People and Nature - An Introduction to Human Ecological Relations

Now updated and expanded, People and Nature is a lively, accessible introduction to environmental anthropology that focuses on the interactions between people, culture, and nature around the world.
* Written by a respected scholar in environmental anthropology with a multi-disciplinary focus that also draws from geography, ecology, and environmental studies
* Addresses new issues of importance, including climate change, population change, the rise of the slow food and farm-to-table movements, and consumer-driven shifts in sustainability
* Explains key theoretical issues in the field, as well as the most important research, at a level appropriate for readers coming to the topic for the first time
* Discusses the challenges in ensuring a livable future for generations to come and explores solutions for correcting the damage already done to the environment
* Offers a powerful, hopeful future vision for improved relations between humans and nature that embraces the idea of community needs rather than consumption wants, and the importance of building trust as a foundation for a sustainable future

List of contents

Preface to the Second Edition x
 
Acknowledgments xiii
 
1 Human Agency and the State of the Earth 1
 
Introduction 1
 
Can One Conceive of Ecosystems Without Human Agents? 11
 
Human Agency: Individuals Making a Difference 14
 
Overwhelming Evidence for Concern with the Condition of the Earth System 17
 
Looking Back and Looking Forward 26
 
Additional Resources 27
 
References 28
 
2 A Reminder: How Things Were... 33
 
The Study of Human Ecological Relations 33
 
The Contemporary Study of Environmental Issues: The Rise of Cross?]Disciplinary Team?]Based Approaches 39
 
The Evolution of Human-Environment Interactions 47
 
Hunter?]Gatherers: Setting Our Preferences 52
 
How Did We Decide to Become Farmers? 56
 
Herding and Farming: An Uneasy Relationship 59
 
More Food for the Masses 61
 
Additional Resources 64
 
References 64
 
3 The Great Forgetting 75
 
Earth Transformations in Prehistory 75
 
The Archeology of Environmental Change 83
 
The Urban-Industrial Revolution and the Unleashing of Prometheus 86
 
The Contemporary Situation: Human?]Dominated Ecosystems 89
 
Additional Resources 91
 
References 92
 
4 The Web of Life: Are We In It? 96
 
The Web of Life and Trophic Relations: Thinking Ecologically 96
 
Ecosystem Productivity and Net Primary Production 103
 
Land Use and Long?]Term Disturbance 105
 
Additional Resources 117
 
References 117
 
5 What Makes People Do That? 122
 
Learning, Adaptation, and Information 122
 
Mitigation and the Cautionary Principle 135
 
Transforming the Face of the Earth: Making Better Decisions 136
 
Additional Resources 139
 
References 140
 
6 Population and Environment 145
 
Theories about Population 146
 
The Demographic Transition 147
 
Aging and International Flows of Labor 150
 
Addressing the Needs of 10 Billion People 153
 
Changing the Population and Environment Nexus 159
 
Additional Resources 162
 
References 163
 
7 Rebuilding Communities and Institutions 166
 
Community in Human Evolution 166
 
What is Sacred in Human Evolution? 169
 
Tragedies of the Commons 172
 
Institutions and Self?]Organization 176
 
Bioregionalism, Deep Ecology, and Embedding People in Nature 180
 
Additional Resources 182
 
References 183
 
8 Can We Learn When We Have Enough? 188
 
Material Boys and Material Girls 188
 
Patterns of Consumption in Developed Countries 189
 
Patterns of Consumption in Developing Countries 196
 
A Feeding Frenzy and a Crisis in Public Health 200
 
Burning Fossil Fuels instead of Calories 202
 
Do We Have Enough Material Goods Now? 205
 
Additional Resources 207
 
References 208
 
9 Quality of Life: When Less Is More 210
 
Resource Abundance versus Resource Scarcity 210
 
When Less is More 220
 
The Scale of the Problem and the Scale of the Solution 229
 
Restoring Our Balance: Valuing Community and Trust 233
 
Are We Happier When We Have More? 238
 
References 241
 
Index 244

About the author

Emilio F. Moran is John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor at the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, the Center for System Integration and Sustainability, and the Department of Geography at Michigan State University, USA. Until 2012, he was Distinguished Professor and the James H. Rudy Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, USA. He is the author of ten books, fifteen edited volumes, and more than 190 journal articles and book chapters, which address human interaction with the environment under conditions of change. Most recently, he is the author of Environmental Social Science: Human-Environment Interactions and Sustainability(Wiley Blackwell, 2010). He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Applied Anthropology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010.

Summary

Now updated and expanded, People and Nature is a lively, accessible introduction to environmental anthropology that focuses on the interactions between people, culture, and nature around the world.

Report

Exceedingly welcome, highly readable and very much up to date, People and Nature plumbs the complex environmental challenge we have created, but also lights the ways forward to reconciliation between humanity and the environment.
Thomas E. Lovejoy, George Mason University
 
Addresses the reciprocal interactions between people and nature, highlighting the current urgency of many global situations ... there are no truly global solutions, instead, the author discusses the large variety of possible pathways and strategies we, as a society, can take to achieve sustainability. The second edition adds and expands discussion of the challenges to sustainability, the crisis of the growing human population, and climate change. People and Nature fills an ever-increasing need in addressing our current global environmental problems - tied to past, current and future societal issues and behaviors.
Jane Southworth, University of Florida

Product details

• Authors: Emilio F Moran, Emilio F. Moran, Emilio F. (Michigan State University Moran, Moran Emilio F.
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.08.2016
• EAN: 9781118877470
• ISBN: 978-1-118-87747-0
• No. of pages: 272
• Series: Primers in Anthropology
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); Anthropologie, Umweltforschung, Anthropogeographie, Geographie, Geography, Anthropology, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Allg. Anthropologie, Allg. Umweltforschung