Environment and Society: A Reader

Description

Environment and Society connects the core themes of environmental studies to the urgent issues and debates of the twenty-first century. In an era marked by climate change, rapid urbanization, and resource scarcity, environmental studies has emerged as a crucial arena of study. Assembling canonical and contemporary texts, this volume presents a systematic survey of concepts and issues central to the environment in society, such as: social mobilization on behalf of environmental objectives; the relationships between human population, economic growth and stresses on the planet's natural resources; debates about the relative effects of collective and individual action; and unequal distribution of the social costs of environmental degradation. Organized around key themes, with each section featuring questions for debate and suggestions for further reading, the book introduces students to the history of environmental studies, and demonstrates how the field's interdisciplinary approach uniquely engages the essential issues of the present. Cover ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY Title Copyright Dedication CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction PART I. IDEAS OF NATURE 1. Excerpts from The End of Nature 2. The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature? 3. Excerpts from The World without Us 4. Excerpts from “Reinventing Eden: Western Culture as a Recovery Narrative” 5. Excerpts from Laudato Si 6. Excerpts from “The Etiquette of Freedom” 7. Excerpts from “The Land Ethic” Reading Questions and Further Readings PART II. ENVIRONMENTALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS 8. Hetch Hetchy Valley 9. Excerpts from Silent Spring 10. Excerpts from “Environmentalism and Social Justice” 11. Excerpts from “Where We Live, Work, and Play” 12. Excerpts from “The Death of Environmentalism” 13. The Paradox of Global Environmentalism 14. Excerpts from “Between Violence and Desire: Space, Power, and Identity in the Making of Metropolitan Delhi” Reading Questions and Further Readings PART III. POPULATION AND CONSUMPTION 15. Excerpts from “An Essay on the Principle of Population” 16. How Do We Know We Have Global Environmental Problems? Science and the Globalization of Environmental Discourse 17. Excerpts from “The IPAT Equation and Its Variants” 18. Excerpts from “Socioeconomic Equity, Sustainability, and Earth’s Carrying Capacity” 19. The NEXT Industrial Revolution 20. Excerpts from “In Search of Consumptive Resistance: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement” 21. Excerpts from “Overpopulation versus Biodiversity” Reading Questions and Further Readings PART IV. PUBLIC GOODS AND COLLECTIVE ACTION 22. Excerpts from “The Tragedy of the Commons” 23. Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges 24. Excerpts from “Rationality and Solidarities: The Social Organization of Common Property Resources in the Imdrhas Valley of Morocco” 25. Averting the Tragedy of the Commons 26. Excerpts from “Climate, Collective Action and Individual Ethical Obligations” 27. Excerpts from “About Free-Market Environmentalism” Reading Questions and Further Readings PART V. VALUES AND JUSTICE 28. Excerpts from “Walking” 29. Excerpts from “Naturalness as a Source of Value” 30. Excerpts from “Conservation” 31. Sustainability 32. Excerpts from “Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse” Reading Questions and Further Readings PART VI. ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROVERSIES City and Country 33. Excerpts from “More like Manhattan” 34. Excerpts from “Freedom and Wilderness, Wilderness and Freedom” Reading Questions and Further Readings Agrarian and Industrial Agriculture 35. Excerpts from “The Green Revolution Revisited and the Road Ahead” 36. The Agrarian Standard Reading Questions and Further Readings Managing Nature versus Stewardship 37. Excerpts from “Earth Systems Engineering and Management” 38. The Earth Is Not Yet an Artifact Reading Questions and Further Readings Index About the Editors