The development of Houston’s abundance of natural resources, vegetation, climate and its history as the nation’s greatest oil region play important roles when exploring the factors that have caused serious environmental problems, two UH professors said Tuesday.
The essential quality of resources that caught the attention of industries and urban development exposed the city to environmental problems, history professor Martin V. Melosi said.
"We are interested in that more scholarships, more conferences and more work in the area of an energy capital will be offered instead of people refusing to talk about environmental history," Melosi said.
Melosi and history and business professor Joseph Pratt edited a collection of graduate student essays in Energy Metropolis: An Environmental History of Houston and the Gulf Coast to bring the public’s attention to environmental issues.
"Hazardous pollution levels, frequent flooding, deforestation, hurricanes, the energy demands of an air-conditioned lifestyle, automobile traffic and urban sprawl all escalated the need for massive infrastructure improvements and environmental safeguards," Melosi said in a release.
The book contains 12 essays by professors and graduate students that range in topic from the effects of air-conditioning to transit along the Gulf freeway.
Both Pratt and Melosi said they were grateful to have worked with graduate students who offered distinctive opinions and facts.
During a symposium on Houston environmental and business history by the UH Department of History, Melosi and Pratt signed copies of the book.
Oil-related industries, population growth and pollution from cars and refineries have grown more threatening and now Houston is suffering the consequences, according to a release.
Pratt said that a cartoon published in The New Yorker has been his inspiration for more than 30 years. The cartoon shows two men in suits having a conversation and a small oil derrick erupting oil all over the room is in the middle, with the caption, "It’s a mixed blessing."
Pratt believes a comparison can be made between this cartoon and the fact that Houston has been transformed into a metropolis mostly through oil industries. This area has had great impact on the regional environment, as it has been the oil capital of the United States, he said.
Both professors said they want to increase awareness at the local and national level about the consequences the population is facing.
"This book is not the last word, it’s a way of setting a dialogue," Melosi said.
