Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
After several centuries of an ever-increasing eclipse of the religious significance of nature in the West and neglect of the order of nature by mainstream Christian religious thought, many Christian ...
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After several centuries of an ever-increasing eclipse of the religious significance of nature in the West and neglect of the order of nature by mainstream Christian religious thought, many Christian theologians have in the past two or three decades become interested once again in nature and in addressing the environmental crisis. Diverse paths have been chosen to face this challenge, some seeking to go back to the traditional roots of Christianity, others to turn East to Indian and Far Eastern religions, and yet others to search for the wisdom of the Native Shamanic religions, especially those of the Americas. This chapter casts a critical glance on at least some of the Christian voices seeking to create what some now call “eco-theology” before turning to other religions. Today, there is much written by philosophers and scientists concerned with ecology that deals with environmental ethics and that have in fact a religious impact and in some cases a directly religious dimension.Less
After several centuries of an ever-increasing eclipse of the religious significance of nature in the West and neglect of the order of nature by mainstream Christian religious thought, many Christian theologians have in the past two or three decades become interested once again in nature and in addressing the environmental crisis. Diverse paths have been chosen to face this challenge, some seeking to go back to the traditional roots of Christianity, others to turn East to Indian and Far Eastern religions, and yet others to search for the wisdom of the Native Shamanic religions, especially those of the Americas. This chapter casts a critical glance on at least some of the Christian voices seeking to create what some now call “eco-theology” before turning to other religions. Today, there is much written by philosophers and scientists concerned with ecology that deals with environmental ethics and that have in fact a religious impact and in some cases a directly religious dimension.
Willis Jenkins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195328516
- eISBN:
- 9780199869862
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195328516.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Christianity struggles to show how living on earth matters for living with God. While people of faith increasingly seek practical ways to respond to the environmental crisis, theology has had ...
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Christianity struggles to show how living on earth matters for living with God. While people of faith increasingly seek practical ways to respond to the environmental crisis, theology has had difficulty contextualizing the crisis and interpreting the responses. This book presents a field-shaping introduction to Christian environmental ethics that offers resources for renewing theology. Observing how religious environmental practices often draw on concepts of grace, the book maps the way Christian environmental strategies draw from traditions of salvation as they engage the problems of environmental ethics. It then uses this new map to explore afresh the ecological dimensions of Christian theology. The book first shows how Christian ethics uniquely frames environmental issues, and then how those approaches both challenge and re-inhabit theological traditions. It identifies three major strategies for making environmental problems intelligible to Christian moral experience. Each one draws on a distinct pattern of grace as it adapts a secular approach to environmental ethics. The strategies of ecojustice, stewardship, and ecological spirituality make environments matter for Christian experience by drawing on patterns of sanctification, redemption, and deification. The book then confronts the problems of each of these strategies through critical reappraisals of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Sergei Bulgakov.Less
Christianity struggles to show how living on earth matters for living with God. While people of faith increasingly seek practical ways to respond to the environmental crisis, theology has had difficulty contextualizing the crisis and interpreting the responses. This book presents a field-shaping introduction to Christian environmental ethics that offers resources for renewing theology. Observing how religious environmental practices often draw on concepts of grace, the book maps the way Christian environmental strategies draw from traditions of salvation as they engage the problems of environmental ethics. It then uses this new map to explore afresh the ecological dimensions of Christian theology. The book first shows how Christian ethics uniquely frames environmental issues, and then how those approaches both challenge and re-inhabit theological traditions. It identifies three major strategies for making environmental problems intelligible to Christian moral experience. Each one draws on a distinct pattern of grace as it adapts a secular approach to environmental ethics. The strategies of ecojustice, stewardship, and ecological spirituality make environments matter for Christian experience by drawing on patterns of sanctification, redemption, and deification. The book then confronts the problems of each of these strategies through critical reappraisals of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Sergei Bulgakov.
Stephen R. Kellert
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195309454
- eISBN:
- 9780199871261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309454.003.0021
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
This chapter addresses the contemporary environmental crisis as one that requires fundamental societal shifts of values and ethical relations to the natural world. It discusses the important and ...
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This chapter addresses the contemporary environmental crisis as one that requires fundamental societal shifts of values and ethical relations to the natural world. It discusses the important and progressive changes that have occurred in perceptions of nature during the past half century, changes that have resulted in improved stewardship of aspects of the natural world. It advocates a biocultural perspective, a response that views human values and ethical relations toward the natural world as bounded by species biological requirements, but shaped and influenced by individual and cultural learning and experience.Less
This chapter addresses the contemporary environmental crisis as one that requires fundamental societal shifts of values and ethical relations to the natural world. It discusses the important and progressive changes that have occurred in perceptions of nature during the past half century, changes that have resulted in improved stewardship of aspects of the natural world. It advocates a biocultural perspective, a response that views human values and ethical relations toward the natural world as bounded by species biological requirements, but shaped and influenced by individual and cultural learning and experience.
Roger S. Gottlieb
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195176483
- eISBN:
- 9780199850846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176483.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The new ecotheologies—accounts of God, ultimate meaning, human responsibility, and ethical life—typically begin with the pained recognition of just how bad things have become. Why do we need ...
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The new ecotheologies—accounts of God, ultimate meaning, human responsibility, and ethical life—typically begin with the pained recognition of just how bad things have become. Why do we need ecotheology? Simply because before we can act, we must think, and before religion can act in response to the environmental crisis, it must learn to think religiously about it. Thus, the task of the new ecotheology is to think about the environmental crisis, and our human response to it, in religious terms. The fundamentally human-centered, or anthropocentric, perspective on nature, many theologians believe, is at the core of the crisis. Ecotheology offers an enormous range of answers to this question, reflecting a breathtaking diversity of traditional viewpoints and contemporary responses.Less
The new ecotheologies—accounts of God, ultimate meaning, human responsibility, and ethical life—typically begin with the pained recognition of just how bad things have become. Why do we need ecotheology? Simply because before we can act, we must think, and before religion can act in response to the environmental crisis, it must learn to think religiously about it. Thus, the task of the new ecotheology is to think about the environmental crisis, and our human response to it, in religious terms. The fundamentally human-centered, or anthropocentric, perspective on nature, many theologians believe, is at the core of the crisis. Ecotheology offers an enormous range of answers to this question, reflecting a breathtaking diversity of traditional viewpoints and contemporary responses.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The world of nature is being desecrated and destroyed in an unprecedented manner globally by both those who have secularized the world about them and developed a science and technology capable of ...
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The world of nature is being desecrated and destroyed in an unprecedented manner globally by both those who have secularized the world about them and developed a science and technology capable of destroying nature on an unimaginable scale and by those who still live within a religious universe, even if the mode of destruction of the order of nature by the two groups is both quantitatively and qualitatively different. This book challenges the totalitarian claims of modern science and opens up a space for the assertion of the religious view of the order of nature that various traditions developed over the centuries in their cosmologies and sacred sciences. It examines the relation of religion to the order of the nature and brings into focus the religious and spiritual dimensions of the environmental crisis. It also emphasizes the significance of the gulf between knowledge and the sacred in precipitating the chaos and upheavals of a spiritual and intellectual order of which the pollution and destruction of the natural order is a most visible consequence.Less
The world of nature is being desecrated and destroyed in an unprecedented manner globally by both those who have secularized the world about them and developed a science and technology capable of destroying nature on an unimaginable scale and by those who still live within a religious universe, even if the mode of destruction of the order of nature by the two groups is both quantitatively and qualitatively different. This book challenges the totalitarian claims of modern science and opens up a space for the assertion of the religious view of the order of nature that various traditions developed over the centuries in their cosmologies and sacred sciences. It examines the relation of religion to the order of the nature and brings into focus the religious and spiritual dimensions of the environmental crisis. It also emphasizes the significance of the gulf between knowledge and the sacred in precipitating the chaos and upheavals of a spiritual and intellectual order of which the pollution and destruction of the natural order is a most visible consequence.
Ken Hiltner
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449406
- eISBN:
- 9780801460760
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449406.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This introductory chapter sets out the book's main arguments: that Renaissance pastoral, in addition to sometimes being a figurative mode masking political controversies, is also frequently concerned ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the book's main arguments: that Renaissance pastoral, in addition to sometimes being a figurative mode masking political controversies, is also frequently concerned with literal landscapes, even though it does little to describe them; and early modern England was in the throes of what can only be described as a “modern” environmental crisis, which engendered a number of contemporary debates, some of which address issues of environmental justice that informed (and were informed by) both canonical and noncanonical literature of the period. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book's main arguments: that Renaissance pastoral, in addition to sometimes being a figurative mode masking political controversies, is also frequently concerned with literal landscapes, even though it does little to describe them; and early modern England was in the throes of what can only be described as a “modern” environmental crisis, which engendered a number of contemporary debates, some of which address issues of environmental justice that informed (and were informed by) both canonical and noncanonical literature of the period. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Liam Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479850723
- eISBN:
- 9781479885978
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479850723.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
The world currently faces several severe social and environmental crises, including economic under-development, widespread poverty and hunger, lack of safe drinking water for one-sixth of the world's ...
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The world currently faces several severe social and environmental crises, including economic under-development, widespread poverty and hunger, lack of safe drinking water for one-sixth of the world's population, deforestation, rapidly increasing levels of pollution and waste, dramatic declines in soil fertility and biodiversity, and global warming. This book sheds light on the structural causes of these and other social and environmental crises, highlighting in particular the key role that elite-controlled organizations, institutions, and networks play in creating these crises. The book focuses on four topics—globalization, agriculture, mining, and U.S. energy and military policy—to show how organizational and institutional inequality and elite-controlled organizational networks produce social and environmental harm. It focuses on key institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Military and the World Trade Organization to show how specific policies are conceived and enacted in order to further elite goals. The book lays out a path for environmental social scientists and environmentalists to better understand and help solve the world's myriad social and environmental crises.Less
The world currently faces several severe social and environmental crises, including economic under-development, widespread poverty and hunger, lack of safe drinking water for one-sixth of the world's population, deforestation, rapidly increasing levels of pollution and waste, dramatic declines in soil fertility and biodiversity, and global warming. This book sheds light on the structural causes of these and other social and environmental crises, highlighting in particular the key role that elite-controlled organizations, institutions, and networks play in creating these crises. The book focuses on four topics—globalization, agriculture, mining, and U.S. energy and military policy—to show how organizational and institutional inequality and elite-controlled organizational networks produce social and environmental harm. It focuses on key institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Military and the World Trade Organization to show how specific policies are conceived and enacted in order to further elite goals. The book lays out a path for environmental social scientists and environmentalists to better understand and help solve the world's myriad social and environmental crises.
Sheldon H. Lu and Jiayan Mi (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622090866
- eISBN:
- 9789882206724
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622090866.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
In coming decades, film will be one of the primary ways in which China adopts and expands ecological consciousness. This anthology is a book-length study of China's ecosystem through the lens of ...
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In coming decades, film will be one of the primary ways in which China adopts and expands ecological consciousness. This anthology is a book-length study of China's ecosystem through the lens of cinema, in an historic moment of unparalleled environmental crises and destruction. Proposing “ecocinema” as a new critical framework, the volume collectively investigates a wide range of urgent topics in today's world: Chinese and Western epistemes of nature and humanity; socialist modernization amid capitalist globalization; shifting configurations of space, locale, cityscape, and natural landscape; gender, religion, and ethnic cultures; as well as bioethics and environmental politics. Individual chapters zero in on diverse Chinese-language films by directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye, Fruit Chan, Wu Tianming, Tsai Ming-liang, Li Yang, Feng Xiaogang, Zhang Yang, Wang Xiaoshuai, Wang Bing, Ning Hao, Zhang Ming, Dai Sijie, Wanma Caidan, and Huo Jianqi.Less
In coming decades, film will be one of the primary ways in which China adopts and expands ecological consciousness. This anthology is a book-length study of China's ecosystem through the lens of cinema, in an historic moment of unparalleled environmental crises and destruction. Proposing “ecocinema” as a new critical framework, the volume collectively investigates a wide range of urgent topics in today's world: Chinese and Western epistemes of nature and humanity; socialist modernization amid capitalist globalization; shifting configurations of space, locale, cityscape, and natural landscape; gender, religion, and ethnic cultures; as well as bioethics and environmental politics. Individual chapters zero in on diverse Chinese-language films by directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye, Fruit Chan, Wu Tianming, Tsai Ming-liang, Li Yang, Feng Xiaogang, Zhang Yang, Wang Xiaoshuai, Wang Bing, Ning Hao, Zhang Ming, Dai Sijie, Wanma Caidan, and Huo Jianqi.
Finis Dunaway
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226169903
- eISBN:
- 9780226169934
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226169934.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
Certain images stand out as icons of American environmentalism: a 1971 public service announcement featuring the “Crying Indian,” who sheds a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling ...
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Certain images stand out as icons of American environmentalism: a 1971 public service announcement featuring the “Crying Indian,” who sheds a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear power accident in 1979; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global-warming slideshow in An Inconvenient Truth. These images, and others like them, have helped make environmental consciousness central to American public culture. Yet most historical accounts ignore the crucial role images have played in the making of popular environmentalism. This book looks at a wide array of visual texts—including pictures in popular magazines, television news, advertisements, cartoons, films, and political posters—to show how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. Yet, even as media images have made the environmental crisis visible to a mass public, they often have masked systemic causes. Deflecting attention from corporate and government responsibility, popular images have instead emphasized the idea that individual Americans are personally culpable for pollution and other environmental problems. The visual media have thus offered environmentalists a double-edged sword: Images have helped them popularize their cause, but also distorted their ideas by portraying their movement as a moralistic crusade to absolve the nation of its guilt. Ultimately, this dual focus on spectacles of crisis and individual moral choices has hidden underlying causes and structural solutions behind a veil of inattention.Less
Certain images stand out as icons of American environmentalism: a 1971 public service announcement featuring the “Crying Indian,” who sheds a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear power accident in 1979; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global-warming slideshow in An Inconvenient Truth. These images, and others like them, have helped make environmental consciousness central to American public culture. Yet most historical accounts ignore the crucial role images have played in the making of popular environmentalism. This book looks at a wide array of visual texts—including pictures in popular magazines, television news, advertisements, cartoons, films, and political posters—to show how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. Yet, even as media images have made the environmental crisis visible to a mass public, they often have masked systemic causes. Deflecting attention from corporate and government responsibility, popular images have instead emphasized the idea that individual Americans are personally culpable for pollution and other environmental problems. The visual media have thus offered environmentalists a double-edged sword: Images have helped them popularize their cause, but also distorted their ideas by portraying their movement as a moralistic crusade to absolve the nation of its guilt. Ultimately, this dual focus on spectacles of crisis and individual moral choices has hidden underlying causes and structural solutions behind a veil of inattention.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Although the crisis of the relationship between man and the world of nature on the scale observable today first began in the West where modernism was born, it is now global and demands an inquiry ...
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Although the crisis of the relationship between man and the world of nature on the scale observable today first began in the West where modernism was born, it is now global and demands an inquiry beyond the borders of the Western tradition and the history of the attack against that tradition in modern times. Any inquiry into the question of the relation between religion and the order of nature, one that wishes to address the crucial issues emanating from the present-day environmental crisis, needs to cross the frontiers of various spiritual universes and journey from the Heaven and Earth of a single human collectivity to the many Heavens and Earths of the several “humanities” constituting present-day global humanity as such. To understand the relation of religion to the order of nature on a global scale, rather than from the perspective of a single tradition, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the order of nature or the “Earth” in the context of various religions.Less
Although the crisis of the relationship between man and the world of nature on the scale observable today first began in the West where modernism was born, it is now global and demands an inquiry beyond the borders of the Western tradition and the history of the attack against that tradition in modern times. Any inquiry into the question of the relation between religion and the order of nature, one that wishes to address the crucial issues emanating from the present-day environmental crisis, needs to cross the frontiers of various spiritual universes and journey from the Heaven and Earth of a single human collectivity to the many Heavens and Earths of the several “humanities” constituting present-day global humanity as such. To understand the relation of religion to the order of nature on a global scale, rather than from the perspective of a single tradition, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the order of nature or the “Earth” in the context of various religions.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The Greek word for order, cosmos, is used to refer to the totality of external reality which is perceptible, while naturalistic philosophers identify with reality as such and religions and religious ...
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The Greek word for order, cosmos, is used to refer to the totality of external reality which is perceptible, while naturalistic philosophers identify with reality as such and religions and religious philosophers consider it to be all that is other than the Divine Principle. This chapter examines the meaning of order in nature, and of necessity the order of nature, not according to the modern scientific view but as treated by various religious traditions that have not only created a human society but also a cosmic ambience imbued with religious significance. These religions, including, Christianity, Shamanism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism, present a primordial view of the order of nature and man's rapport with the natural world. In certain religious climates such as those of Abrahamic monotheisms, there arises the question of the contingent nature of the world in contrast to God, and also determinism versus free will in relation to the order of nature and our rapport with it.Less
The Greek word for order, cosmos, is used to refer to the totality of external reality which is perceptible, while naturalistic philosophers identify with reality as such and religions and religious philosophers consider it to be all that is other than the Divine Principle. This chapter examines the meaning of order in nature, and of necessity the order of nature, not according to the modern scientific view but as treated by various religious traditions that have not only created a human society but also a cosmic ambience imbued with religious significance. These religions, including, Christianity, Shamanism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism, present a primordial view of the order of nature and man's rapport with the natural world. In certain religious climates such as those of Abrahamic monotheisms, there arises the question of the contingent nature of the world in contrast to God, and also determinism versus free will in relation to the order of nature and our rapport with it.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108231
- eISBN:
- 9780199853441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108231.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
One solution to the current environmental crisis is to resacralize nature, not by man who has no power to bestow the quality of sacredness upon anything, but through the remembrance of what nature is ...
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One solution to the current environmental crisis is to resacralize nature, not by man who has no power to bestow the quality of sacredness upon anything, but through the remembrance of what nature is as theater of Divine Creativity and Presence. Nature has been already sacralized by the Sacred Itself, and its resacralization means more than anything else a transformation within man, who has himself lost his Sacred Center, so as to be able to rediscover the Sacred and consequently to behold again nature's sacred quality. And this remembrance and rediscovery can only be achieved through religion in its traditional forms as the repositories of the Sacred and the means of access to it. Furthermore, such a transformation can only come about through the revival of religious knowledge of the order of nature, which itself means the undoing of the negative effects of all those processes of transformation of man's image of himself, his thought, and the world about him that have characterized the history of the West during the past five centuries.Less
One solution to the current environmental crisis is to resacralize nature, not by man who has no power to bestow the quality of sacredness upon anything, but through the remembrance of what nature is as theater of Divine Creativity and Presence. Nature has been already sacralized by the Sacred Itself, and its resacralization means more than anything else a transformation within man, who has himself lost his Sacred Center, so as to be able to rediscover the Sacred and consequently to behold again nature's sacred quality. And this remembrance and rediscovery can only be achieved through religion in its traditional forms as the repositories of the Sacred and the means of access to it. Furthermore, such a transformation can only come about through the revival of religious knowledge of the order of nature, which itself means the undoing of the negative effects of all those processes of transformation of man's image of himself, his thought, and the world about him that have characterized the history of the West during the past five centuries.
Liam Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479850723
- eISBN:
- 9781479885978
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479850723.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter proposes an alternative framework for explaining the global environmental crisis: the inequality, democracy, and the environment (IDE) model. It first considers the macro-structural ...
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This chapter proposes an alternative framework for explaining the global environmental crisis: the inequality, democracy, and the environment (IDE) model. It first considers the macro-structural environmental sociology approach, which addresses the lack of attention to inequality and power by focusing on the social structural causes of environmental crises. In particular, it discusses the two most prominent theoretical perspectives within macro-structural environmental sociology, the treadmill theory and the world systems theory. It then highlights the limitations of macro-structural environmental sociology, including its insufficient theoretical attention to undemocratic institutions and elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms. Finally, it explains the IDE model and how it fills important gaps in the macro-structural environmental sociology literature.Less
This chapter proposes an alternative framework for explaining the global environmental crisis: the inequality, democracy, and the environment (IDE) model. It first considers the macro-structural environmental sociology approach, which addresses the lack of attention to inequality and power by focusing on the social structural causes of environmental crises. In particular, it discusses the two most prominent theoretical perspectives within macro-structural environmental sociology, the treadmill theory and the world systems theory. It then highlights the limitations of macro-structural environmental sociology, including its insufficient theoretical attention to undemocratic institutions and elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms. Finally, it explains the IDE model and how it fills important gaps in the macro-structural environmental sociology literature.
Louise Squire
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781784994396
- eISBN:
- 9781526132260
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784994396.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In this chapter, Louise Squire introduces the idea that the human ‘denial’ of death has in part contributed to our approach to environmental crisis. She considers the possibilities for literary ...
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In this chapter, Louise Squire introduces the idea that the human ‘denial’ of death has in part contributed to our approach to environmental crisis. She considers the possibilities for literary critique to account for these difficulties, focussing on contemporary environmental crisis fiction. The novels discussed are the three books of Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy (2003, 2009, 2013), Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004), and Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007). Each of these books explores the notion of ‘death-facing’ as an ecological imperative. She reads this fiction as being in dialogue with the questions posed by today’s environmental challenges. Squire argues that ecocriticism is a developing field in that the crisis and its literatures are still unfolding, so attention must continue to be directed at reformulating thought in the (also) still unfolding aftermath of high theory.Less
In this chapter, Louise Squire introduces the idea that the human ‘denial’ of death has in part contributed to our approach to environmental crisis. She considers the possibilities for literary critique to account for these difficulties, focussing on contemporary environmental crisis fiction. The novels discussed are the three books of Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy (2003, 2009, 2013), Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004), and Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007). Each of these books explores the notion of ‘death-facing’ as an ecological imperative. She reads this fiction as being in dialogue with the questions posed by today’s environmental challenges. Squire argues that ecocriticism is a developing field in that the crisis and its literatures are still unfolding, so attention must continue to be directed at reformulating thought in the (also) still unfolding aftermath of high theory.
Laurel Kearns and Catherine Keller (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227457
- eISBN:
- 9780823236626
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227457.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
We hope—even as we doubt—that the environmental crisis can be controlled. Public awareness of our species' self-destructiveness as material beings in a material world is growing—but ...
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We hope—even as we doubt—that the environmental crisis can be controlled. Public awareness of our species' self-destructiveness as material beings in a material world is growing—but so is the destructiveness. The practical interventions needed for saving and restoring the earth will require a collective shift of such magnitude as to take on a spiritual and religious intensity. This transformation has in part already begun. Traditions of ecological theology and ecologically aware religious practice have been preparing the way for decades. Yet these traditions still remain marginal to society, academy, and church. This book probes the possibility of a green shift radical enough to permeate the ancient roots of our sensibility and the social sources of our practice. From new language for imagining the earth as a living ground to current constructions of nature in theology, science, and philosophy; from environmentalism's questioning of postmodern thought to a garden of green doctrines, rituals, and liturgies for contemporary religion, these chapters explore and expand our sense of how to proceed in the face of an ecological crisis that demands new thinking and acting.Less
We hope—even as we doubt—that the environmental crisis can be controlled. Public awareness of our species' self-destructiveness as material beings in a material world is growing—but so is the destructiveness. The practical interventions needed for saving and restoring the earth will require a collective shift of such magnitude as to take on a spiritual and religious intensity. This transformation has in part already begun. Traditions of ecological theology and ecologically aware religious practice have been preparing the way for decades. Yet these traditions still remain marginal to society, academy, and church. This book probes the possibility of a green shift radical enough to permeate the ancient roots of our sensibility and the social sources of our practice. From new language for imagining the earth as a living ground to current constructions of nature in theology, science, and philosophy; from environmentalism's questioning of postmodern thought to a garden of green doctrines, rituals, and liturgies for contemporary religion, these chapters explore and expand our sense of how to proceed in the face of an ecological crisis that demands new thinking and acting.
Liam Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479850723
- eISBN:
- 9781479885978
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479850723.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This book has highlighted the limitations of existing arguments in accounting for the structural causes of social and environmental harm, including macro-structural environmental sociology, with ...
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This book has highlighted the limitations of existing arguments in accounting for the structural causes of social and environmental harm, including macro-structural environmental sociology, with particular emphasis on their lack of attention to three important phenomena: OINB inequality; war, militarism, and armed violence; and the inherently violent nature of elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms. It has identified mechanisms that contribute to some of the world's most pervasive and damaging social and environmental crises, including those associated with climate change, modern agriculture, and natural resource extraction. This concluding chapter summarizes the book's theoretical argument and empirical findings and discusses the implications of these findings.Less
This book has highlighted the limitations of existing arguments in accounting for the structural causes of social and environmental harm, including macro-structural environmental sociology, with particular emphasis on their lack of attention to three important phenomena: OINB inequality; war, militarism, and armed violence; and the inherently violent nature of elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms. It has identified mechanisms that contribute to some of the world's most pervasive and damaging social and environmental crises, including those associated with climate change, modern agriculture, and natural resource extraction. This concluding chapter summarizes the book's theoretical argument and empirical findings and discusses the implications of these findings.
Liam Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479850723
- eISBN:
- 9781479885978
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479850723.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This book examines how organizational and institutional inequality as well as elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms cause social and environmental harm. It presents a series of case studies ...
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This book examines how organizational and institutional inequality as well as elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms cause social and environmental harm. It presents a series of case studies that highlight four substantive topics—globalization, modern agriculture, mining, and U.S. energy and military policy—to demonstrate how local, national, and global social structures give rise to a variety of social and environmental crises ranging from economic underdevelopment and widespread poverty to deforestation, desertification, and climate change. It offers a critique of environmental economics and consumer-oriented environmentalism and argues that the world's social and environmental problems are largely the product of organizational, institutional, and network-based inequality, or OINB inequality.Less
This book examines how organizational and institutional inequality as well as elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms cause social and environmental harm. It presents a series of case studies that highlight four substantive topics—globalization, modern agriculture, mining, and U.S. energy and military policy—to demonstrate how local, national, and global social structures give rise to a variety of social and environmental crises ranging from economic underdevelopment and widespread poverty to deforestation, desertification, and climate change. It offers a critique of environmental economics and consumer-oriented environmentalism and argues that the world's social and environmental problems are largely the product of organizational, institutional, and network-based inequality, or OINB inequality.
Finis Dunaway
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226169903
- eISBN:
- 9780226169934
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226169934.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
This chapter considers how media coverage of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and photographs of the Earth from space popularized the notion of all-encompassing, slowly escalating environmental ...
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This chapter considers how media coverage of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and photographs of the Earth from space popularized the notion of all-encompassing, slowly escalating environmental crisis. From Santa Barbara to the first celebration of Earth Day in 1970, the environmental crisis became the conceptual frame through which the media portrayed pollution and other environmental problems. This coverage revealed how the long timeframes of fear became increasingly accepted in American public culture and how the shift in emotional styles made possible the emergence of popular environmentalism. Audiences looked beyond the specific example of Santa Barbara to see this oil spill as a sign of the slow-motion violence of the environmental crisis. This perception of Santa Barbara involved the fusion of fact and feeling, science and spectacle: audiences responded emotionally to the plight of imperiled wildlife and filtered these feelings through the ecological lens that had already brought warnings of radioactive fallout, pesticide dangers, and other threats to humans and nature.Less
This chapter considers how media coverage of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and photographs of the Earth from space popularized the notion of all-encompassing, slowly escalating environmental crisis. From Santa Barbara to the first celebration of Earth Day in 1970, the environmental crisis became the conceptual frame through which the media portrayed pollution and other environmental problems. This coverage revealed how the long timeframes of fear became increasingly accepted in American public culture and how the shift in emotional styles made possible the emergence of popular environmentalism. Audiences looked beyond the specific example of Santa Barbara to see this oil spill as a sign of the slow-motion violence of the environmental crisis. This perception of Santa Barbara involved the fusion of fact and feeling, science and spectacle: audiences responded emotionally to the plight of imperiled wildlife and filtered these feelings through the ecological lens that had already brought warnings of radioactive fallout, pesticide dangers, and other threats to humans and nature.
Stephanie Rutherford
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816674404
- eISBN:
- 9781452946740
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816674404.003.0004
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Nature
This chapter focuses on the construction of climate change discourse by examining the personage and work of Al Gore. An Inconvenient Truth relies on the impartiality and unquestioned truth of science ...
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This chapter focuses on the construction of climate change discourse by examining the personage and work of Al Gore. An Inconvenient Truth relies on the impartiality and unquestioned truth of science to warn of impending global apocalypse, reinscribing the pre-eminence of this way of understanding nonhuman nature. An Inconvenient Truth and the persona of Al Gore offer an ethics of the self, an individualized form of green governmentality. Gore acts as a preeminent truth-teller, and his interweaving of science and storytelling is a potent way to narrate environmental crisis, reshaping the categories to meet the needs of the modern world.Less
This chapter focuses on the construction of climate change discourse by examining the personage and work of Al Gore. An Inconvenient Truth relies on the impartiality and unquestioned truth of science to warn of impending global apocalypse, reinscribing the pre-eminence of this way of understanding nonhuman nature. An Inconvenient Truth and the persona of Al Gore offer an ethics of the self, an individualized form of green governmentality. Gore acts as a preeminent truth-teller, and his interweaving of science and storytelling is a potent way to narrate environmental crisis, reshaping the categories to meet the needs of the modern world.
Laura Barbas-Rhoden
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813035468
- eISBN:
- 9780813038155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813035468.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter is about fictions written on the topic of the Amazon. The chapter's reading of these novels aims to bring into the foreground the social and economic repercussions of extractive ...
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This chapter is about fictions written on the topic of the Amazon. The chapter's reading of these novels aims to bring into the foreground the social and economic repercussions of extractive economies and infrastructure construction over the course of the twentieth century. The Amazon basin has had to deal with more environmental crises than any other region, the chapter states. The literary texts by Luis Sepúlveda, Eduardo Sguiglia, and Márcio Souza selected here for study fictionalize the struggles prevalent in distinctive historical moments concerning the future of the Amazon.Less
This chapter is about fictions written on the topic of the Amazon. The chapter's reading of these novels aims to bring into the foreground the social and economic repercussions of extractive economies and infrastructure construction over the course of the twentieth century. The Amazon basin has had to deal with more environmental crises than any other region, the chapter states. The literary texts by Luis Sepúlveda, Eduardo Sguiglia, and Márcio Souza selected here for study fictionalize the struggles prevalent in distinctive historical moments concerning the future of the Amazon.
