Environment and Society - A Critical Introduction

Substantially updated for the second edition, this engaging and innovative introduction to the environment and society uses key theoretical approaches to explore familiar objects.* Features substantial revisions and updates for the second edition, including new chapters on E waste, mosquitoes and uranium, improved maps and graphics, new exercises, shorter theory chapters, and refocused sections on environmental solutions* Discusses topics such as population and scarcity, commodities, environmental ethics, risks and hazards, and political economy and applies them to objects like bottled water, tuna, and trees* Accessible for students, and accompanied by in-book and online resources including exercises and boxed discussions, an online test bank, notes, suggested reading, and website links for enhanced understanding* Offers additional online support for instructors, including suggested teaching models, PowerPoint slides for each chapter with full-color graphics, and supplementary images and teaching material

List of contents

List of Figures ixList of Tables xiList of Boxes xiiAcknowledgments xiii1 Introduction: The View from a Human-Made Wilderness 1What Is This Book? 4The Authors' Points of View 7Part 1 Approaches and Perspectives 112 Population and Scarcity 13A Crowded Desert City 14The Problem of "Geometric" Growth 15Population, Development, and Environment Impact 17The Other Side of the Coin: Population and Innovation 20Limits to Population: An Effect Rather than a Cause? 22Thinking with Population 273 Markets and Commodities 31The Bet 32Managing Environmental Bads: The Coase Theorem 34Market Failure 37Market-Based Solutions to Environmental Problems 38Beyond Market Failure: Gaps between Nature and Economy 43Thinking with Markets 464 Institutions and "The Commons" 49Controlling Carbon? 50The Prisoner's Dilemma 50The Tragedy of the Commons 52The Evidence and Logic of Collective Action 54Crafting Sustainable Environmental Institutions 56Are All Commoners Equal? Does Scale Matter? 61Thinking with Institutions 625 Environmental Ethics 65The Price of Cheap Meat 66Improving Nature: From Biblical Tradition to John Locke 68Gifford Pinchot vs. John Muir in Yosemite, California 70Aldo Leopold and "The Land Ethic" 72Liberation for Animals! 75Holism, Scientism, and Other Pitfalls 77Thinking with Ethics 796 Risks and Hazards 82Great Floods 83Environments as Hazard 84The Problem of Risk Perception 86Risk as Culture 89Beyond Risk: The Political Economy of Hazards 90Thinking with Hazards and Risk 947 Political Economy 98The Strange Logic of "Under-pollution" 99Labor, Accumulation, and Crisis 100Production of Nature 107Global Capitalism and the Ecology of Uneven Development 109Social Reproduction and Nature 111Environments and Economism 115Thinking with Political Economy 1158 Social Construction of Nature 119Welcome to the Jungle 120So You Say It's "Natural"? 122Environmental Discourse 126The Limits of Constructivism: Science, Relativism, and the Very Material World 131Thinking with Construction 134Part 2 Objects of Concern 1399 Carbon Dioxide 141Stuck in Pittsburgh Traffic 142A Short History of CO2 143Institutions: Climate Free-Riders and Carbon Cooperation 149Markets: Trading More Gases, Buying Less Carbon 152Political Economy: Who Killed the Atmosphere? 157The Carbon Puzzle 16010 Trees 163Chained to a Tree in Berkeley, California 164A Short History of Trees 164Population and Markets: The Forest Transition Theory 172Political Economy: Accumulation and Deforestation 175Ethics, Justice, and Equity: Should Trees Have Standing? 177The Tree Puzzle 17911 Wolves 183The Death of 832F 184A Short History of Wolves 185Ethics: Rewilding and Wolves 191Institutions: Stakeholder Management 194Social Construction: Of Wolves and Men Masculinity 197The Wolf Puzzle 19912 Uranium 203Renaissance Derailed? 204A Short History of Uranium 205Risk and Hazards: Debating the Fate of High-Level Radioactive Waste 211Political Economy: Environmental Justice and the Navajo Nation 214The Social Construction of Nature: Discourses of Development and Wilderness in Australia 217The Uranium Puzzle 22013 Tuna 224Blood Tuna 225A Short History of Tuna 225Markets and Commodities: Eco-Labels to the Rescue? 230Political Economy: Re-regulating Fishery Economies 233Ethics: Saving Animals, Conserving Species 236The Tuna Puzzle 23914 Lawns 243How Much Do People Love Lawns? 244A Short History of Lawns 244Risk and Chemical Decision-Making 248Social Construction: Good Lawns Mean Good People 251Political Economy: The Chemical Tail Wags the Turfgrass Dog 253The Lawn Puzzle 25515 Bottled Water 259A Tale of Two Bottles 260A Short History of Bottled Water 261Population: Bottling for Scarcity? 266Risk: Health and Safety in a Bottle? 269Political Economy: Manufacturing Demand on an Enclosed Commons 272The Bottled Water Puzzle 27516 French Fries 279Getting Your French Fry Fix 280A Short History of the Fry 280Risk Analysis: Eating What We Choose and Choosing What We Eat 285Political Economy: Eat Fries or Else! 288Ethics: Protecting or Engineering Potato Heritage? 293The French Fry Puzzle 29617 E-Waste 299Digital Divides 300A Short History of E-Waste (2000) 301Risk Management and the Hazard of E-Waste 304E-Waste and Markets: From Externality to Commodity 306E-Waste and Environmental Justice: The Political Economy of E-Waste 310The E-Waste Puzzle 313Glossary 316Index 324

About the author

Paul Robbins is Professor and Director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin - Madison-. His research interests include understanding human-environment systems, the influence non-humans have on human behavior and organization, and the implications these interactions hold for ecosystem health, local communities, and social justice. He is the author of Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction, Second Edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) and Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are (2007).

John Hintz is Associate Professor of Environmental, Geographic, and Geological Sciences at the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. His current research focuses on land use conflicts, environmental policy, and the US environmental movement. He has published in a number of journals, including Capitalism Nature Socialism and Ethics, Place and Environment.

Sarah A. Moore is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Her research focuses on urban development politics, urban environmental issues, and environmental justice in the United States and Latin America. Her publications include articles in numerous journals including Progress in Human Geography, the Professional Geographer and Society and Natural Resources.

Summary

Students and instructors alike have hugely appreciated the innovative and engaging approach that the first edition of Environment and Society brought to the study of contemporary environmental challenges.

Report

new edition textbooks are not reviewed

Product details

• Authors: Joh Hintz, John Hintz, John G. Hintz, Sarah A Moore, Sarah A. Moore, Pau Robbins, Paul Robbins, Paul Hintz Robbins
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 24.01.2014
• EAN: 9781118451564
• ISBN: 978-1-118-45156-4
• No. of pages: 350
• Series: Critical Introductions to Geography; Critical Introductions to Geography
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; Soziologie, Umweltforschung, Umweltwissenschaften, Geographie, Sociology, Geography, Environmental Studies, Umweltsoziologie, Environmental Sociology, Environmental Geography, Environmental Science, Umweltgeographie