Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism

When most Americans think of environmentalism, they think of the political Left, of vegans dressed in organic hemp fabric, lofting protest signs. In reality, maintains historian Jacob Darwin Hamblin, the movement and its dire predictions owe more to the Pentagon than to the counterculture. In his new book Arming Mother Nature, Hamblin argues that military planning during the Cold War created "catastrophic environmentalism": the idea that human activity could cause global natural disasters. This awareness emerged out of dark ambitions, as governments poured funds into environmental science in search of ways to harness such natural elements as animals, bacteria, plants, and even the weather to kill millions of people. Hamblin presents his research, which is rapidly changing our understanding of the Cold War and the birth of the environmental movement.

This program is generously underwritten by longstanding supporters Bill and Penny Obenshain.