ABSTRACT
This chapter engages with understandings of anthropogenic change from 1700, and argues that the debates around environmental crisis are not new by studying the responses of the colonial empires of Britain and France to drought, desiccation and famine in the colonies. However, these responses have been piecemeal and have failed to challenge the capitalist roots of our environmental crisis. Current climate change debates and big science in a similar fashion also risk being top-down and steering clear of radical solutions such as changes to capitalism and the ever-increasing demand for raw materials and resources. Lessons from India’s tribal heartland need to be incorporated into how we conceptualize anthropogenic change. By rewriting the history of environmentalism from a historical perspective and by presenting a deep engagement with locality and community, one can challenge these top-down understandings and tap into new political and emancipatory futures.
