6.4 - Environmental questions
Topics
- Peruvian Guano and the United States (Youtube search)
- Cotton vs wool in England (Youtube search)
- Cash-cropping vs subsistence farming (Youtube search)
- Land fertility, monocultures, and polyculture farming (Youtube search)
- Rubber plantations and brutal worker treatment (maimings and mutders) (Youtube search)
Discussion
- We've read about how brutal the conditions were for indigenous people who lived in places that were claimed by the world's empires. Do you think it would be possible to make contact between cultures as different as those without such horrible abuse? How could it have been different? Could the native cultures survive that contact, even if the intentions of the empires were genuinely beneficent?