Author: Murray BookchinPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
Author: Murray Bookchin
Author: Lewis HerberThe Philosophy of Social Ecology
Author: Murray BookchinPublisher: AK Press
ISBN: 1849354413
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127
Book Description
What is nature? What is humanity's place in nature? And what is the relationship of society to the natural world? In an era of ecological breakdown, answering these questions has become of momentous importance for our everyday lives and for the future that we and other life-forms face. In the essays of The Philosophy of Social Ecology, Murray Bookchin confronts these questions head on: invoking the ideas of mutualism, self-organization, and unity in diversity, in the service of ever expanding freedom. Refreshingly polemical and deeply philosophical, they take issue with technocratic and mechanistic ways of understanding and relating to, and within, nature. More importantly, they develop a solid, historically and politically based ethical foundation for social ecology, the field that Bookchin himself created and that offers us hope in the midst of our climate catastrophe.
The Ecology of Freedom
Author: Murray BookchinPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
The Ecology of Freedom, his most exciting and far-reaching work yet. This engaging and extremely readable book's scope is downright breathtaking. Using an inspired synthesis of ecology, anthropology, philosophy and political theory, it traces our society's conflicting legacies of freedom and domination, from the first emergence of human culture to today's global capitalism. The theme of Bookchin's grand historical narrative is straightforward: environmental, economic and political devastation are born at the moment that human societies begin to organize themselves hierarchically. And, despite the nuance and detail of his arguments, the lesson to be learned is just as basic: our nightmare will continue until hierarchy is dissolved and human beings develop more sane, sustainable and egalitarian social structures. The Ecology of Freedom is indispensable reading for anyone who's tired of living in a world where everything, and everyone, is an exploitable resource. It includes a brand new preface by the author. Book jacket.
The Synthetic Age
Author: Christopher J. PrestonPublisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262537095
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
Imagining a future in which humans fundamentally reshape the natural world using nanotechnology, synthetic biology, de-extinction, and climate engineering. We have all heard that there are no longer any places left on Earth untouched by humans. The significance of this goes beyond statistics documenting melting glaciers and shrinking species counts. It signals a new geological epoch. In The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston argues that what is most startling about this coming epoch is not only how much impact humans have had but, more important, how much deliberate shaping they will start to do. Emerging technologies promise to give us the power to take over some of Nature's most basic operations. It is not just that we are exiting the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene; it is that we are leaving behind the time in which planetary change is just the unintended consequence of unbridled industrialism. A world designed by engineers and technicians means the birth of the planet's first Synthetic Age. Preston describes a range of technologies that will reconfigure Earth's very metabolism: nanotechnologies that can restructure natural forms of matter; “molecular manufacturing” that offers unlimited repurposing; synthetic biology's potential to build, not just read, a genome; “biological mini-machines” that can outdesign evolution; the relocation and resurrection of species; and climate engineering attempts to manage solar radiation by synthesizing a volcanic haze, cool surface temperatures by increasing the brightness of clouds, and remove carbon from the atmosphere with artificial trees that capture carbon from the breeze. What does it mean when humans shift from being caretakers of the Earth to being shapers of it? And in whom should we trust to decide the contours of our synthetic future? These questions are too important to be left to the engineers.
Ecology or Catastrophe
Author: Janet BiehlPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199342490
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Murray Bookchin was not only one of the most significant and influential environmental philosophers of the twentieth century--he was also one of the most prescient. From industrial agriculture to nuclear radiation, Bookchin has been at the forefront of every major ecological issue since the very beginning, often proposing a solution before most people even recognized there was a problem. Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin is the first biography of this groundbreaking environmental and political thinker. Author Janet Biehl worked as his collaborator and copyeditor for 19 years, editing his every word. Thanks to her extensive personal history with Bookchin as well as her access to his papers and archival research, Ecology or Catastrophe offers unique insight into his personal and professional life. Founder of the social ecology movement, Bookchin first started raising environmental issues in 1952. He foresaw global warming in the 1960s and even then argued that we should look into renewable energy sources as an alternative to fossil fuels. Wary of pesticides and other chemicals used in industrial agriculture, he was also an early advocate of small-scale organic farming, which has developed into the present locavore movement and the revival of organic markets. Even Occupy can trace the origins of its leaderless structure and general assemblies to the nonhierarchical organizational form Bookchin developed as a libertarian socialist. Bookchin believed that social and ecological issues were deeply intertwined. Convinced that capitalism pushes businesses to maximize profits and ignore humanist concerns, he argued that eco-crises could be resolved by a new social arrangement. His solution was Communalism, a new form of libertarian socialism that he developed. An optimist and utopian, Bookchin believed in the potentiality for human beings to use reason to solve all social and ecological problems.
3D Synthetic Environment Reconstruction
Author: Mahdi AbdelguerfiPublisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441987568
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Although synthetic environments were traditionally used in military settings for mission rehearsal and simulations, their use is rapidly spreading to a variety of applications in the commercial, research and industrial sectors, such as flight training for commercial aircraft, city planning, car safety research in real-time traffic simulations, and video games. 3D Synthetic Environment Reconstruction contains seven invited chapters from leading experts in the field, bringing together a coherent body of recent knowledge relating 3D geospatial data collection, design issues, and techniques used in synthetic environments design, implementation and interoperability. In particular, this book describes new techniques for the generation of Synthetic Environments with increased resolution and rich attribution, both essential for accurate modeling and simulation. This book also deals with interoperability of models and simulations, which is necessary for facilitating the reuse of modeling and simulation components. 3D Synthetic Environment Reconstruction is an excellent reference for researchers and practitioners in the field.
Risk on the Table
Author: Angela N. H. CreagerPublisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1805399128
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
Over the last century, the industrialization of agriculture and processing technologies have made food abundant and relatively inexpensive for much of the world’s population. Simultaneously, pesticides, nitrates, and other technological innovations intended to improve the food supply’s productivity and safety have generated new, often poorly understood risks for consumers and the environment. From the proliferation of synthetic additives to the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the chapters in Risk on the Table zero in on key historical cases in North America and Europe that illuminate the history of food safety, highlighting the powerful tensions that exists among scientific understandings of risk, policymakers’ decisions, and cultural notions of “pure” food.
Silent Spring
Author: Rachel CarsonPublisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618249060
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
The essential, cornerstone book of modern environmentalism is now offered in a handsome 40th anniversary edition which features a new Introduction by activist Terry Tempest Williams and a new Afterword by Carson biographer Linda Lear.
