Substantially updated for the second edition, this engaging and innovative introduction to the environment and society uses key theoretical approaches to explore familiar objects.
* Features substantial revisions and updates for the second edition, including new chapters on E waste, mosquitoes and uranium, improved maps and graphics, new exercises, shorter theory chapters, and refocused sections on environmental solutions
* Discusses topics such as population and scarcity, commodities, environmental ethics, risks and hazards, and political economy and applies them to objects like bottled water, tuna, and trees
* Accessible for students, and accompanied by in-book and online resources including exercises and boxed discussions, an online test bank, notes, suggested reading, and website links for enhanced understanding
* Offers additional online support for instructors, including suggested teaching models, PowerPoint slides for each chapter with full-color graphics, and supplementary images and teaching material
Autorentext
Paul Robbins is Professor and Director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research interests include understanding human–environment systems, the influence non-humans have on human behavior and organization, and the implications these interactions hold for ecosystem health, local communities, and social justice. He is the author of Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction (2nd edition, Wiley Blackwell, 2012) and Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are (2007).
John Hintz is Associate Professor of Environmental, Geographic, and Geological Sciences at the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. His current research focuses on land-use conflicts, environmental policy, and the US environmental movement. He has published in a number of journals, including Capitalism Nature Socialism and Ethics, Place & Environment.
Sarah A. Moore is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on urban development politics, urban environmental issues, and environmental justice inthe United States and Latin America. Her publications include articles in numerous journals including Progress in Human Geography, The Professional Geographer, and Society and Natural Resources.
Klappentext
"Robbins, Hintz, and Moore have taken something excellent and made it even better. It remains as comprehensive yet accessible as the first edition, and by adding new material about human-nature relations, the authors ensure that the second edition reflects important recent developments in thinking and practice." Noel Castree, University of Manchester
"This masterful synthesis of environment–society scholarship brings together cutting-edge ways of thinking about nature/society entanglements with highly grounded objects of exploration — from lawns to bottled water to uranium. The dynamic and accessible writing style belies the book's empirical and theoretical sophistication. For upper-level undergrads and lower-level graduate students of environment-society relations, this new edition remains the 'go-to' text in the field." Kendra McSweeny, Ohio State University Columbus
"As an introductory text reflecting contemporary scholarship via plural perspectives and hybrid objects, Environment and Society continues to innovate." Jim Proctor, Lewis & Clark College
This engaging and innovative introduction to the environment and society uses key theoretical approaches to explore familiar objects. It takes topics such as population and scarcity, commodities, environmental ethics, risks and hazards, and political economy, and then applies these to objects ranging from bottled water and tuna to trees and French fries. The second edition succeeds in maintaining its balance between theory and application, but now also offers a number of enhanced features. Substantial revisions include new chapters on e-waste, lawns, and uranium; a greater diversity of case studies; improved maps and graphics; new exercises; shorter theory chapters; refocused highlight sections on environmental solutions; and a range of online student resources at www.wiley.com/go/environmentandsociety, including a test bank, notes, suggested reading, and research links.
Students have long appreciated the innovative and engaging approach that Environment and Society brings to the study of contemporary environmental challenges. Offering insightful and accessible coverage of the key issues in this important field, this book will change the way students think about the relationship between the environment and society today.
Inhalt
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
List of Boxes xii
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Introduction: The View from a Human-Made Wilderness 1
What Is This Book? 4
The Authors' Points of View 7
Part 1 Approaches and Perspectives 11
2 Population and Scarcity 13
A Crowded Desert City 14
The Problem of Geometric Growth 15
Population, Development, and Environment Impact 17
The Other Side of the Coin: Population and Innovation 20
Limits to Population: An Effect Rather than a Cause? 22
Thinking with Population 27
3 Markets and Commodities 31
The Bet 32
Managing Environmental Bads: The Coase Theorem 34
Market Failure 37
Market-Based Solutions to Environmental Problems 38
Beyond Market Failure: Gaps between Nature and Economy 43
Thinking with Markets 46
4 Institutions and The Commons 49
Controlling Carbon? 50
The Prisoner's Dilemma 50
The Tragedy of the Commons 52
The Evidence and Logic of Collective Action 54
Crafting Sustainable Environmental Institutions 56
Are All Commoners Equal? Does Scale Matter? 61
Thinking with Institutions 62
5 Environmental Ethics 65
The Price of Cheap Meat 66
Improving Nature: From Biblical Tradition to John Locke 68
Gifford Pinchot vs. John Muir in Yosemite, California 70
Aldo Leopold and The Land Ethic 72
Liberation for Animals! 75
Holism, Scientism, and Other Pitfalls 77
Thinking with Ethics 79
6 Risks and Hazards 82
Great Floods 83
Environments as Hazard 84
The Problem of Risk Perception 86
Risk as Culture 89
Beyond Risk: The Political Economy of Hazards 90
Thinking with Hazards and Risk 94
7 Political Economy 98
The Strange Logic of Under-pollution 99
Labor, Accumulation, and Crisis 100
Production of Nature 107
Global Capitalism and the Ecology of Uneven Development 109
Social Reproduction and Nature 111
Environments and Economism 115
Thinking with Political Economy 115
8 Social Construction of Nature 119
Welcome to the Jungle 120
So You Say It's Natural? 122
Environmental Discourse 126
The Limits of Constructivism: Science, Relativism, and the Very Material World 131
Thinking with Construction 134
Part 2 Objects of Concern 139
9 Carbon Dioxide 141
Stuck in Pittsburgh Traffic 142
A Short History of CO2 143
Institutions: Climate Free-Riders and Carbon Cooperation 149
Markets: Trading More Gases, Buying Less Carbon 152
Political Economy: Who Killed the Atmosphere? 157
The Carbon Puzzle 160
10 Trees 163
Chained to a Tree in Berkeley, California 164
A Short History of Trees 164
Population and Markets: The Forest Transition The…