Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Wolfgang Sachs
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Zed Books Ltd
Weight:   0.400kg
ISBN:  

9781856491648

ISBN 10:   1856491641
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   01 August 1993
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction Part 1: In the Wake of Rio 1. Global Economy and the Shadow of 'Development' - Wolfgang Sachs 2. Foxes in Charge of the Chickens - Nicholas Hildyard 3. Politics of the UNCED Process - Matthias Finger 4. The Landscape of Diplomatic Conflicts - Tariq Banuri 5. Winners and Losers in Climate Change - Klaus M. Meyer-Abich Part 2: Confusion Over Sustainability 6. Making Development Sustainable - Paul Ekins 7. Scarcity and Sustainability - Hans Achterhuis 8. Competing Notions of Biodiversity - Christine von Weizsacker 9. The Shaky Ground of Sustainability - Donald Worster Part 3: Against Environmental Management on a Global Scale 10. The Greening of the Global Reach - Vandana Shiva 11. Resisting Green Globalism - Larry Lohman 12. The Fallacy of Ecomessianism: Observations from Latin America - Eduardo Gudynas 13. 'Gaia': The Globalitarian Temptation Part 4: Ecology from Below 14. Sacred Groves: Regenerating the Body, Land, the Community 15. Village Contradictions in Africa - Yash Tandon 16. No Nature Without Social justic: A Plea for Cultural and Ecological Pluralism in India - Smitu Kothar and Pramod Parajuli 17. Towards Green Villages - Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain Index

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 Information

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)

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