In Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist not only documents the rising tide of
biodiversity loss, but also lays out the drivers of this wholesale
destruction and how we can push past them. Looking beyond the familiar
litany of causes—a large and growing human population, rising
livestock numbers, expanding economies and international trade, and
spreading infrastructures and incursions upon wildlands—she asks the
key question: if we know human expansionism is to blame for this
ecological crisis, why are we not taking the needed steps to halt our
expansionism? Crist argues that to do so would require a two-pronged
approach. Scaling down calls upon us to lower the global human
population while working within a human-rights framework, to
deindustrialize food production, and to localize economies and
contract global trade. Pulling back calls upon us to free, restore,
reconnect, and rewild vast terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However,
the pervasive worldview of human supremacy—the conviction that
humans are superior to all other life-forms and entitled to use these
life-forms and their habitats—normalizes and promotes humanity’s
ongoing expansion, undermining our ability to enact these linked
strategies and preempt the mounting suffering and dislocation of both
humans and nonhumans. Abundant Earth urges us to confront the reality
that humanity will not advance by entrenching its domination over the
biosphere. On the contrary, we will stagnate in the identity of
nature-colonizer and decline into conflict as we vie for natural
resources. Instead, we must chart another course, choosing to live in
fellowship within the vibrant ecologies of our wild and domestic
cohorts, and enfolding human inhabitation within the rich expanse of a
biodiverse, living planet.
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Toward an Ecological Civilization
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226596945
Publisert
2023
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter