Environmentalism in the United States historically has been divided into its utilitarian and preservationist impulses, represented by Gifford Pinchot and John Muir, respectively. Pinchot advocated conservation of natural resources to be used for human purposes; Muir advocated preservation and protection from humans, for natures own sake. This schism left an unsatisfactory state of affairs which would only be reconciled in the post-war period. Meanwhile, the conservationist side could only recognize the value of material resources, not beauty or wilderness. The preservation side seemingly left out a place for humans. In the first half of the 20th century, American natural resource economics was firmly on the conservationists side of that schism. It developed an American theory of property rights and institutions distinct from other theories of externalities.

The history of environmental economics is interwined with other histories and movements. These include (1) humanitys thinking about its relationship to Nature; (2) a redefinition of economics from the study of material welfare to the study of tradeoffs, including tradeoffs between developing resources and preserving them; (3) rising consumer movements and a shift in economic focus from the producer to the consumer, which in turn facilitiated a shift from thinking about the exploitation of resources to the enjoyment of preserved landscapes; (4) developments in economic theories of externalities and public goods; and (5) the increasing involvement of economics in government policy, from agricultural and resource economics to planning government spending and regulation.

Chapter 4 traces the origins of the global environmental movement in the nineteenth century. It discusses the emergence of transnational environmental networks and the first international NGOs. It examines the first international efforts at environmental protection, mainly for managing shared resources and colonial conservation projects. It then traces the first failed attempts to establish an international environmental agenda, from the 1913 Berne Conference to the League of Nations.

The first part of Chapter 3 introduces the diverse roots of environmental thinking and identifies the normative core around which modern environmentalism is built. It traces the evolution of different strands of environmentalism and outlines the main debates that have shaped the evolution of environmental thinking and activism since the nineteenth century. The second part of this chapter identifies the different ways in which environmental ideas can be applied to the international realm. Employing the English School’s conceptual dyads of pluralism/solidarism and international/world society, it identifies four ideal types of how a green global order can be created: ‘Green Westphalia’ and ‘global environmental governance’, representing the pluralist and solidarist variants of a green international society; and ‘eco-localism’ and ‘eco-globalism’ as the pluralist and solidarist versions of a green world society.