Are alternative energies and Green New Deals enough to deliver environmental justice? Peter Gelderloos argues that international governmental responses to the climate emergency are structurally incapable of solving the crisis. But there is hope. Across the world, grassroots networks of local communities are working to realise their visions of an alternative revolutionary response to planetary destruction, often pitted against the new megaprojects promoted by greenwashed alternative energy infrastructures and the neocolonialist, technocratic policies that are the forerunners of the Green New Deal. Gelderloos interviews food sovereignty activists in Venezuela, Indigenous communities reforesting their lands in Brazil and anarchists fighting biofuel plantations in Indonesia, looking at the battles that have cancelled airports, stopped pipelines, and helped the most marginalised to fight borders and environmental racism, to transform their cities, to win a dignified survival.

Climate has infused the literary history of the United States, from the writings of explorers and conquerors, over early national celebrations of the American climate, to the flowering of romantic nature writing. This volume traces this complex semantic history in American thought and literature to examine rhetorical and philosophical discourses that continue to propel and constrain American climate perceptions today. It explores how American literature from its inception up until the present engages with the climate, both real and perceived. Climate and American Literature attends to the central place that the climate has historically occupied in virtually all aspects of American life, from public health and medicine, over the organization of the political system and the public sphere, to the culture of sensibility, aesthetics and literary culture. It details American inflections of climate perceptions over time to offer revealing new perspectives on one of the most pressing issues of our time.

The world environmental and social justice crises brought on by our high-throughput global economy can be ameliorated only if we adapt the pragmatic ethics of social cohesion in traditional societies to the modern world. Traditional societies have much to teach the modern world about conservation and environmental management. The Pursuit of Ecotopia: Lessons from Indigenous and Traditional Societies for the Human Ecology of Our Modern World argues that the root of our environmental crisis is that we have not devised modern ways to induce people with diverse interests to think and act cooperatively to secure shared interests. We take a short-term, narrow view of resource management and ethical conduct instead of a long-term, global view of "ecotopia"—a conception in which the destructive corollaries of consumerism are curbed by emotionally grounded policies and ethics of sustainability, social justice, and stewardship. In this controversial and brilliantly written book, author E. N. Anderson maintains that the world can escape impending ecological disaster only by embracing a political and ethical transformation that will imbue modern societies with the same shared sense of emotional rationality practiced by traditional cultures. He draws lessons from ecologically successful traditional societies—and also draws cautionary tales from traditional societies that have responded maladaptively to disruption and failed ecologically as a result.

'A fascinating portal into arguments about why we need to get beyond money' - Harry Cleaver What would a world without money look like? This book is a lively thought experiment that deepens our understanding of how money is the driver of political power, environmental destruction and social inequality today, arguing that it has to be abolished rather than repurposed to achieve a postcapitalist future. Grounded in historical debates about money, Anitra Nelson draws on a spectrum of political and economic thought and activism, including feminism, ecoanarchism, degrowth, permaculture, autonomism, Marxism and ecosocialism. Looking to Indigenous rights activism and the defence of commons, an international network of activists engaged in a fight for a money-free society emerges. Beyond Money shows that, by organising around post-money versions of the future, activists have a hope of creating a world that embodies their radical values and visions.

The climate crisis is here. Our chance to stop it has come and gone, but this doesn't have to mean the world is ending. 'If you care about the planet, and about the people and animals who live on it, there are two ways to think about this. You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world's inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope.' The honesty and realism of Jonathan Franzen's writings on climate have been widely denounced and just as widely celebrated. Here, in his definitive statement on the subject, Franzen confronts the world's failure to avert destabilising climate change and takes up the question: Now what?

Thoreau's Religion presents a ground-breaking interpretation of Henry David Thoreau's most famous book, Walden. Rather than treating Walden Woods as a lonely wilderness, Balthrop-Lewis demonstrates that Thoreau's ascetic life was a form of religious practice dedicated to cultivating a just, multispecies community. The book makes an important contribution to scholarship in religious studies, political theory, English, environmental studies, and critical theory by offering the first sustained reading of Thoreau's religiously motivated politics. In Balthrop-Lewis's vision, practices of renunciation like Thoreau's can contribute to the reformation of social and political life. In this, the book transforms Thoreau's image, making him a vital source for a world beset by inequality and climate change. Balthrop-Lewis argues for an environmental politics in which ecological flourishing is impossible without economic and social justice.

Researchers in the natural sciences are faced with problems that require a novel approach to improve the quality of forecasts of processes that are sensitive to environmental conditions. Nonlinearity of a system may significantly complicate the predictability of future states: a small variation of parameters can dramatically change the dynamics, while sensitive dependence of the initial state may severely limit the predictability horizon. Uncertainties also play a role. This volume addresses such problems by using tools from chaos theory and systems theory, adapted for the analysis of problems in the environmental sciences. Sensitive dependence on the initial state (chaos) and the parameters are analyzed using methods such as Lyapunov exponents and Monte Carlo simulation. Uncertainty in the structure and the values of parameters of a model is studied in relation to processes that depend on the environmental conditions. These methods also apply to biology and economics. This text aims to be suitable for research workers at universities and (semi-) governmental institutes for the environment, agriculture, ecology, meteorology and water management, and theoretical economists.

While our world is characterized by mobility, global interactions, and increasing knowledge, we are facing serious challenges regarding the knowledge of the places around us. We understand and navigate our surroundings by relying on advanced technologies. Yet, a truly knowledgeable relationship to the places where we live and visit is lacking. This book proposes that we are utterly lost and that the loss of a sense of place has contributed to different crises, such as the environmental crisis, the immigration crisis, and poverty. With a rising number of environmental, political, and economic displacements the topic of place becomes more and more relevant and philosophy has to take up this topic in more serious ways than it has done so far. To counteract this problem, the book provides suggestions for how to think differently, both about ourselves, our relationship to other people, and to the places around us. It ends with a suggestion of how to understand ourselves in an eco-political community, one of humans and other living beings as well as inanimate objects. This book will be of great interest to researchers and students of environmental ethics and philosophy as well as those interested in the environmental humanities more generally.

Tackles a human problem we all share the fate of the earth and our role in its future Confident that your personal good deeds of environmental virtue will save the earth? The stories we encounter about the environment in popular culture too often promote an imagined moral economy, assuring us that tiny acts of voluntary personal piety, such as recycling a coffee cup, or purchasing green consumer items, can offset our destructive habits. No need to make any fundamental structural changes. The trick is simply for the consumer to buy the right things and shop our way to a greener future. It's time for a reality check. Ecopiety offers an absorbing examination of the intersections of environmental sensibilities, contemporary expressions of piety and devotion, and American popular culture. Ranging from portrayals of environmental sin and virtue such as the eco-pious depiction of Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, to the green capitalism found in the world of mobile-device "carbon sin-tracking" software applications, to the socially conscious vegetarian vampires in True Blood, the volume illuminates the work pop culture performs as both a mirror and an engine for the greening of American spiritual and ethical commitments. Taylor makes the case that it is not through a framework of grim duty or obligation, but through one of play and delight, that we may move environmental ideals into substantive action.

Global Change in Marine Systems analyses and appraises societal and governing responses to change affecting marine social and ecological systems around the world. Acknowledging the stakes - local societies that depend on marine systems for food, livelihoods and wellbeing can suffer great hardship - this book highlights and explains similarities and distinctions between successful and unsuccessful responses. The book presents an analytical framework ('I-ADApT') that enables decision-makers to consider possible responses to global change based on experiences elsewhere. Here an international group of researchers from the natural and social sciences apply the 'I-ADApT' framework to twenty enlightening case studies, covering a wide range of marine systems challenged by critical global change issues around the world. The innovative research presented here guides marine system researchers, policymakers, decision-makers and practitioners in responding to global change in a timely and appropriate manner. It will appeal to students and researchers interested in environmental studies, natural resources, marine resources, environmental sociology, sustainability, and climate change.

The concept of Anthropocene has been incorporated within a hegemonic narrative that represents 'Man' as the dominant geological force of our epoch, emphasizing the destruction and salvation power of industrial technologies. This Element develops a counter-hegemonic narrative based on the perspective of earthcare labour - or the 'forces of reproduction'. It brings to the fore the historical agency of reproductive and subsistence workers as those subjects that, through both daily practices and organized political action, take care of the biophysical conditions for human reproduction, thus keeping the world alive. Adopting a narrative justice approach, and placing feminist political ecology right at the core of its critique of the Anthropocene storyline, this Element offers a novel and timely contribution to the environmental humanities.

In Walking with Trees, Glennie Kindred takes us on an intimate and profoundly connecting walk with thirteen of our native trees. She leads us into their worlds and opens our hearts to their wonders, their qualities and their potential to heal. This is a book about relationships and inter-relationships: Our relationship with the trees, their relationships with each other and with the natural world around them, and the flow of our communal relationship, past and present, which affects us all as the web of life on Earth. Illustrated with the authors exquisite pencil drawings, Glennie's passion for trees is infectious, and inspires us to look more closely, listen more intently and walk with trees more often. She shares her stories and encounters with trees and weaves together many ways to deepen our engagement with them, from growing them, harvesting and using them for medicine, food, and craftwork. She also encourages us to find our way into a more subtle and intuitive relationship with the trees, as part of our journey to heal our fractured relationship with the Earth. As with all of Glennie's books, the seasonal cycles and the Earth festivals are interwoven and provide further ways to deepen our journey with trees. This is a book about possibilities, for those who care for our environment. This is a book that reminds you of what you might have missed or forgotten, and reminds you of your power. This is a book of our time, where we recognise our deep interconnectivity with the trees, with all of life and with the Earth herself. It inspires us to open our arms and hearts wide, and joyfully embrace the changes.

The notion of 'human rights' is perhaps the most weighty and widely recognized ethical category of our time, while environmental threats are among the greatest challenges currently facing civilization. It is unsurprising therefore that questions about and around the connection between human rights and the environment abound. Can harms inflicted by the activities of some humans on others through the medium of the natural environment amount to a violation of the latter's rights? Do human beings have a right to an adequate environment? If so, is this 'right' already protected by existing, well-established rights-such as the right to life, or to health, for instance? Or do we need to recognize more specific environmental human rights? Anyway, is the language of human rights-and are the institutions that purport to guarantee them-ill-suited to the pursuit of environmental protection? If not, what can we learn from steps already taken in law and politics to link the aims of human rights and environmental protection? Interest in these and other questions has developed at a dizzying pace over the past two decades. Indeed, serious thinking about environmental rights is now a vibrant and dynamic area of study and research, and the sheer scale of the growth in its output makes this collection especially timely. Moreover, the highest quality work in the field has emanated from a wide range of different academic disciplines and perspectives, and has been published in a variety of largely specialist journals. Drawing on these and other sources, Tim Hayward has brought together in four volumes canonical and cutting-edge work to produce an indispensable one-stop 'mini library'. Human Rights and the Environment is fully indexed and includes a comprehensive and accessible introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected materials in their historical and intellectual context. It is an essential reference collection and is certain to be valued by scholars and students-as well as by serious policy-makers and practitioners-as a vital research and pedagogic resource.

NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) protests are often criticized as parochial and short-lived, generating no lasting influence on broader processes related to environmental politics. This volume offers a different perspective. Drawing on cases from around the globe, it demonstrates that NIMBY protests, although always arising from a local concern in a particular community, often result in broader political, social, and technological change. Chapters include cases from Europe, North America, and Asia, engaging with the full political spectrum from established democracies to non-democratic countries. Regardless of political setting, NIMBY movements can have a positive and proactive role in generating innovative solutions to local as well as transnational environmental issues. Furthermore, those solutions are now serving as models for communities and countries around the world.

Post-industrial urban spaces typically include abandoned factories, disused rail lines, old pits and quarries, and de-commissioned landfills. In these places, different visions compete for dominance with respect to current and future land uses. Neighbours often view such urban greenspace as polluted, unkempt and weedy, harbouring undesirable biophysical features and people. These are spaces that often become the focus of some form of revitalization, reinvestment and restoration. From the perspective of civic authorities and urban planners, transforming post-industrial landscapes into disciplined and tended greenspace creates the urban conditions and signals of popular contemporary taste that attract investors, gentrifiers, and tourists. But post-industrial spaces are also places where unique and unpredictable human and ecological associations can emerge spontaneously. Such places may contain considerable ecological integrity and biodiversity and host human populations who find a home and respite in such ecologies. They also tell stories of an industrial and urban past that should be acknowledged, understood and (if suitable) celebrated. This volume explores the environmental justice and injustice dimensions of emerging urban post-industrial landscapes, including the ecological politics, cultural representations and aesthetics of these spaces. This book was published as a special issue of Local Environment.

Ever since Darwin, science has enshrined competition as biology's brutal architect. But this revelatory new book argues that our narrow view of evolution has caused us to ignore the generosity and cooperation that exist around us, from the soil to the sky. In Sweet in Tooth and Claw, Kristin Ohlson explores the subtle ways in which nature is in constant collaboration to the betterment of all species. From the bear that discards the remainders of his salmon dinner on the forest ground, to the bright coral reefs of Cuba, she shows readers not only the connectivity lying beneath the surface in natural ecosystems, but why it's vital for humans to incorporate that understanding into our interactions with nature, and also with each other. Much of the damage that humans have done to our natural environment stems from our ignorance of these dense webs of connection. As we struggle to cope with the environmental hazards that our behaviour has unleashed, it's more important than ever to understand nature's billions of cooperative interactions. This way, we can stop disrupting them and instead rely on them to renew ecosystems. In reporting from the frontlines of scientific research, regenerative agriculture, and urban conservation, Ohlson shows that a shift from focusing on competition to collaboration can heal not only our relationships with the natural world, but also with each other.

In the course of more than twenty works François Laruelle has developed one of the most singular and unique ways of thinking within contemporary philosophy. This volume develops the style of his late work, which has sought to combine the idioms of diverse areas (from the language of quantum mechanics to theology, messianism and Gnosticism) to create non-standard philosophical fictions which further articulate his thinking of radical immanence in relation to wide-ranging themes and concerns. The focus here is a reassessment of his attempt to rethink what it means to be human. Much of that work has taken place through an engagement with science, politics and religion, but now we see Laruelle confronting the challenge of ecology for his kind of humanism (which he would call a 'non-humanism', meaning a non-standard humanism). This challenge is one of thinking of the ethical demands of other entities within a general ecology. Namely the lives of plants and other vegetation alongside that of animals. Dealing with the intersections between science and philosophy in current French thought, this book is of particular interest to those concerned with the philosophical innovation and renewal of ecological thought that have influenced ecological theory. The first English translation of a key work from this highly original experimental philosopher, it will surely help cement his place in the firmament of avant-garde French thinkers, from Derrida and Deleuze to Badiou.

Given the urgency of environmental problems, how we communicate about our ecological relations is crucial. Environmental Communication Pedagogy and Practice is concerned with ways to help learners effectively navigate and consciously contribute to the communication shaping our environmental present and future. The book brings together international educators working from a variety of perspectives to engage both theory and application. Contributors address how pedagogy can stimulate ecological wakefulness, support diverse and praxis-based ways of learning, and nurture environmental change agents. Additionally, the volume responds to a practical need to increase teaching effectiveness of environmental communication across disciplines by offering a repertoire of useful learning activities and assignments. Altogether, it provides an impetus for reflection upon and enhancement of our own practice as environmental educators, practitioners, and students. Environmental Communication Pedagogy and Practice is an essential resource for those working in environmental communication, environmental and sustainability studies, environmental journalism, environmental planning and management, environmental sciences, media studies and cultural studies, as well as communication subfields such as rhetoric, conflict and mediation, and intercultural. The volume is also a valuable resource for environmental communication professionals working with communities and governmental and non-governmental environmental organisations.

Environmental movements have produced some impressive results, including cleaner air and the preservation of selected species and places. But movements that challenged western prosperity and comfort seldom made much progress, and many radical environmentalists have been unabashed utopianists. In this short guide, Peterson del Mar untangles this paradox by showing how prosperity is essential to environmentalism. Industrialisation made conservation sensible, but also drove people to look for meaning in nature even as they consumed its products more relentlessly. Hence Englandled the way in both manufacturing and preserving its countryside, and the United Statescreated a matchless set of national parks as it became the world's pre-eminent economic and military power. Environmentalismconsiders both the conservation and preservation movements and less organized forms of nature loving (from seaside vacations to ecotourism) to argue that these activities have commonly distracted us from the hard work of creating a sustainable and sensible relationship with the environment.

The quality of the environment in which people live, work, and play influences to no small degree the quality of life itself. The environment can be satisfying and attractive and provide scope for individual development or it can be poisonous, irritating and stunting. The papers in this volume, first published in 1969, are concerned with the urban environment - in which the majority of Americans live - or, more accurately, with the environment of urbanites, for the concern extends to outlying areas where urban dwellers visit and play. The chapters aim to provide a better understanding of the natural resource elements in the urban environment, and will be of interest to students of environmental studies and human geography.

Animal Edutainment in a Neoliberal Era is a rich and beautifully written multispecies ethnographic monograph that explores pedagogy and practice at a Southern California aquarium housing and displaying over 10,000 animals. Drawing on extensive interviews with aquarium staff and visitors, as well as fieldwork interacting with and observing human-animal interactions, the book demonstrates the complex ways in which aquarium animals are politically deployed in teaching and learning processes. Weaving together insights from anthropology, critical geography, environmental education, and political ecology, Teresa Lloro crafts a three-pronged "political ecology of education lens," illuminating how neoliberal ideologies interact at various scales (local, regional, national, and global) to deeply shape aquarium decision-making and practice. Acknowledging that neoliberalism enrolls humans and other animals in teaching and learning in new and often poorly understood ways, this study challenges the anthropocentrism of contemporary informal educational approaches, suggesting that imaginative ways forward will require a paradigm shift in regarding the role of animals in education.

The moral imperatives and value systems of religions are indispensable for mobilizing the sensibilities of people toward the goals of sustainability: to shape the trajectories of social-ecological change to enhance ecosystem resilience and human well-being.

The "Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology" provides the most comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field. It encourages both appreciative and critical angles regarding religious traditions, communities, attitude, and practices. It presents contrasting ways of thinking about "religion" and about "ecology" and about ways of connecting the two terms.

Written by a team of leading international experts, the "Handbook" discusses dynamics of change within religious traditions as well as their roles in responding to global challenges such as climate change, water, conservation, food and population. It explores the interpretations of indigenous traditions regarding modern environmental problems drawing on such concepts as lifeway and indigenous knowledge. This volume uniquely intersects the field of religion and ecology with new directions within the humanities and the sciences. The sections on environmental humanities and environmental sciences explore the history and significance of other key areas and disciplines of environmental studies in which religion and ecology can be fruitfully located as a dialogue partner for environmental solutions.

This interdisciplinary volume is an essential reference for scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities and for all those looking to understand the significance of religion in environmental studies and policy.

While our world is characterized by mobility, global interactions, and increasing knowledge, we are facing serious challenges regarding the knowledge of the places around us. We understand and navigate our surroundings by relying on advanced technologies. Yet, a truly knowledgeable relationship to the places where we live and visit is lacking. This book proposes that we are utterly lost and that the loss of a sense of place has contributed to different crises, such as the environmental crisis, the immigration crisis, and poverty. With a rising number of environmental, political, and economic displacements the topic of place becomes more and more relevant and philosophy has to take up this topic in more serious ways than it has done so far. To counteract this problem, the book provides suggestions for how to think differently, both about ourselves, our relationship to other people, and to the places around us. It ends with a suggestion of how to understand ourselves in an eco-political community, one of humans and other living beings as well as inanimate objects. This book will be of great interest to researchers and students of environmental ethics and philosophy as well as those interested in the environmental humanities more generally.

Proponents of the concept of ecological integrity argue that it is a necessary component of global governance on which the sustainable future of the planet and its inhabitants depends. This book presents the latest research and current thinking on the role of ecological integrity in support of life on Earth and the importance of governance for the common good, or the benefit of all. The book considers whether present forms of governance support the common good, or whether they are endangering its very foundations. It explores the connection between consumerism and capitalism, the destruction of natural resources and with it, the elimination of many of the ecosystem services that support life in general, and human life in particular. Chapters focus on the defence of human rights, and in particular the rights to key resources such as food, water and general health/wellbeing, as well as energy and security. Topics covered include climate change, biodiversity, migration and conflict resolution, with approaches from various perspectives such as politics, ethics, sociology and law. Overall the book provides a stimulating insight into the multifaceted debates surrounding ecological integrity, global governance and sustainability.

The ecosystem approach embodies a concept of the environment which emphasizes the integrated components of nature as complex adaptive systems. This book examines the relationship between the architecture and design of environmental law and the implementation of the ecosystem approach as a means to maintain ecological integrity. The main issue addressed is: in which manner and to what extent does fragmentation and administrative discretion in environmental law impede the implementation of an ecosystem approach? This is explored through analysis of several questions: what is an ecosystem approach and how could it be implemented; how can economic evaluation of ecosystem services contribute to the debate; to what extent is environmental law fragmented and how does this affect the implementation of the ecosystem approach; to what extent does environmental law contain administrative discretion and how does this affect the implementation of the ecosystem approach; is there a need for greater consistency, coherence and a stronger rule of law in environmental law in light of the ecosystem approach? The main focus is on Europe, with additional international comparisons where appropriate. The book concludes by providing a normative portrayal of future environmental law as protective, systemic and predictable.