The Politics of Unsustainability

The Politics of Unsustainability PDF Author: Ingolfur Blühdorn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Two decades after its launch by the UN Brundtland Commission, the paradigm of sustainability seems to have reached its limit. The concept might figure ever more prominently in public debate, but the ecological footprint of advanced consumer societies grows ever larger. This volume examines this paradox in the context of a new 'politics of unsustainability'.

The Politics of Unsustainability

The Politics of Unsustainability PDF Author: Ingolfur Blühdorn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Two decades after its launch by the UN Brundtland Commission, the paradigm of sustainability seems to have reached its limit. The concept might figure ever more prominently in public debate, but the ecological footprint of advanced consumer societies grows ever larger. This volume examines this paradox in the context of a new 'politics of unsustainability'.

The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability

The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability PDF Author: John Barry
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199695393
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
At the level of developing a progressive and critical theoretical understanding of unsustainability, it argues for the importance of integrating vulnerability, which has been largely neglected by both mainstream western political theory and analyses of the current global ecological crisis. It suggests that valuable insights into the causes of and alternatives to unsustainability can be found in a critical embracing of human vulnerability and dependency as both constitutive and ineliminable aspects of what it means to be human. Rather than seeing invulnerability as the appropriate response, the book defends resilience, and the ability to 'cope with' rather than 'solve' vulnerability, as more productive.

Design as Politics

Design as Politics PDF Author: Tony Fry
Publisher: Berg
ISBN: 1847887066
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Design as Politics confronts the inadequacy of contemporary politics to deal with unsustainability. Current 'solutions' to unsustainability are analysed as utterly insufficient for dealing with the problems but, further than this, the book questions the very ability of democracy to deliver a sustainable future. Design as Politics argues that finding solutions to this problem, of which climate change is only one part, demands original and radical thinking. Rather than reverting to failed political ideologies, the book proposes a post-democratic politics. In this, Design occupies a major role, not as it is but as it could be if transformed into a powerful agent of change, a force to create and extend freedom. The book does no less than position Design as a vital form of political action.

Unsustainable Inequalities

Unsustainable Inequalities PDF Author: Lucas Chancel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674250656
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year A hardheaded book that confronts and outlines possible solutions to a seemingly intractable problem: that helping the poor often hurts the environment, and vice versa. Can we fight poverty and inequality while protecting the environment? The challenges are obvious. To rise out of poverty is to consume more resources, almost by definition. And many measures to combat pollution lead to job losses and higher prices that mainly hurt the poor. In Unsustainable Inequalities, economist Lucas Chancel confronts these difficulties head-on, arguing that the goals of social justice and a greener world can be compatible, but that progress requires substantial changes in public policy. Chancel begins by reviewing the problems. Human actions have put the natural world under unprecedented pressure. The poor are least to blame but suffer the most—forced to live with pollutants that the polluters themselves pay to avoid. But Chancel shows that policy pioneers worldwide are charting a way forward. Building on their success, governments and other large-scale organizations must start by doing much more simply to measure and map environmental inequalities. We need to break down the walls between traditional social policy and environmental protection—making sure, for example, that the poor benefit most from carbon taxes. And we need much better coordination between the center, where policies are set, and local authorities on the front lines of deprivation and contamination. A rare work that combines the quantitative skills of an economist with the argumentative rigor of a philosopher, Unsustainable Inequalities shows that there is still hope for solving even seemingly intractable social problems.

The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory

The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory PDF Author: Teena Gabrielson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019150842X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 726

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Book Description
Set at the intersection of political theory and environmental politics, yet with broad engagement across the environmental social sciences and humanities, The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Political Theory, defines, illustrates, and challenges the field of environmental political theory (EPT). Featuring contributions from distinguished political scientists working in this field, this volume addresses canonical theorists and contemporary environmental problems with a diversity of theoretical approaches. The initial volume focuses on EPT as a field of inquiry, engaging both traditions of political thought and the academy. In the second section, the handbook explores conceptualizations of nature and the environment, as well as the nature of political subjects, communities, and boundaries within our environments. A third section addresses the values that motivate environmental theorists--including justice, responsibility, rights, limits, and flourishing--and the potential conflicts that can emerge within, between, and against these ideals. The final section examines the primary structures that constrain or enable the achievement of environmental ends, as well as theorizations of environmental movements, citizenship, and the potential for on-going environmental action and change.

The Politics of Green Transformations

The Politics of Green Transformations PDF Author: Ian Scoones
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317601114
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Multiple ‘green transformations’ are required if humanity is to live sustainably on planet Earth. Recalling past transformations, this book examines what makes the current challenge different, and especially urgent. It examines how green transformations must take place in the context of the particular moments of capitalist development, and in relation to particular alliances. The role of the state is emphasised, both in terms of the type of incentives required to make green transformations politically feasible and the way states must take a developmental role in financing innovation and technology for green transformations. The book also highlights the role of citizens, as innovators, entrepreneurs, green consumers and members of social movements. Green transformations must be both ‘top-down’, involving elite alliances between states and business, but also ‘bottom up’, pushed by grassroots innovators and entrepreneurs, and part of wider mobilisations among civil society. The chapters in the book draw on international examples to emphasise how contexts matter in shaping pathways to sustainability Written by experts in the field, this book will be of great interest to researchers and students in environmental studies, international relations, political science, development studies, geography and anthropology, as well as policymakers and practitioners concerned with sustainability.

Post-Political and its Discontents

Post-Political and its Discontents PDF Author: Japhy Wilson
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748683003
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Our age is celebrated as the triumph of liberal democracy. Yet it is also marked by a narrowing of party differences, a decline in voter participation, a rise in nationalist and religious fundamentalisms and an explosion of popular protests that challenge technocratic governance and the power of markets in the name of democracy itself. This book seeks to make sense of this situation by critically engaging with the influential theory of 'the post-political' developed by Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Ranciere, Slavoj Zizek and others. Through a multi-dimensional and fiercely contested assessment of contemporary depoliticization, 'The Post-Political and Its Discontents' urges us to confront the closure of our political horizons, and to re-imagine the possibility of emancipatory change.

Global Environmental Politics

Global Environmental Politics PDF Author: Hayley Stevenson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107121833
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This introduction to global environmental politics examines why environmental challenges occur and how we can effectively respond to them.

International Politics and the Environment

International Politics and the Environment PDF Author: Ronald B Mitchell
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1412919746
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This title provides graduate students with a sophisticated overview of this increasingly important field, outlining the causes of international environmental problems and assessing the ways in which political responses have been formulated, implemented and evaluated.

Demystifying Sustainability

Demystifying Sustainability PDF Author: Haydn Washington
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317606698
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
What is sustainability? Much has been said about the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ over the last few decades, but they have become buried under academic jargon. This book is one of the first that aims to demystify sustainability so that the layperson can understand the key issues, questions and values involved. Accessible and engaging, the book examines the ‘old’ sustainability of the past and looks to the future, considering how economic, ecological and social sustainability should be defined if we are to solve the entwined environmental, economic and social crises. It considers if meaningful sustainability is the same as a ‘sustainable development’ based on endless growth, examining the difficult but central issues of overpopulation and overconsumption that drive unsustainability. The book also explores the central role played by society’s worldview and ethics, along with humanity’s most dangerous characteristic – denial. Finally, it looks to the future, discussing the ‘appropriate’ technology needed for sustainability, and suggesting nine key solutions. This book provides a much-needed comprehensive discussion of what sustainability means for students, policy makers and all those interested in a sustainable future.