Feminism Capitalism and Ecology

2007

Apocalyptic visions of resource exhaustion forcing capitalism's final crisis rest upon overly narrow understandings of what, exactly, constitute natural resources. Natural resources are posited to be out there, natural things that can be picked up, cut down, mined or otherwise gathered, processed, and used. They are finite, and once used up will be gone. There is some hedging of this position, of course: forests can be re-planted, tin cans and bottles can be recycled. But this view takes resources to be strictly natural, rather than just as much social. That is, it overlooks how things found in the natural world only become useful to human societies in the context of particular socio-technical frameworks. It thus fails to adequately grasp technology and especially the dynamism of technological innovation and change under capitalism. Furthermore, these visions of final crisis tend to confuse particular manifestations of capitalism--that is, particular historical social formations...

Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 2012

a powerful statement in their latest collaboration, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism. The book was conceived after a huge response to their article of the same name, originally published in the Monthly Review March 2010 issue. The book opens with an unapologetic stance by its authors against capitalism. They unequivocally remark that any suggestion that 'capitalism offers the solution to the environmental problem. .. (is) rooted in an absolute denial of reality' (pp. 7-8). The tone for the book is quickly established through early calls for revolutionary action, as seen on page 8: 'Put simply, it is essential to break with a system based on a single motive-the perpetual accumulation of capital. .. Such a break is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for the creation of a new ecological civilisation'; and again on page 9: '(I)f humanity is going to survive this crisis, it will do so because it has exercised its capacity for human freedom, through social struggle, in order to create a whole new world-in coevolution with the planet.' What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism is an important book on many levels. The authors' ability to condense a large number of very complex environmental issues in a short and concise manner is commendable. Large-scale environmental issues provide context to the magnitude of the problem, while localised examples of devastation provide strong arguments for its impact, cause for concern and urgent need to respond. The obvious need to do something about the horrendous environmental impact of our consumption also begs the question why the title restricts the readership to environmentalists when it is obvious that every citizen needs to understand the seriousness of the ecological issues facing our planet. Perhaps instead its subtitle, A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment, is more apt. Equally, the graphic but justified description of the tyranny of capitalism is a reality that all citizens, not just environmentalists, should be exposed to. As the book continues, the enormity of the catastrophic nature of the villainous character of 'capitalism' unfolds. The villain, large in size and power, seeks to conquer all in pursuit of profits. Capitalism is portrayed as forcing powerless workers to work for less on tasks their conscience doesn't agree with, while forcing out socially and environmentally spirited independent companies in the name of expansion and growth. Reports of capitalism's ever-expanding and insatiable appetite to grow by any means are

Futures, 2004

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 2012

Global Environmental Change, 2011

IPPR Progressive Review, 2017

Why does it seem easier to imagine the end of the world than to see the end of capitalism? Part of the answer turns on a rift between radical economic and ecological thought.

Capitalism and Environmental Collapse, 2020

This book intends to be an alert to the fact that the curve measuring environmental costs against the economic benefits of capitalism has irreversibly entered into a negative phase. The prospect of an environmental collapse has been evidenced by the sciences and the humanities since the 1960s. Today, it imposes its urgency. This collapse differs from past civilizations in that it is neither local nor just civilizational. It is global and occurs at the broadest level of the biosphere, accelerated by the convergence of different socio-environmental crises, such as: Earth energy imbalance, climate change and global warming, sea-level rise, decrease and degradation of forests, collapse of terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, floods, droughts, wildfires, and extreme weather events, degradation of soils and water resources, increase in pollution caused by fossil fuels and coal Increase in waste production and industrial intoxication. This is the PDF of the book.

Ethnos, 2018

Capitalist enterprise is transforming the world, reshaping the registers of what Félix Guattari (2000) has called the three ecologies: namely those of the environment, of social relations, and of human subjectivity. Put differently, the ecologies of both humans and nonhumans are being radically made and unmade according to the logics of capitalism. If this is true, there is a need to critically theorise, conceptualise, and empirically study this (un)making, to bring the dynamics of capitalism and those of human and nonhuman ecologies into the same analytical frame. This would arguably mean reframing both what capitalism and what ecology might mean, allowing ecological thinking to reorient the study of capitalism and new kinds of capitalist critique to infuse the study of ecological crisis. It would mean rethinking the divide between the human and the nonhuman. Finally, it would mean questioning not only the unity of capitalist logic and capitalist economy (Bear et al. 2015) but also the teleology of capitalist history. For even though liberal and democratic capitalism is a hegemonic political presence in the world, its status today is hardly the victory march imagined by Francis Fukuyama and others not so long ago (Fukuyama 1992). In the shadow of ecological and climatic crisis, capitalism has become haunted by an apocalyptic overtone. The victorious end of history to many now feels more like the end of the world. How are we to study the present in a world where the future is not what it used to be? And what does it mean for the study of capitalism that the biggest challenge to it is not an existing 'political other' (such as Communism) but an 'ecological other', an unknown formation sometimes called Gaia (Lovelock and Margulis 1974; Latour 2017) and sometimes the Anthropocene? Anthropologists have taken up the challenge of studying how the political and ecological otherwise emerges amidst the global rubble of capitalist ruination (

Nature and capitalism are two incompatible entities and they have always been in opposition to each other. Owing to the capitalist development, nature is exploited and sacrificed. Relentless capitalist development induces irreversible destruction to our nature, which allows people to acknowledge the defects of capitalist system and seek possible measures to tackle this grave problem. A prosperous, growing, and safe country needs water, clean air, forests, and arable land. Under current trends, these components of the natural resource base threaten to decline substantially as population and per capita incomes rise. Food security and human health are all likely to weaken if natural resources are not protected. Owing to the emergence of these environmental catastrophes, people start to notice the failing and unpromising aspects of capitalism and they endeavor to seek measures to alter capitalist system which is fraught with flaws and problems. Capitalism is capable of assimilating the opposing forces and crises so that it can continue to develop. In light of this, the intent of this paper is to expose the challenges of capitalism in the face of ecological crises. Despite these potential challenges, the assimilating power of capitalism reinforces its incessant development. Valid and authentic reports, journals, books and other related material is utilized for the preparation of this research paper. In the concluding part of the paper few suggestions will be provided. Key Words: Capitalism, environment, consumerism, sustainable development, natural resources.