Scale
by
If there is any phrase that represents both environmental problems and the call to action in the last three decades, it’s the injunction to “Think Global–Act Local.” On the most basic level, this approach connects thinking and acting. For many, this slogan effectively connects individual action with collective impacts or change. Less obvious, but no less important, thinking globally and acting locally also demands that people more fully comprehend the relationship between the local and the global or, in other words, that they consider scale. Scale “maps” onto the fundamental political, environmental, and social problems that have preoccupied environmental activists and scholars over the last three decades. These are primarily as follows: the intersection of the local and the global spheres; intensifying urbanization and pollution around the world, but particularly in the Global South and Asia; and the increasing awareness of environmental pollution on individuals and communities in many locales. Significant environmental problems, from biodiversity conservation to air and water pollution and habitat degradation, require interdisciplinary analysis and methods with which to analyze complex processes at multiple temporal and spatial scales (Sayre 2005, 277). “Scale” is a—or possibly the—key term in geography. Scale is first a technical measurement of the...
This essay may be found on page 178 of the printed volume.