Colloquium - Historical transitions in the use of natural resources

Society-environment interdisciplinary meetings
Cycle " Natural resources: concepts, uses and practices

The "Sociétés-Environnement" research group founded in Liessies in 2007 under the dual patronage of the Université de Valenciennes and the Conseil Général du Nord is completing the "Ressources naturelles, concepts, usages et pratiques" cycle, opened with a first meeting on Pouvoirs et ressources naturelles and prepared by a transition workshop in 2023.

Bringing together researchers from a wide range of disciplines, this cycle aims to explore the issue of natural resources as they relate to agriculture, forestry, fishing, crafts, industry and energy. At a time when new environmental standards are being set and natural resources are the subject of lively debate, it seems important to re-interrogate the issue by placing it in the context of the long term, paying close attention to transformations, continuities and discontinuities, accelerations or stagnations, and thresholds of reversibility in the exploitation of
resources. resources. This second meeting will focus on historical transitions.

This is a theme that has been gaining renewed attention on a planetary scale in recent years.
The Dictionary of Ecological Thought presents two definitions of "transition", reflecting current debates around the term. The first asserts the teleological dimension of ecological transition, as an inescapable future if humanity is to escape the chaos of the disruptions it has unleashed. The second places the transition within the field of the
human sciences, as a tool for analyzing mechanisms of all kinds (demography, politics, economics...), with stages and fields of application. Transition is a profound structural change in the way we produce and consume natural resources.

Today, it is viewed primarily through the lens of energy consumption, as the decentralized national debates following the Grenelle Environment Forum showed in the 2010s. In this respect, it is only one aspect of the ecological transition, a concept developed by Rob Hopkins. The idea of "energy transition" emerged in the mid-1970s to soften the psychological impact of the "energy crisis" caused by the predicted end of fossil fuels, and to offer an alternative way of preserving economic growth. Saying "transition" rather than "crisis" makes the
the future less anxiety-provoking, while giving the impression of a controlled management of the changes that are needed. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz points out, however, that "there has in fact never been an energy transition...
. The history of energy is not one of transitions, but of successive additions of new primary energy sources. The error of perspective lies in the confusion between relative and absolute, between local and global". To free itself from the idea of transition, the history of energy needs to abandon its classical terrain and study past historical situations, where societies have been forced to modify their consumption of resources. For it is also concerns about access to drinking water and, in high-tech industries, to rare metals, which are already mortgaging the
new economies and societies of the future. economies and societies of the future. The transition is becoming a crisis of civilization, giving rise to two opposing reactions: the search for a world of the past, and a headlong rush forward without any concern for what
will be the existence of future generations. will be for future generations.

This second section looks more specifically at the role of natural resources, and not just energy, in these rhythms of development and evolution, in the context of the long history of Western Europe and the Mediterranean region up to the 19th century.