Environmental Futures – serie

Major environmental problems threaten our planet and evoke within us a need to act – a need to do something, no matter how small, to slow the damage.But what kind of action? Businesses, governments and some environmental groups tell us that buying environmentally friendly products while living more lightly on the planet is a winning strategy. Do the little things for the earth, the story goes, and others will follow, creating an environmental tsunami of change in norms, values and behaviors. The planet will thrive.Michael Maniates isn't buying it. He believes the mantra of 'buy green, live lean, save the planet' is a con of recent and unseemly origin. It fosters pernicious assumptions about social change, separates individuals from their real power in the world, and fuels damaging consumption. It thrives because it meets the short-term priorities of governments and business, not the long-term needs of the planet's human and non-human inhabitants.Environmentally concerned individuals can make a meaningful difference in the world, and living green is a start. But alone, it can do more harm than good. We must embrace more rewarding and effective practices for saving the planet. This book shows us how.

Major environmental problems threaten our planet and evoke within us a need to act – a need to do something, no matter how small, to slow the damage.But what kind of action? Businesses, governments and some environmental groups tell us that buying environmentally friendly products while living more lightly on the planet is a winning strategy. Do the little things for the earth, the story goes, and others will follow, creating an environmental tsunami of change in norms, values and behaviors. The planet will thrive.Michael Maniates isn't buying it. He believes the mantra of 'buy green, live lean, save the planet' is a con of recent and unseemly origin. It fosters pernicious assumptions about social change, separates individuals from their real power in the world, and fuels damaging consumption. It thrives because it meets the short-term priorities of governments and business, not the long-term needs of the planet's human and non-human inhabitants.Environmentally concerned individuals can make a meaningful difference in the world, and living green is a start. But alone, it can do more harm than good. We must embrace more rewarding and effective practices for saving the planet. This book shows us how.

Selected as one of The Progressive’s ‘Favourite Books of 2020’Wildness was once integral to our ancestors' lives as they struggled to survive in an unpredictable environment.  Today, most of us live in relative stability insulated from the vicissitudes of nature. Wildness is over, right?  Wrong, argues leading environmental scholar Paul Wapner. Wildness may have disappeared from our immediate lives, but it’s been catapulted up to the global level. The planet itself has gone into spasm - calving glaciers, wildfires, heatwaves, mass extinction, and rising oceans all represent the new face of wildness.   Rejecting paths offered by geoengineering and de-extinction to bring the Earth under control, Wapner calls instead for ‘rewilding’. This involves relinquishing the desire for comfort at all costs and welcoming greater uncertainty into our own lives. To save ourselves from global ruin, it is time to stop sanitizing and exerting mastery over the world and begin living humbly in it.