This book should be read by every student and teacher, unionist and business leader, and grassroots activist and politician. It will convince even the most hardened climate denialist. Baer's vigorous transdisciplinary analysis of global warming spells out the science, amplifies our political options for the future, and makes it very clear that ‘green capitalism’ trading in credits for ‘hot air’ will certainly not be enough.
- Ariel Salleh, Political Economy, University of Sydney, author of Ecofeminism as Politics,
The virtue of Hans Baer's Global Capitalism and Climate Change is its realism—not the crackpot realism that is simply another form of denial, but the realist search for an alternative beyond today's capitalist climate catastrophe. In his concrete and relentless examination of the social aspects of the climate problem, Baer has few, if any, equals.
- John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review, and author with Fred Magdoff of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism,
Global Capitalism and Climate Change is an impressive work of scholarship, which draws on the work of a huge array of ecological writers and theorists. But the book also includes a meticulous analysis of the climate justice movement, in Australia and globally. Baer says this movement must develop into a much stronger global force if we are to have any hope of overcoming capitalism and solving the climate crisis. Compared to most books published about climate change, Baer’s book is striking for its analytic rigour and its political commitment. It is easy to agree with Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster, who said of the book: ‘In his concrete and relentless examination of the social aspects of the climate problem, Baer has few, if any, equals.
Climate & Capitalism
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Impact of Climate Change on the Environment and Human Societies
Chapter 2: The Capitalist World System and its Contradictions
Chapter 3: The Capitalist Treadmill of Production and Consumption as a Generator of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Chapter 4: The Inadequacies of Existing Climate Regimes for Mitigating Climate Change
Chapter 5: Why Green Capitalism is Insufficient to Mitigate Climate Change
Chapter 6: A Vision of an Alternative World System: Toward Global Democracy Based on Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability
Chapter 7: Toward an Ecological Revolution: Progressive Transitional Reforms
Chapter 8: Grass-roots Responses to the Climate Change: Internationally, Nationally, and Locally
Chapter 9: Conclusion
Resource Guide
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
The Globalization and the Environment Series publishes new books about the global spread of environmental problems. Key themes addressed are the effects of cultural and economic globalization on the environment; the global institutions and movements that regulate and change human relations with the environment; the global nature of environmental governance, movements, and activism; and new conceptual and theoretical frameworks that will cross boundaries of disciplines, methods, and locales. The series will include detailed case studies, innovative multi-sited research, and theoretical questioning of the concepts of globalization and the environment. At the center of the series is an exploration of the multiple linkages that connect people, problems, and solutions at scales beyond the local and regional.
Series Editors: Richard Wilk and Josiah Heyman