Description
Nadeau (environmental science and public policy, George Mason U.) warns that humanity is currently facing the danger of catastrophic environmental change that threatens our very survival. Moreover, the current institutional regimes of international governance and theoretical tools of environmental economics available to us for addressing this crisis are utterly inadequate to the challenge before us. Fortunately, while human evolutionary history has instilled in us the characteristic that has led to this state of events, it is the very same characteristic which will enable us to solve the problem--the ability to coordinate collective activities in increasingly larger and more complex social systems and to externalize ideas as artifacts. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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For decades, scholars have warned of an impending global environmental crisis. Yet politicians, particularly in the United States, have consistently shown that they are not taking the threat seriously. Initiatives aimed at protecting the planet are commonly seen as belonging to a category unto themselves-the preserve of scientists and environmental enthusiasts.In this groundbreaking book, Robert L. Nadeau warns that we have moved menacingly close to a global environmental catastrophe and that to evade this fate we must stop drawing a distinction between issues that are "environmental" or "scientific" and those that reside in the sphere of "real life." Although scientists have attempted to bring ecological concerns to the forefront of global issues, problems are rarely communicated in ways that can be readily understood by those outside the scientific community.Bringing together perspectives from a variety of disciplines, including economics, politics, biology, and the history of science, The Environmental Endgame articulates the concerns of scientists in a way that they become the real-life, tangible concerns of people around the world. Nadeau asserts that we have entered a new phase of human history that cannot be one of separation and division but must be one of cooperation and mutual goals.Nadeau demonstrates that our current governmental and financial institutions, based on neoclassical economics, lack the mechanisms for implementing viable solutions to large-scale crises. Such steps cannot be taken without moving beyond the power politics of the nation-state system. The book concludes with a call to view the natural world as part of humanity, not separate from it. This unifying worldview would be a catalyst for implementing the international government organizations necessary to resolving the crisis.The Environmental Endgame is an ambitious and timely book that will change the way we think about our economy, our government, and the environment. It should be read by everyone who cares about the pervasive neglect and abuse of planet Earth and wants to know what can be done about it.
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