Introduction to the First Edition
I Environmental Anthropology
Early hominids: first modifications of natural systems
Hunter/gatherers: early domestication of animals
Pastoralists/Agriculturalists and the commons
Hydraulic Civilizations
Industrial Civilizations
Demographic transition vs the Malthusian curse
The Modern Era: the "Anthropocene"
II Environmental History
European deforestation
The Columbian Exchange
Colonialism and Disease
Empire and Diaspora
Changes on the Land
The Geography of Time: the sedimentation of practice
III Environmental Ethics and Philosophy
Non-western religions and Nature
Abrahamic religions and Nature
Utilitarianism and modernism
Wilderness and Transcendentalism
The Land Ethic: How much room for Nature?
Climate Conscious Action and Ethics
Animal Rights and the critique of the Omnivore
IV Environmental Economics
The growth economy and its contradictions
The limits of the neo-classical model: developmentalism and externalities
Market Failure and climate change
State interventions and the internalization of externalities
Natural capital and the circular economy
Steady-state and zero growth models
Radical theories of economic change, Marxist, anarchist
Class B Corporations and worker-owned businesses
Green Economy?
V Environmental Politics
TR, John Muir and Pinchot, conservationism vs preservationism
Rachel Carson and Silent Spring: the regulation of industrial society
Captive agencies and the limits of the regulatory state
Direct action and local resistance
Green Parties: successes and failures
Environmental Justice Movements
“Third wave” environmentalism
VI Environmental Sociology, Politics and Activism
The logic of collective action reconsidered
Environmental Justice: Race and Class
VII Political Ecology
Natural Systems and political economy
Murray Bookchin’s social ecology
Natural resource exploitation and global linkages
Large-scale infrastructure projects, corporations and the state
Tourism and the obliteration of the local
The telescoping of time and space
Nested practices and the failure of adaptability
VIII Environmental Law
Traditional law and the rights of access
Anglo-Saxon concepts of property and the crown
Napoleonic concepts of property and the state
American environmental law: a history
Major Enabling legislation in the US: 1961-2020
Key cases in US environmental law: standing.
The limits of private property assertions: Takings and the SCOTUS
Class action and injured party
Environmental Law and the struggle for Justice
Compliance with international treaties
IX Environmental Policy
Government branches and conflicts over environmental legislation
Policy Formulation and federal and state legislative bodies
Enforcement agencies and implementation of statutes and laws
Citizens, NGOs and lawyers: the strategy for protecting the environment in the US
The undermining of scientific expertise in the Trump era
Grassroots movements and the shaping of environmental policy: the case of fracking
Sustainable futures and ways to get there: the sustainability model.
X International Regulatory Regimes
Internationalism, the UN and other multilateral agreements
XI Climate Change Policies: the need for urgency
IPCC: From The Kyoto Accord to the Paris Accord and since
The Green New Deal
Cap and trade vs carbon tax
The Risks of Fossil Fuel Investments: the argument for divestment
Decarbonization and renewable energy
Carbon Capture and Geo-engineering
Rethinking affluence: downsizing the consumer society and designing sustainably
Education and Climate Change: the psychological challenge
XII Natural Resource Management and the Environment
Rangelands, grasslands and the BLM
Public Lands and Fossil Fuels Under Obama and Trump
Forests and Deforestation
Wildlands and National Parks: the role of the federal government
Marine Protected Areas
Oceans and Plastic, overfishing and pollution
Coastal Zone Management and Tourism: rising sea levels
Navigable waterways and federal regulations
XIII Food, Agriculture and Rural Development
The “Green Revolution” and the global Industrialization of agriculture
Capitalism on the Farm: the modern configuration of land, labor and capital
The decanting of the rural sector in the US
“Modernization” Programs of the World Bank
Modern agri-food systems
Food security vs food sovereignty in the developing world
Riverbasin Development in Africa
GMOs and corporate control of agricultural production from the seedling to the shelf
The modern affluent diet vs sustainability
The agroecological choice, regenerative agriculture
XIV Toxics and Waste
Love Canal and Superfund
Brownfields and remediation
Pesticides, ecosystems and human health
Oil spills on land and sea
Plastic waste
Municipal Solid Waste and Recycling
Hazardous Waste
XV Energy Policy and Sustainability
"Fracking" and drilling and mountaintop removal
Phasing out fossil fuels as quickly as possible
Decarbonization and the retooling of the fossil fuel labor market
Ramping up renewables: solar and wind
Is Waste-to-Energy possible as non-toxic electrical generation?
Is there a role for nuclear after Fukushima?
Battery storage and microgrids: resilience at the local level
XVI Urban and Regional Planning and the Environment
Urban populations and the biggest shift in the history of the species
Transportation systems and climate goals
Housing the homeless: the city for all residents
Can the city be sustainable?
Watersheds and wastesheds
New Urbanism: the case of Los Angeles
The importance of the Chinese experience
XVII Environmental Education
Early childhood development and empathy: the role of the natural world
K-12 education in the US: the environmental curriculum
Social Media, Broadcasting and mass communication education
Professional training for green collar jobs
Environmental careers in higher education
Decolonizing environmental studies: Is there an environmental canon?
XVIII Whither the Anthropocene?
Future scenarios of environmental change
Dystopias and the psychology of desperation
Naomi Klein “This changes everything”
Saving the World for wild animals and plants: half the planet
Dematerialization and decarbonization: reshaping consumption
Sustainability by the end of the century
Paying our ecological debt
I Environmental Anthropology
Early hominids: first modifications of natural systems
Hunter/gatherers: early domestication of animals
Pastoralists/Agriculturalists and the commons
Hydraulic Civilizations
Industrial Civilizations
Demographic transition vs the Malthusian curse
The Modern Era: the "Anthropocene"
II Environmental History
European deforestation
The Columbian Exchange
Colonialism and Disease
Empire and Diaspora
Changes on the Land
The Geography of Time: the sedimentation of practice
III Environmental Ethics and Philosophy
Non-western religions and Nature
Abrahamic religions and Nature
Utilitarianism and modernism
Wilderness and Transcendentalism
The Land Ethic: How much room for Nature?
Climate Conscious Action and Ethics
Animal Rights and the critique of the Omnivore
IV Environmental Economics
The growth economy and its contradictions
The limits of the neo-classical model: developmentalism and externalities
Market Failure and climate change
State interventions and the internalization of externalities
Natural capital and the circular economy
Steady-state and zero growth models
Radical theories of economic change, Marxist, anarchist
Class B Corporations and worker-owned businesses
Green Economy?
V Environmental Politics
TR, John Muir and Pinchot, conservationism vs preservationism
Rachel Carson and Silent Spring: the regulation of industrial society
Captive agencies and the limits of the regulatory state
Direct action and local resistance
Green Parties: successes and failures
Environmental Justice Movements
“Third wave” environmentalism
VI Environmental Sociology, Politics and Activism
The logic of collective action reconsidered
- Chipko Movement
- Social Movements and advocacy: 350.org
- Extinction Rebellion, Sunrise Movement, Climate Justice
- Resistance to hydrodams and violence in "South" countries
- Resisting oil drilling and Mining operations in the rainforest.
Environmental Justice: Race and Class
VII Political Ecology
Natural Systems and political economy
Murray Bookchin’s social ecology
Natural resource exploitation and global linkages
Large-scale infrastructure projects, corporations and the state
Tourism and the obliteration of the local
The telescoping of time and space
Nested practices and the failure of adaptability
VIII Environmental Law
Traditional law and the rights of access
Anglo-Saxon concepts of property and the crown
Napoleonic concepts of property and the state
American environmental law: a history
Major Enabling legislation in the US: 1961-2020
Key cases in US environmental law: standing.
The limits of private property assertions: Takings and the SCOTUS
Class action and injured party
Environmental Law and the struggle for Justice
Compliance with international treaties
IX Environmental Policy
Government branches and conflicts over environmental legislation
Policy Formulation and federal and state legislative bodies
Enforcement agencies and implementation of statutes and laws
Citizens, NGOs and lawyers: the strategy for protecting the environment in the US
The undermining of scientific expertise in the Trump era
Grassroots movements and the shaping of environmental policy: the case of fracking
Sustainable futures and ways to get there: the sustainability model.
X International Regulatory Regimes
Internationalism, the UN and other multilateral agreements
- UCLOS and Traditional Maritime Laws and contemporary challenges
- Wetlands
- Mining
- Nuclear Testing
- Ozone depletion causing chemicals
- CITES and other treaties on wildlife protection and ecological conservation.
- Transboundary movement of toxics
- Agenda 21 and "Sustainable Development"
- Convention on Biodiversity
XI Climate Change Policies: the need for urgency
IPCC: From The Kyoto Accord to the Paris Accord and since
The Green New Deal
Cap and trade vs carbon tax
The Risks of Fossil Fuel Investments: the argument for divestment
Decarbonization and renewable energy
Carbon Capture and Geo-engineering
Rethinking affluence: downsizing the consumer society and designing sustainably
Education and Climate Change: the psychological challenge
XII Natural Resource Management and the Environment
Rangelands, grasslands and the BLM
Public Lands and Fossil Fuels Under Obama and Trump
Forests and Deforestation
Wildlands and National Parks: the role of the federal government
Marine Protected Areas
Oceans and Plastic, overfishing and pollution
Coastal Zone Management and Tourism: rising sea levels
Navigable waterways and federal regulations
XIII Food, Agriculture and Rural Development
The “Green Revolution” and the global Industrialization of agriculture
Capitalism on the Farm: the modern configuration of land, labor and capital
The decanting of the rural sector in the US
“Modernization” Programs of the World Bank
Modern agri-food systems
Food security vs food sovereignty in the developing world
Riverbasin Development in Africa
GMOs and corporate control of agricultural production from the seedling to the shelf
The modern affluent diet vs sustainability
The agroecological choice, regenerative agriculture
XIV Toxics and Waste
Love Canal and Superfund
Brownfields and remediation
Pesticides, ecosystems and human health
Oil spills on land and sea
Plastic waste
Municipal Solid Waste and Recycling
Hazardous Waste
XV Energy Policy and Sustainability
"Fracking" and drilling and mountaintop removal
Phasing out fossil fuels as quickly as possible
Decarbonization and the retooling of the fossil fuel labor market
Ramping up renewables: solar and wind
Is Waste-to-Energy possible as non-toxic electrical generation?
Is there a role for nuclear after Fukushima?
Battery storage and microgrids: resilience at the local level
XVI Urban and Regional Planning and the Environment
Urban populations and the biggest shift in the history of the species
Transportation systems and climate goals
Housing the homeless: the city for all residents
Can the city be sustainable?
Watersheds and wastesheds
New Urbanism: the case of Los Angeles
The importance of the Chinese experience
XVII Environmental Education
Early childhood development and empathy: the role of the natural world
K-12 education in the US: the environmental curriculum
Social Media, Broadcasting and mass communication education
Professional training for green collar jobs
Environmental careers in higher education
Decolonizing environmental studies: Is there an environmental canon?
XVIII Whither the Anthropocene?
Future scenarios of environmental change
Dystopias and the psychology of desperation
Naomi Klein “This changes everything”
Saving the World for wild animals and plants: half the planet
Dematerialization and decarbonization: reshaping consumption
Sustainability by the end of the century
Paying our ecological debt
