The impact of environmental damage on human rights - civil, political or welfare and labour rights - is becoming ever-more widely appreciated and has direct bearing on the behaviour of companies and their norms of conduct. In this volume, contributors draw on the tools and insights of a range of disciplines, including law, anthropology, economics, geography and social science, to analyze the issues and show how new standards that protect rights and liberties can be established.

This introduction to the philosophy of the environment examines current debates on how we should think about the natural world and our place within it. The subject is examined from a determinedly analytic philosophical perspective, focusing on questions of value, but taking in attendant issues in epistemology and metaphysics as well. The book begins by considering the nature, extent and origin of the environmental problems with which we need to be concerned. Chapters go on to consider familiar strategies for dealing with environmental problems, and then consider what sort of things are of direct moral concern, examining in turn at animals, non-sentient life-forms, natural but non-living things and deep ecology. The final part of the book investigates notions of value, natural beauty and the place of human beings in the scheme of things.

Social workers are called upon to shift from a human-centric bias to an ecological ethical sensibility by embracing love as integral to their justice mission and by extending the idea of social justice to include environmental and species justice. This book presents the love ethic model as a way to do eco-justice work using public campaigns, research, community arts practice and other nonviolent, direct action strategies. The model is premised on an active and ongoing commitment to the eco-values of love, eco-justice and nonviolence for the purpose of upholding the public interest. The love ethic model is informed by the stories of eco-activists who used nonviolent actions to address ecological issues such as: pollution; degradation of the environment; exploitation of farm animals; mining industry overriding First Nation Peoples' land rights; and human health and social costs related to the natural resource industries, private land developments and government infrastructure projects. Informed by practice insights by activists from a range of eco-justice concerns, this innovative book provides new directions in social work and environmental studies involving transformational change leadership and dialogical group work between interest groups. It should be considered essential reading for social work students, researchers and practitioners as well as eco-activists more generally.

The beginning of the new century is a crucial time for environmental political theory. Since the first wave of environmental texts appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, environmentalism has come under a series of challenges, and has begun a process of redeveloping itself in order to meet these challenges. Environmental writers have shown that they can take on questions of distributive justice, democracy, economic efficiency, and other concerns of conventional political theory from an environmentalist perspective. This book offers a set of important contributions to the property theory, utopianism, justice, the third world, and direct action. perspective.

In this book, Janet McIntyre addresses the need for transcultural thinking tools, to not only mend problems in the global environment but also to understand the essential nature of the problems. Thinking tools comprise the analytical concepts which organise, disorganise, pattern and question thoughts about the social and natural world. Specifically, the concepts introduced in this book are 'global citizenship', 'human rights', 'responsibility', 'social movements' and 'transcultural webs of meaning'.

Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment is a unique guide to environmental thinking through the ages. Joy A. Palmer, herself an important and prolific author on environmental matters, has assembled a team of thirty-five expert contributors to summarize and analyse the thinking of fifty diverse and stimulating figures - from all over the world and from ancient times to the present day. Among those included are:
* philosophers such as Rousseau, Spinoza and Heidegger
* activists such as Chico Mendes
* literary giants such as Virgil, Goethe and Wordsworth
* major religious and spiritual figures such as Gotama (the Buddha) and St Francis of Assissi.
Lucid, scholarly and informative, these fifty essays offer a fascinating overview of mankind's view and understanding of the physical world.

Contents:
Introduction
1. The English, the trees, the wild and the green Paul Thompson
2. Animals, children and peasants in Tuscany Giovanni Contini
3. Narrating Nature: perceptions of the environment and attitudes towards it in life stories Daniela Koleva
4. When the water comes: memories of survival after the 1953 flood Selma Leydesdorff
5. Our land is our only wealth Olivia Bennett
6. Using community memory against the onslaught of development: resettlement in Zapata, Texas Jaclyn Jeffrey
7. Signs of things to come: metaphor and environmental consciousness in a Yuctecan community David Forrest
8. The environmental movement in Kasakstan Timothy Edmunds
9. Paths to ecofeminist activism: life stories from the north-east of England Niamh Moore
10. Pathways to the Amazon: British campaigners in the Brazilian rainforest Andreaa Zhouri

Forrest Galante, host of Extinct or Alive and the world's #1 rare species expert, takes readers along with him through the deepest wilderness and most remote and dangerous parts of the world to find all the animals we thought were extinct. In the course of his travels, Galante has been attacked by lions, stung by jellyfish, bitten by snakes and had run-ins with pissed off hippos. Still Alive offers a travelogue of Galante's most harrowing adventures, introducing readers to some of the most unique rare species he's encountered--while also adding the unpredictable drama and human element of traveling to some of the world's most isolated locations. Part memoir, part biological adventure, Still Alive is a calling card for conservation, highlighting not just Galante's toughness as he finds animals thought to be lost, but also the resiliency of the animals themselves, as they keep their species alive in spite of the odds.

Is 'sustainable development' a charade sold to an increasingly misled public? This book presents a wide-ranging, penetrating critique of sustainability and what it actually means. The author argues that despite the rhetoric of socially and environmentally sustainable development and the ever-increasing number of legislative environmental policies, the real issues such as consumption, population growth and equity are either sidestepped or manipulated in international policy and law. Analyzing the main areas of concern - economic growth, market structure, trade, aid, debt, security and sovereignty - he shows that the entire development structure and the underpinnings of the debate are leading down quite a different path to that intended by sustainability.

Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment is a unique guide to environmental thinking through the ages. Joy A. Palmer, herself an important and prolific author on environmental matters, has assembled a team of thirty-five expert contributors to summarize and analyse the thinking of fifty diverse and stimulating figures - from all over the world and from ancient times to the present day. Among those included are:
* philosophers such as Rousseau, Spinoza and Heidegger
* activists such as Chico Mendes
* literary giants such as Virgil, Goethe and Wordsworth
* major religious and spiritual figures such as Gotama (the Buddha) and St Francis of Assissi
Lucid, scholarly and informative, these fifty essays offer a fascinating overview of mankind's view and understanding of the physical world.

Contents:
1:Business and Environment; 2:The Changing Relationships Through Time, 3:Environmental Business Perspectives - assets, costs and externalities; 4:Environmental Business Necessities - the pressures which cannot be ignored; 5:Environmental Business Opportunities - business becomes proactive; 6:Primary Industries - using resources directly; 7:Secondary Industries - adding value and carrying the burden; 8:Tertiary Industries - the hidden environmental issues; 9:Enviromental Business; 10:Business and Environment - the future for the relationships.

'Sacred Gaia offers a number of deep insights and challenges to Christians and to all those who are concerned with the environment. The book is interesting and thought-provoking and is worth careful consideration.' - Green Christians

'This is a remarkable book ...' - Edward James

'I recommend this book to Friends interested in deepening their faith.' - Helen Fraser, The Friend

'This is a piece of visionary science and 'earthed' theology, taking the reader on a breathtaking tour of vast spheres of knowledge ... A challenging read in both senses: hard work, mind-stretching material, and opening up new vistas for a neglected area of theological thinking.' - Peter Selby, Theology

''She maps out this vast and alarming territory clearly in this vigorous and helpful book.' - Mary Midgley, The Tablet

The object of this text is to provide a comprehensive selection of critical texts which address the connection between ecology, culture and literature. It aims to offer a complete guide to the growing area of "ecocriticism" and a wealth of material on green issues from the romantic period to the present. The most important aspects of this field are covered in depth. These include: romantic ecology and its legacy; the earth, memory and the critique of modernity; nature/culture/gender; ecocritical principles; environmental literary history; and the nature of the text. Included in this collection are extracts from leading modern ecocritics and figures from the past who pioneered a green approach to literature and culture. As a whole, the reader encourages a reassessment of the whole development of criticism and offers a prospect for its future. The book includes extracts from William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, William Morris, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Theodore W. Adorno, Martin Heidegger, Raymond Williams, Theodore Roszac, Claude Levi-Strauss, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jonathan Bate, Kate Soper, Terry Gifford, Louise Westling, Richard Kerridge and Jhan Hochman.

This introductory level text examines how businesses and the environment interact. It is ideal for students with no previous knowledge of business studies. It examines in depth the ways in which business, industry, the physical environment, environmentalism and social change have evolved alongside each other. The authors use boxed case studies to highlight how business practice and the environment interact at levels from local to global, with examples from multi-national companies, government bodies, national charities and local enterprise. The book also contains a large number of informative diagrams. The case studies include:
* Shell Oil's environmental policy
* railways and the industrial revolution
* the British National Trust's business enterprises
* Sainsbury's approach to organic foods
* Australia's landcare scheme
* changing trends in retailing
* Brent Spar
* big game hunting and conservation.

This title was first published in 2003. Environmental Human Rights redefines the political, ethical and legal relationships between the environment and human rights to claim the human rights to an environment free from toxic pollution and to natural resources. Through a focus on the operational dynamics of social power, this compelling book details how global capitalism subjugates concerns of human security and environmental protection to the values of allocative efficiency and economic growth. The capacity of social power to construct ethical norms and to determine the efficacy of law is examined to explain how ethical and legal concepts have been selectively applied to accommodate existing patterns of production, consumption and exchange that cause environmental degradation and human rights violations. By looking at how environmental values have been systematically excluded from the human rights discourse, the book claims that human rights politics and law has been constructed on double standards to accommodate the destructive forces of capitalism.

With over half a million copies of Earth in the Balance sold, this timely re-issue benefits from a major new Foreword. It is a powerful and passionate analysis of the most crucial and far reaching issues confronting humanity. 'When I wrote this book, terms like global warming and greenhouse gases seemed exotic, unfamiliar, and unimportant to the lives of ordinary Americans. That has changed dramatically - except for those who still want to pretend that no one cares. There is a powerful awareness of the danger, and a widespread determination that we must not and will not leave our grandchildren a ravaged planet ringed with a thickening layer of carbon dioxide concentrations. So we have to strengthen, not weaken, environmental protection across the board, from global warming to stabilizing world population. This was my conclusion when this book was first published: We can believe in that future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the Environment Decade is within our reach; the earth is in the balance.' AL GORE, December 1999 From the Foreword

This important new book explores the interaction of global environmental discourses and local traditions and practices in twelve countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Based upon two parallel groups of studies, reviewing cultural influences in individual countries, and the attitudes of young people across the region, it has important implications for environmental policy and education.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203459261

Environmental policy agendas, activism and academic research into ecological questions are all predominantly derived from the philosophical perspectives of the West. At national and global levels, environmental policy-makers tend to work according to Western-based methodologies. At the same time, emergent or developing economies are profoundly affected by the issues they address, including air pollution, rapid urban expansion, habitat loss and climate change. If environmental awareness, and the policies that stem from it, are to have a lasting global impact, it is important that non-Western voices are heard in their own right, and not merely as adjuncts of Western-led agendas. Jain thought is a useful case study of a system of values in which environmental protection and the idea of a 'web of life' are central, but which has evolved in India independently of Western environmentalism. This book describes and explains Jain environmental philosophy, placing it in its cultural and historical context while comparing and contrasting with more familiar or 'mainstream' forms of ecological thought. It will also show how this thought translates into practice, with an emphasis on the role of environmental concerns within the business and commercial practices of Jain communities. Finally, the book examines the extent to which Jain ideas about environmental protection and interconnectedness have universal relevance. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, sustainable business and economics, environmental policy, and Jainism.

Localization is a manifesto to unite all those who recognize the importance of cultural, social and ecological diversity for our future - and who do not aspire to a monolithic global consumer culture. It is a passionate and persuasive polemic, challenging the claims that we have to be 'internationally competitive' to survive and describing the destructive consequences of globalization. This book is unique in going beyond simply criticizing free trade and globalization trends. It details self-reinforcing policies to create local self-sufficiency and shows clearly that there is an alternative to globalization - to protect the local, globally.

Arguably the greatest challenges facing humanity are environmental. However, they are routinely under-reported in the media. Pressure groups and governments trying to get information through to the public often blame the media, but the picture is not necessarily this simple. This text presents the state of knowledge about media treatment and public understanding of key environmental issues, above all, climate change and biodiversity loss, which have enormous implications for economic, social and environmental security, yet mean little to the person in the street. The concept of sustainable development, which underpins responses to these problems is also shown to be unknown by most people.

As we approach the end of the second millennium, we find ourselves in times of radical social change. Orthodox explanations of the economy, the environment and the development process are unable to provide coherent policies for such issues as employment creation, environmental degradation and social progress.
Economy-Environment-Development-Knowledge provides alternative perspectives on these fundamental aspects of human existence. Economists, environmentalists, and development theorists have so far been unable to agree on the most successful prescriptions to address problems. To understand, contrast and compare alternative understandings of economic, environmental and development issues, we need to be aware why theorists conceptualise the process of social experience so differently.
Part 1 of Economy-Environment-Development-Knowledge addresses the subjective preference, cost-of-production and abstract labour theories of values in economics; Part 2 explains egocentrism, ecocentrism and socioecocentrism as competing theoretical perspectives in environmental theory; Part 3 highlights modernisation theory, structuralist theory and class struggle as ways to account for the process of development and Part 4 examines the generation of knowedge through positivism, paradigms and praxis, legitimating competing perspectives in economics, environmentalist and development. The book concludes by considering why different people find alternative explanations more or less plausible.
By addressing the disagreements between theorists, Economy-Environment-Development-Knowledge provides a unique basis to contrast and compare the plethora of theories of, and policies for, economic prosperity, environmental sustainability and social progress.

Environment and Philosophy provides an accessible introduction to the radical challenges that environmentalism poses to concepts that have become almost second nature in the modern world, including
* the ideas of science and objectivity
* the conventional placement of the human being within the environment
* the individualism of convential Modern thought
Written in an accessible way for those without a background in philosophy, this text examines ways of thinking about ourselves, nature and our relationship with nature. It offers an introduction to the phenomenological perspective on environmental issues, and also to the questions of what natural beauty is for the threat to it to play a role in practical decision-making.

This book bridges the gap between two critical issues-environmental literacy and social norms - and explores various topics and case studies from Sinophone and Taiwanese perspectives. Each chapter includes extensive information on pro-environmental behaviors, and on people with working experiences, home experiences, and actual philosophies in their daily lives. In keeping with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this book highlights our potential to contribute to social inclusion and environmental protection, and offers a comprehensive guide for scholars, students, practitioners, and entrepreneurs in environmental education and related disciplines.

This Companion offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the environmental humanities, an interdisciplinary movement that responds to a world reconfigured by climate change and its effects, from environmental racism and global migration to resource impoverishment and the importance of the nonhuman world. It addresses the twenty-first century recognition of an environmental crisis - its antecedents, current forms, and future trajectories - as well as possible responses to it. This books foregrounds scholarship from different periods, fields, and global locations, but it is organized to give readers a working context for the foundational debates. Each chapter examines a key topic or theme in Environmental Humanities, shows why that topic emerged as a category of study, explores the different approaches to the topics, suggests future avenues of inquiry, and considers the topic's global implications, especially those that involve environmental justice issues.

Arguing for a renewed view of objects and nature, Ethical Responses to Nature's Call considers how it is possible to understand our ethical duties - in the form of ethical intuitionalism - to nature and the planet by listening to and releasing ourselves over to the call or address of nature. Blending several strands of philosophical thought, such as Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology, W. D. Ross's prima fathics, Alphonso Lingis's phenomenological ethics traceable to The Imperative, and Michael Bonnett's ecophilosophy, this book offers a unique rejoinder to the problems and issues that continue to haunt humans' relationship to nature. The origins of such problems and issues largely remain obscured from view due to the oppressive influence of the "Cultural Framework" which gives form and structure to the ways we understand, discourse on, and comport ourselves in relation to the natural world. Through understanding this "Cultural Framework" we also come to know the responses we continue to offer in answer to nature's call and address, and are then in a position to analyze and assess those responses in terms of their potential ethical weight. Such a phenomenon is made possible through the descriptive-and-interpretive method of eco-phenomenology. This renewed vision of the human-and-nature provides direction for our interaction with and behavior toward nature in such a way that the ethical insight offers a diagnosis and provides a potentially compelling prescriptive for environmental ills.