Overview

Does human population growth threaten the environment, or does it guarantee we will safeguard it? is economic growth the key ecological problem, or is it in fact the solution? What will be the leading force to save the planet: civil society, government, or private enterprise? This book shows that these polemical debates are governed not so much by access to facts as they are by the political ideology of the expert advancing a particular argument. Moreover, the thoughts of these experts tend to be based largely in just one of three competing streams of political thought: the left, the centre, or the right. Drawing on social theory, the author explains the philosophical origins of this tendency to rely on just one of three traditions, and why this poses a serious obstacle to conceptualizing the cause, nature, and resolution of environmental problems. Sunderlin argues that laying the foundation for a livable world involves giving conscious and dedicated attention to the core tenets of all three political traditions: action against class in equality and advocacy of social justice within and among countries; reformation of laws and policies emanating from the halls of poser and technological innovation in centres of research; and wholesale cultural change and promotion of individual initiative, responsibility, and creativity.

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9780742519695

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William Sunderlin's exciting new book builds on a critical insight--that social and sociological views of the environment are largely ideologically anchored and driven--while steadfastly refusing to succumb to the relativistic notion that environmental reality is no more and no less than a matter of opinion or perspective. Ideology, Social Theory, and the Environment addresses the most central and enduring questions in environmental sociology: the ecological implications of the evolution of Western capitalism, the debate over Malthusianism, the possibilities for and limits to decoupling growth and environmental degradation, the future of environmentalism, and the meaning and implications of global environmental change. Sunderlin demonstrates elegantly that the environmental issues of the early twenty-first century can best be explored by reconsidering--rather than jettisoning--the nineteenth century classical theory tradition. But while the social theories of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim

Author Information

William D. Sunderlin is a senior scientist for the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

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