The Politics of the Extinction Predicament

The Politics of the Extinction Predicament PDF Author: Jason Lambacher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This dissertation examines the species extinction crisis as a matter of environmental political theory. By engaging the anthropocentrism/ecocentrism debate, literature in green deliberative democracy and green civic republicanism, and the work of Hans Jonas and Hannah Arendt, among others, I explore the challenges of the extinction predicament in light of key concepts such as freedom, responsibility, and wildness.

The Politics of the Extinction Predicament

The Politics of the Extinction Predicament PDF Author: Jason Lambacher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This dissertation examines the species extinction crisis as a matter of environmental political theory. By engaging the anthropocentrism/ecocentrism debate, literature in green deliberative democracy and green civic republicanism, and the work of Hans Jonas and Hannah Arendt, among others, I explore the challenges of the extinction predicament in light of key concepts such as freedom, responsibility, and wildness.

The Extinction Predicament and Shifting Baselines - Conservation as a Politics of Memory

The Extinction Predicament and Shifting Baselines - Conservation as a Politics of Memory PDF Author: Jason Lambacher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Drawing on the most recent data from the IUCN Red List and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, this paper explores how various factors such as habitat loss, over-consumption and climate change continue to create an extinction debt that will unfold in the decades and centuries to come. Though largely unpredictable, many scientific experts agree that future life will take the form of weedy, relic and ghost species, with weedy species proliferating and relic and ghost species struggling against likely evolutionary foreclosure. The presence of weedy species gives the appearance that biodiversity is strong and the persistence of relic and ghost species creates the illusion that threats to survival are overblown. One under looked aspect of this dilemma is that each stage of the extinction crisis produces shifting baselines of a "new normal" that shapes and constrains political attitudes about what is to be conserved and why. The paper argues that the biodiversity crisis is exacerbated in peculiar ways due to this lack of remembrance about what constitutes stable and robust ecological communities. To balance political short-sightedness and the rapid pace of ecological change, biodiversity advocates should critically engage in a long politics of memory that challenges complacent adaptation to weaker conceptions of species health and environmental well being.

After Extinction

After Extinction PDF Author: Richard Grusin
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452956324
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
A multidisciplinary exploration of extinction and what comes next What comes after extinction? Including both prominent and unusual voices in current debates around the Anthropocene, this collection asks authors from diverse backgrounds to address this question. After Extinction looks at the future of humans and nonhumans, exploring how the scale of risk posed by extinction has changed in light of the accelerated networks of the twenty-first century. The collection considers extinction as a cultural, artistic, and media event as well as a biological one. The authors treat extinction in relation to a variety of topics, including disability, human exceptionalism, science-fiction understandings of time and posthistory, photography, the contemporary ecological crisis, the California Condor, systemic racism, Native American traditions, and capitalism. From discussions of the anticipated sixth extinction to the status of writing, theory, and philosophy after extinction, the contributions of this volume are insightful and innovative, timely and thought provoking. Contributors: Daryl Baldwin, Miami U; Claire Colebrook, Pennsylvania State U; William E. Connolly, Johns Hopkins U; Ashley Dawson, CUNY Graduate Center; Joseph Masco, U of Chicago; Nicholas Mirzoeff, New York U; Margaret Noodin, U of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; Jussi Parikka, U of Southampton; Bernard C. Perley, U of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; Cary Wolfe, Rice U; Joanna Zylinska, Goldsmiths, U of London.

Imagining Extinction

Imagining Extinction PDF Author: Ursula K. Heise
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022635816X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
We are currently facing the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of life on Earth, biologists claim—the first one caused by humans. Heise argues that understanding these stories and symbols is indispensable for any effective advocacy on behalf of endangered species. More than that, she shows how biodiversity conservation, even and especially in its scientific and legal dimensions, is shaped by cultural assumptions about what is valuable in nature and what is not.

Extinction

Extinction PDF Author: Ashley Dawson
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1682190412
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
Some thousands of years ago, the world was home to an immense variety of large mammals. From wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers to giant ground sloths and armadillos the size of automobiles, these spectacular creatures roamed freely. Then human beings arrived. Devouring their way down the food chain as they spread across the planet, they began a process of voracious extinction that has continued to the present. Headlines today are made by the existential threat confronting remaining large animals such as rhinos and pandas. But the devastation summoned by humans extends to humbler realms of creatures including beetles, bats and butterflies. Researchers generally agree that the current extinction rate is nothing short of catastrophic. Currently the earth is losing about a hundred species every day. This relentless extinction, Ashley Dawson contends in a primer that combines vast scope with elegant precision, is the product of a global attack on the commons, the great trove of air, water, plants and creatures, as well as collectively created cultural forms such as language, that have been regarded traditionally as the inheritance of humanity as a whole. This attack has its genesis in the need for capital to expand relentlessly into all spheres of life. Extinction, Dawson argues, cannot be understood in isolation from a critique of our economic system. To achieve this we need to transgress the boundaries between science, environmentalism and radical politics. Extinction: A Radical History performs this task with both brio and brilliance.

The End of the World

The End of the World PDF Author: John Leslie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134668538
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Are we in imminent danger of extinction? Yes, we probably are, argues John Leslie in his chilling account of the dangers facing the human race as we approach the second millenium. The End of the World is a sobering assessment of the many disasters that scientists have predicted and speculated on as leading to apocalypse. In the first comprehensive survey, potential catastrophes - ranging from deadly diseases to high-energy physics experiments - are explored to help us understand the risks. One of the greatest threats facing humankind, however, is the insurmountable fact that we are a relatively young species, a risk which is at the heart of the 'Doomsday Argument'. This argument, if correct, makes the dangers we face more serious than we could have ever imagined. This more than anything makes the arrogance and ignorance of politicians, and indeed philosophers, so disturbing as they continue to ignore the manifest dangers facing future generations.

Nature's Ghosts

Nature's Ghosts PDF Author: Mark V. Barrow
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226038157
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
The rapid growth of the American environmental movement in recent decades obscures the fact that long before the first Earth Day and the passage of the Endangered Species Act, naturalists and concerned citizens recognized—and worried about—the problem of human-caused extinction. As Mark V. Barrow reveals in Nature’s Ghosts, the threat of species loss has haunted Americans since the early days of the republic. From Thomas Jefferson’s day—when the fossil remains of such fantastic lost animals as the mastodon and the woolly mammoth were first reconstructed—through the pioneering conservation efforts of early naturalists like John James Audubon and John Muir, Barrow shows how Americans came to understand that it was not only possible for entire species to die out, but that humans themselves could be responsible for their extinction. With the destruction of the passenger pigeon and the precipitous decline of the bison, professional scientists and wildlife enthusiasts alike began to understand that even very common species were not safe from the juggernaut of modern, industrial society. That realization spawned public education and legislative campaigns that laid the foundation for the modern environmental movement and the preservation of such iconic creatures as the bald eagle, the California condor, and the whooping crane. A sweeping, beautifully illustrated historical narrative that unites the fascinating stories of endangered animals and the dedicated individuals who have studied and struggled to protect them, Nature’s Ghosts offers an unprecedented view of what we’ve lost—and a stark reminder of the hard work of preservation still ahead.

The Politics of Rights of Nature

The Politics of Rights of Nature PDF Author: Craig M. Kauffman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780262366601
Category : Environmental policy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"On the global development of legislation, treaty negotiations, constitutional measures, and litigation resulting in legal recognition of Rights of Nature (RoN), including the cultural and political influences that determined how these legal rights were framed, the method of adoption and, importantly, the evolution of RoN enforcement through judicial decisions and growing cultural familiarity with the new legal concept"--

The Dominant Animal

The Dominant Animal PDF Author: Paul R. Ehrlich
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597264601
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease? Renowned Stanford scientists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich believe that intelligently addressing those questions depends on a clear understanding of how we evolved and how and why we’re changing the planet in ways that darken our descendants’ future. The Dominant Animal arms readers with that knowledge, tracing the interplay between environmental change and genetic and cultural evolution since the dawn of humanity. In lucid and engaging prose, they describe how Homo sapiens adapted to their surroundings, eventually developing the vibrant cultures, vast scientific knowledge, and technological wizardry we know today. But the Ehrlichs also explore the flip side of this triumphant story of innovation and conquest. As we clear forests to raise crops and build cities, lace the continents with highways, and create chemicals never before seen in nature, we may be undermining our own supremacy. The threats of environmental damage are clear from the daily headlines, but the outcome is far from destined. Humanity can again adapt—if we learn from our evolutionary past. Those lessons are crystallized in The Dominant Animal. Tackling the fundamental challenge of the human predicament, Paul and Anne Ehrlich offer a vivid and unique exploration of our origins, our evolution, and our future.

The Environmentalist's Dilemma

The Environmentalist's Dilemma PDF Author: Arno Kopecky
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 177305824X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
For readers of Ronald Wright, Rebecca Solnit, and Yuval Noah Harari, comes a compelling inquiry into our relationship with humanity’s latest and greatest calamity In The Environmentalist’s Dilemma, award-winning journalist Arno Kopecky zeroes in on the core predicament of our times: the planet may be dying, but humanity’s doing better than ever. To acknowledge both sides of this paradox is to enter a realm of difficult decisions: Should we take down the government, or try to change it from the inside? Is it okay to compare climate change to Hitler? Is hope naive or indispensable? How do you tackle collective delusion? Should we still have kids? And can we take them to Disneyland? Inquisitive and relatable, Kopecky strikes a rare note of optimistic realism as he guides us through the moral minefields of our polarized world. From start to finish, The Environmentalist’s Dilemma returns to the central question: How should we engage with the story of our times?