Planetary Emergency Environmental Collapse and the Promise of Ecocivilization
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Kent D. Shifferd has taught for 35 years at Northland College, the University of Wisconsin, Ripon College, and United Theological Seminary. He is a founder and former executive director of the 21-school consortium, the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.Earth and its inhabitants face an unprecedented crisis--the human-caused destruction of the planet's life support systems. Deteriorating climate bringing super storms, mass forest fires, melting glaciers, droughts, extreme heat and rising seas, a decline in food production, soil loss, water pollution and declining fisheries all threaten the future of life on earth with a looming extinction event not seen for 60 million years.
Beginning in the 17th century, we developed a civilization based on radical materialism, exploitation of natural resources and the myth of endless economic growth. For all its technological wonders, this "hypercivilization" has proven unsustainable. This book explores ways we can create an "ecocivilization" compatible with the laws and limits of nature--a new way of living already developing, with new technologies, new forms of social organization and a new story about ourselves and the Earth.
Introduction: The Revolution of Hypercivilization
Part I—Breakdown: A Brief Tour Through the Global Environmental Crisis
1. The Perfect Storm
2. Assault on the World’s Forests, Soils, Water and Air
3. War’s War on the Environment and Splitting the Atom
4. Environmentally Induced Diseases and the Genetic Revolution
5. Climate Change: The Crowning Blow
6. The Prospect of Collapse
Part II—The Rise of Hypercivilization
7. “The Old Way”
8. Materialism, Capitalism and Conquest
9. Industrialization
10. Resisting Hypercivilization: Poets, Painters and Darwin
11. Resisting Hypercivilization: Conservationists, Environmentalists and Blockadia
Part III—Breakthrough: Creating Ecocivilization
12. Our Changing Mind
13. Changing Education, Food and Industry
14. The Energy Revolution Is Underway
15. Creating Resilient, Place-based Communities
Conclusion: We Can Make It—On Toward Ecocivilization
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index