Another Look at the End of the World

Boucher, Douglas H.; Schwartzman, David; Zara, Jane; Caplan, P.E.

doi:10.1080/10455750308565538

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…While the modernizers are generally optimistic (Yearley, 2002), they do see successes as contingent and reversible. Most eco-Marxists believe that sustainable capitalism is not possible, since it is bound to the 'treadmill of production' and 'must grow or die'; but some suggest that by commodifying nature and turning it into a store of capital to be managed, 'Environmental crisis has given liberal capitalist society a new lease on life' (O'Connor, 1994: 125) with new opportunities for legitimation, growth and profit, and that this might be a possible response to the threat of climate change (Boucher et al, 2003;Rosewarne, 2003). 17 Although the two schools have debated with each other and have had ambitions to 'contribute to general sociological theory', their wider impact in the discipline has been limited (Huber, 2001: 10).…”

Section: Environmental Sociology and Global Warmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Warming and Sociology

Lever‐Tracy

2008

Current Sociology

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Escalating climate change, partly induced by human activity, has made its way into public awareness, yet most sociologists, outside the specialism of environmental sociology, have had surprisingly little to say about the possible future social trajectories it may portend. Wary of accepting the truth claims of natural science, but aware of our own inability to judge the validity of their claims, we have generally preferred to look the other way, although these developments can affect the very core of our discipline's concerns. We need a cooperative multidisciplinarity of social and natural scientists working together.

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Section: Environmental Sociology and Global Warmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Warming and Sociology

Lever‐Tracy

2008

Current Sociology

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“…Joel Kovel's appropriation of Georgescu-Roegen's theory was critiqued in Boucher et al (Kovel, 2003;Boucher et al, 2003). A more recent paper by Paul Burkett (2005) supports Georgescu-Roegen's theory of entropy in an apparent attempt to seek convergence of Marxist theory with ecological economics.…”

Section: Georgescu-roegen's "Fourth Law" and Its Recent Support By Mamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Limits to Entropy: Continuing Misuse of Thermodynamics in Environmental and Marxist Theory

Schwartzman¹

2008

Science & Society

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The continuing use of Georgescu-Roegen's theory of entropy by neo-Malthusians as foundational support for their views comes as no surprise. Lately, those warning of a Hubbert Peak apocalypse have commonly drawn from the same conceptual well. But unfortunately even Marxist scholars still do the same. Paul Burkett's recent paper supporting Georgescu-Roegen's fourth law of thermodynamics attempts to seek convergence of Marxist theory with ecological economics. However, this attempt is undermined by the very shaky foundations of Georgescu-Roegen's theory. In particular, Georgescu-Roegen's proposed fourth law conflating isolated and closed systems is in contradiction with thermodynamic theory and leads to false conclusions regarding recycling and the prospects of a solarized economy. Red-green theory and practice should be firmly based on robust thermodynamic theory. With this guide and subject to the contingencies of political struggle, an ecosocialist transition in this century is within reach.Can an effective strategy to achieve a society sustainable for both humans and nature rest on a fallacious theory of how energy and matter interact? The answer should be obvious, but unfortunately this is not a rhetorical question because such a theory now has wide currency among environmental and even Marxist writers. This discussion will provide a critique of this theory and suggestions for a more defensible approach. I submit that only a red green practice informed by the most robust theories and knowledge derived from the natural and physical sciences and an historical materialist approach to social change can measure up to the immense challenges now facing humanity.There is now strong evidence that catastrophic effects of global climate change will occur unless radical steps are taken in the coming few decades to effect a solar-based energy transition from the present reliance on fossil fuels (e.g., Leggett, 2006; Milliken, 2006;Harvey, 2006). Further, defeating the main obstacle to this transition, the US imperial project, is likely necessary to its achievement. This struggle on a transnational scale will open up new possibilities for 21st-century Ecosocialism, adding the ecological dimension to Hugo Chavez's inspiring vision, green to red. 5/26/07

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Introduction: Technonatural time–spaces

White

Wilbert

2006

Science as Culture

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PrologueIn this special issue of Science as Culture, we mull over the current state of our common environments and the politics of nature more generally. 'The Death of Environmentalism' has recently emerged as a provocative thesis circulating around the Internet and beyond. Whilst this thesis may well be generating more hot air than cool analysis, a growing range of voices are suggesting that environmentalism is in trouble and that there is a real need to open up the environmental debate in new ways. In this issue, we seek to engage with these debates but also to explore possible openings. We suggest that the notion of 'Technonatures' may provide a fruitful metaphor/myth for motivating discussion and reflection about changing relations between our ecologies, bodies, technologies and urban worlds. We hope readers will engage with the contributors to this issue, as debates progress about the possible contours of a new spatial/temporal politics of environmentalism for the new century. Environmental Debate in Changing Space -Times?The current state of the environmental debate is clearly in considerable flux at the beginning of the twenty-first century. From European Union countries to Brazil, from China to Canada, societies are gripped by controversies, dilemmas and disputes emerging from the incorporation and resistance of ecologies, bodies and landscapes into circuits of commodification, property regulation, innovation, patenting and enclosure. Disputes surrounding nanotechnology, biotechnology, global warming and concerns over biodiversity, water resources, or food, to name just a few issues, give credence to the perception that natures, societies and technologies are being jointly made and remade at dizzying speeds. According to many writers, a seemingly unbounded, technologically instilled, and ideologically renewed capitalism appears to be intensifying the process of creative Science as Culture Vol. 15, No. 2,[95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104]

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Another Look at the End of the World

Cited by 8 publications

References 3 publications

Global Warming and Sociology

Global Warming and Sociology

The Limits to Entropy: Continuing Misuse of Thermodynamics in Environmental and Marxist Theory

Introduction: Technonatural time–spaces

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