Since the atomic bomb made its first appearance on the world stage in 1945, it has been clear that we possess the power to destroy our own planet. What nuclear weapons made possible, global environmental crisis, marked especially by global warming, has now made inevitable—if business as usual continues.
Tag Archives | Brett Clark
Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift
The concept of ecological imperialism is seemingly unavoidable in our time. Obvious cases are all around us. One is the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which is at least partly over oil. Instances of ecological imperialism do not, how- ever, stop with Iraq. Whether it is the renewed scramble for Africa, the flooding of the […]
Critique of Intelligent Design
Critique of Intelligent Design is a direct reply to the criticisms of intelligent design proponents and a compelling account of the long debate between materialism and religion in the West. It provides an overview of the contemporary fight concerning nature, science, history, morality, and knowledge. Separate chapters are devoted to the design debate in antiquity, […]
The Sociology of Ecology
Environmental sociology has been divided in recent years by a debate between realists and constructionists centering on the knowledge claims of ecological science. Following a consid- eration of this debate and its relation to both environmental sociology and the “sociology of ecology,” a “realist constructionism” is advanced, taking as its concrete case the conflict in […]
Ecology
By John Bellamy Foster on July 1, 2008 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
It is impossible to exaggerate the environmental problem facing humanity in the twenty-first century. Nearly fifteen years ago one of us observed: “We have only four decades left in which to gain control over our major environmental problems if we are to avoid irreversible ecological decline.” Today, with a quarter-century still remaining in this projected […]
Rachel Carson’s Ecological Critique
By John Bellamy Foster on February 1, 2008 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
Rachel Carson was born just over 100 years ago in 1907. Her most famous book Silent Spring, published in 1962, is often seen as marking the birth of the modern environmental movement. Although an immense amount has been written about Carson and her work, the fact that she was objectively a “woman of the left” […]
The Critique of Intelligent Design
A new version of the age-old controversy between religion and science has been launched by today’s intelligent design movement. Although ostensibly concerned simply with combating Darwinism, this new creationism seeks to drive a “wedge” into the materialist view of the world, originating with the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and manifested in modern times by Darwin, […]
The Environmental Conditions of the Working Class: An Introduction to Selections from Fredrick Engles’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
Both urban sociology in general and urban environmental justice studies began with Frederick Engels’s seminal work The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Engels provided a walking tour of the environmental conditions in the manufacturing establishments and slums of the factory towns of England, together with a similar view of London. He […]
Empire of Barbarism
By John Bellamy Foster on December 1, 2004 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
“A new age of barbarism is upon us.” These were the opening words of an editorial in the September 20, 2004, issue of Business Week clearly designed to stoke the flames of anti-terrorist hysteria. Pointing to the murder of schoolchildren in Russia, women and children killed on buses in Israel, the beheading of American, Turkish, […]
Ecological Imperialism
“Ecological Imperialism: The Curse of Capitalism,” (coauthored with Brett Clark), In Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, ed., The Socialist Register, 2004 (London: Merlin Press, 2004), pp. 230-46. Translations: Catalan translation in Corrent Roig, June 6, 2010, http://www.correntroig.org. Spanish translation in El Nuevo Desafío Imperial: Socialist Register 2004 (Clasco, February 2005). Portugese translation in O Novo Desafio […]
