Advertisement
Published in:
2016 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
3. Radical Environmentalism: Challenging Our Institutions and Beliefs
Author : Franklin Kalinowski
Published in: America's Environmental Legacies
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US
Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.
Select sections of text to find matching patents with Artificial Intelligence. powered by
Select sections of text to find additional relevant content using AI-assisted search. powered by
Abstract
Radical environmentalism believes our economic and political institutions, as well as our social ethics, are major causes of the devastation we are perpetuating on the environment. Borrowing the concept of “carrying capacity” from the science of ecology, ecological economics argues we need to move to a steady-state, no-growth economy. Social ecology believes our predicament can be reduced to the propensity to view all troubles as resulting from a lack of control and a reliance on hierarchy and domination as the solution. The clash between established values and an alternative environmental ethic clearly presents itself in the neo-Malthusian focus on human population control. Bioregionalists attempt to discover a meaningful environmental ethic within an extended notion of community or “place.” At the most profound level, deep ecology moves our attention from the physical environment to those needs and processes experienced inside the psyche.