Global Ecology: A New Arena of Political Conflict

New
Paperback
1993
$38.42

Behind the public's hope of effective action by governments on environmental issues lies a complex terrain of conceptual confusion, conflicts of interest and philosophical dispute. This is why some of the world's leading environmental thinkers have come together in this volume to probe critically the new language being developed by environmental professionals. They examine the contradictions inherent in the fashionable notion of sustainable development. They explore the emerging conflicts over the distribution of environmental risks between North and South. And they warn that 'global ecology' seen in a managerial perspective, may degenerate into an effor to redesign and manage Nature in order to keep economic growth going in the face of a rising tide of resource plunder and pollution. This book seeks to launch a critical debate in order to clarify the issues involves and what might constitute appropriate action.

Synopsis

Behind the public's hope of effective action by governments on environmental issues lies a complex terrain of conceptual confusion, conflicts of interest and philosophical dispute. This is why some of the world's leading environmental thinkers have come together in this volume to probe critically the new language being developed by environmental professionals. They examine the contradictions inherent in the fashionable notion of sustainable development. They explore the emerging conflicts over the distribution of environmental risks between North and South. And they warn that 'global ecology' seen in a managerial perspective, may degenerate into an effor to redesign and manage Nature in order to keep economic growth going in the face of a rising tide of resource plunder and pollution. This book seeks to launch a critical debate in order to clarify the issues involves and what might constitute appropriate action.

$38.42

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20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd
Published: 01 Aug 1993
ISBN 10: 1856491641
ISBN 13: 9781856491648

Media Reviews

'The future belongs to those who can think and act unencumbered by the categories handed down to them by the dominant and bankrupt culture of conventional social knowledge. By daring to shed this baggage, the authors have made this book an exciting testimony to the life-affirmative forces pitted against the present environmental crisis and the destruction of the traditional support systems of the more vulnerable cultures' - Ashis Nandy, Centre for the Study of Developing Sciences.

Author Bio

Wolfgang Sachs is a senior research fellow at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. He has long been active in the German and Italian green movements and is currently chairman of the board of Greenpeace in Germany. Amongst the various appointments he has held, he has been co-editor of the Society for International Development's journal Development in Rome; Visiting Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Pennsylvania State University in the USA; and a Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Studies in Essen. His first book, For Love of the Automobile: Looking Back into the History of Our Desires was published by University of California Press in 1992. He also edited the immensely influential Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power which was published by Zed Books in the same year and has since been translated into numerous languages. His most recent book in English (coauthored), Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity, marks an important shift of agenda beyond critique to envisaging concrete alternatives and feasible processes of social transition. Wolfgang Sachs travels widely as a public speaker and university lecturer in Europe, North America and the South. His books published by Zed Books: The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (edited) (1992) Global Ecology: A Mew Arena of Political Conflict (edited) (1993) Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity (coauthored with Reinhard Loske and Manfred Linz) (1998)