of the USSR. They were saw as beings that needed to be "enlightened (176)" to the Communist ways, and the governing officials "saw no reason to preserve