As the environment was simultaneously being empirically measured and badly damaged during the Industrial Revolution, what have been the diverse ways in which people have called on polluters and abusers to reduce their outsized impacts? Taking a global approach, this project presents cases of popular resistance to Business As Usual since the Industrial Revolution, from letters to the editor and petitions, to civil disobedience, flygskam,^[1] and weekly rallies in major global cities.^[2] The project defines both “the environment” and “activism” broadly, situating current environmental campaigns within a much longer genealogy that has links to local and regional—as well as planetary, or atmospheric—concerns about deforestation, whaling, nuclear waste, coal and gas extraction, and ocean acidification. Protest is taken to encompass any objection or resistance to those who have historically damaged the Earth’s climate. This need not be formalised or grounded in political theory: it takes many forms and can manifest in headline-grabbing protestors chaining themselves to trees, or more subtle pushbacks, like the rise in vegetarianism on the grounds of environmental degradation, and concerns expressed in letters to the editor and ecopoetry.^[3]

In all, this project draws links between the proliferation of scientific research on the environment and the circulation of that knowledge, and increasing agitation and activism. In considering the long history of environmental activism around the world, the project considers—to name a few—historical responses to desertification in Africa, coral bleaching in Australia, deforestation in South America, droughts and water rights in Asia, melting polar ice caps in Antarctica, diminishing whale populations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and coal consumption and industrialisation in Britain and Europe. It will reveal key moments of success in these diverse campaigns, reify links to other prevalent social justice issues, and stress the continuity of the resistances of the subaltern through time. During the Fellowship I am conducting archival research in the various nearby cultural institutions while making progress towards a book manuscript based on the above.