How Much Should A Person Consume? : Thinking Through The Environment

How Much Should A Person Consume? : Thinking Through The Environment
Author: Ramachandra Guha
Publisher:
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre:
ISBN: 9789350092590

About the Book : - Based on research conducted over two decades, this accessible and deeply felt book provides a provocative comparative history of environmentalism in two large ecologically and culturally diverse democracies India and the United States. Ramachandra Guha takes as his point of departure the dominant environmental philosophies in these two countries identified as agrarianism in India and wilderness thinking in the United States. Proposing an inclusive social ecology framework that goes beyond these partisan ideologies, Guha arrives at a richer understanding of controversies over large dams, state forests, wildlife reserves, and more. He offers trenchant critiques of privileged and isolationist proponents of conservation, persuasively arguing for biospheres that care as much for humans as for other species. He also provides profiles of three remarkable environmental thinkers and activists Lewis Mumford, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, and Madhav Gadgil. Finally, the author asks the fundamental environmental question how much should a person or country consume? and explores a range of answers. About the Author : - Ramachandra Guha has taught at Stanford and Yale universities. He has been a Sundaraja Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, and Indo-American Community Chair Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. A pioneer in the field of environmental history, he is the author of The Unquiet Woods (University of California Press), among other books. His work on modern Indian history, India after Gandhi (Ecco) has been critically acclaimed. His essays have been widely anthologized and translated. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2009.

Governing Environment

Governing Environment
Author: Sanjay Sharma
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2016-04-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1443892491

This book comparatively analyses the federal policies and financing of India and Canada. It examines whether federalism as a system of governance is better suited to deal with environmental questions. It operates from the assumption that federalism can provide an effective solution to the emerging concerns of the environment because it essentially provides a model of disaggregated governance without any extensive and intrusive mark of hierarchy. It presents a uniquely exploration of environmental governance from this hitherto under-researched perspective, and simultaneously, in order to provide a better conceptual understanding, examines the different theories of federalism and modes of distribution of powers, authorities and functions. Given their symmetrical federal experiences, India and Canada naturally qualify as the domain of study, with both being known as twin federal nations. Issues of environment have been factorised and classified according to their critical significance in terms of policy choices. The combinatorial structure has been evaluated in terms of better federal management of environment. In the process, many new dimensions of federalism and environment have emerged, which may contribute to the critical mass of knowledge on the subject. This book makes a departure from the general mono-construction of the environment as a restricted unit of knowledge available only to a specialist. Broadly following an interdisciplinary logic of formation of idea, this study is highly relevant in generating a new perspective on environmental research. It defines environment as a system which requires careful redrafting and reworking of three structures of relationships, namely between man and environment, between resource community and the state, and between inter-governmental contestations.

Reframing the Environment

Reframing the Environment
Author: Manisha Rao
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2020-09-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000191257

This volume unravels the underlying power relations that are masked in the present discourse of ecological sustainability and conflicts over natural resources. Current discussions on environment emphasise the use and abuse of the environment in various ways. This book looks at the inter-linkages of discourse, resources, risk and resistance in the contemporary neoliberal world. While exploring the experiences of neoliberalisation of nature in India, it brings out the intersections of conservation and management, science and gender, community politics and governance policies. The volume highlights the cultural politics of resistance from multiple sites and regions in India in the recent context (be it land, water, forest, flora or fauna or urban commons). It discusses the ways in which environmental issues have come up and been appropriated, while examining the role of the State and actors such as corporates, traders, consultants, ecotourism companies, green activists and consumers, and consequences of ‘green’ appropriation and the ‘growth’ story. The major themes of the volume are the interrelations of nature, culture and power; neoliberal governance and the environment; access to and use and management of land, natural resources and environment; community politics and livelihoods; marginalised groups and local communities; marketisation and the environment; and new forms of re-appropriation and resistance. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in sociology, environmental studies, environmental history, environmental anthropology, political ecology, political science, geography, law and human rights, economics and development studies as well as to environmental activists, policy makers and those in media and journalism.

Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia

Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia
Author: Joshua Lockyer
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2013-04-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0857458809

In order to move global society towards a sustainable “ecotopia,” solutions must be engaged in specific places and communities, and the authors here argue for re-orienting environmental anthropology from a problem-oriented towards a solutions-focused endeavor. Using case studies from around the world, the contributors—scholar-activists and activist-practitioners— examine the interrelationships between three prominent environmental social movements: bioregionalism, a worldview and political ecology that grounds environmental action and experience; permaculture, a design science for putting the bioregional vision into action; and ecovillages, the ever-dynamic settings for creating sustainable local cultures.

The Impact of Development on the Environment and Human Rights

The Impact of Development on the Environment and Human Rights
Author: Arya Priya
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2019-03-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1527531694

This book looks into the developmental policies that have been followed in India since independence and their impact on both the environment and human rights. It also explores some of the major theoretical discourses, and debates these topics and the responses large-scale developmental projects in India have elicited from marginalized sections of society. The book presents a synoptic view of how sustainable development in India may be attained, focusing on three controversial Indian developmental projects, namely the Narmada River Valley project, bauxite mining by Vedanta Resources in Orissa and Kudankulam nuclear power plant, taking these cases as representative of large-scale developmental projects laid out in India.

Thinking Through the Environment

Thinking Through the Environment
Author: Mark J. Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 506
Release: 2005-09-30
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1134616953

This broad ranging and thought provoking set of readings stresses the diversity of responses in the way the natural environment has been understood and questioned in the modern world.

A Companion to Global Environmental History

A Companion to Global Environmental History
Author: J. R. McNeill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 578
Release: 2015-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 111897753X

The Companion to Global Environmental History offers multiple points of entry into the history and historiography of this dynamic and fast-growing field, to provide an essential road map to past developments, current controversies, and future developments for specialists and newcomers alike. Combines temporal, geographic, thematic and contextual approaches from prehistory to the present day Explores environmental thought and action around the world, to give readers a cultural, intellectual and political context for engagement with the environment in modern times Brings together environmental historians from around the world, including scholars from South Africa, Brazil, Germany, and China

Knowledge and Human Liberation

Knowledge and Human Liberation
Author: Ananta Kumar Giri
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2013-02-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0857289349

Human liberation has become an epochal challenge in today’s world, requiring not only emancipation from oppressive structures but also from the oppressive self. It is a multidimensional struggle and aspiration in which knowledge – self, social and spiritual – can play a transformative role. ‘Knowledge and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations’ undertakes such a journey of transformation, and seeks to rethink knowledge vis-à-vis the familiar themes of human interest, critical theory, enlightenment, ethnography, democracy, pluralism, rationality, secularism and cosmopolitanism. The volume also features a Foreword by John Clammer (United Nations University, Tokyo) and an Afterword by Fred Dallmayr (University of Notre Dame).