Noah J. Toly - Böcker

The past three centuries have witnessed the accumulation of unprecedented levels of wealth and the production of unprecedented risks. These risks include the declining integrity and stability of many of the world's environments, which face dramatic and possibly irreversible change as the environmental burdens of late modern lifestyles increasingly shift to fragile ecosystems, vulnerable communities, and future generations. Globalization has increased the scope and scale of these risks, as well as the pace of their emergence. It has also made possible global environmental governance, attempts to manage risk by unprecedented numbers and types of authoritative agents, including state and non-state actors at the local, national, regional, and global levels. In The Gardeners' Dirty Hands: Environmental Politics and Christian Ethics, Noah Toly offers an interpretation of environmental governance that draws upon insights into the tragic - the need to forego, give up, undermine, or destroy one or more goods in order to possess or secure one or more other goods. Toly engages Christian and classical Greek ideas of the tragic to illuminate the enduring challenges of environmental politics. He suggests that Christians have unique resources for responsible engagement with global environmental politics while acknowledging the need for mutually agreed, and ultimately normative, restraints.

Each day, the world’s urban population swells by almost 200,000. With every passing week, more than a million people new to cities face unexpected realities and challenges of urban life. Just like the sheer volume of people in the city, these challenges can be staggering. As with the height and breadth of our metropolises, the wonders of urban life can be breathtaking. Like the city itself, the questions and challenges of urban life are both sprawling and pulsing with vitality. As part of Zondervan's Ordinary Theology series, this volume offers a series of Christian reflections on some of the most basic and universal challenges of 21st century urban life. It takes one important dimension of what it means to be human—that human beings are made to be for God, for others, and for creation—and asks, “What are the implications of who God made us to be for how we ought to live in our cities?”  This book is intended for Christians facing the riddle of urban creation care, discerning the shape of community life, struggling with the challenges of wealth and poverty, and wondering at the global influence of cities. It is meant for those whose lives and livelihoods are inextricably bound up in the flourishing of their neighborhood and also for those who live in the shadow of cities. Most of all, it is meant for those grappling with the relationship between the cities of tomorrow and the glorious city to come.

Case study rich, this volume advances our understanding of the significance of 'the city' in global governance. The editors call for innovation in international relations theory with case studies that add breadth to theorizing the role sub-national political actors play in global affairs. Each of the eight case studies demonstrates different intersections between the local and the global and how these intersections alter the conditions resulting from globalization processes. The case studies do so by focusing on one of three sub-themes: the diverse ways in which cities and sub-national regions impact nation-state foreign policy; the various dimensions of urban imbrications in global environmental politics; or the multiple methods and standards used to measure the global roles of cities.

Case study rich, this volume advances our understanding of the significance of 'the city' in global governance. The editors call for innovation in international relations theory with case studies that add breadth to theorizing the role sub-national political actors play in global affairs. Each of the eight case studies demonstrates different intersections between the local and the global and how these intersections alter the conditions resulting from globalization processes. The case studies do so by focusing on one of three sub-themes: the diverse ways in which cities and sub-national regions impact nation-state foreign policy; the various dimensions of urban imbrications in global environmental politics; or the multiple methods and standards used to measure the global roles of cities.