Toward a Bioregional State

Toward a Bioregional State PDF Author: Mark D. Whitaker
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595346146
Category : Bioregionalism
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Environmental sociologist Mark D. Whitaker is a comparative historical researcher on the politics of environmental degradation and sustainability. Toward A Bioregional State is his novel approach to development and to sustainability. He proposes that instead of sustainability being an issue of population scale, managerial economics, or technocratic planning, an overhaul of formal democratic institutions is required. This is because environmental degradation has more to do with the biased interactions of formal institutions and informal corruption. Because of corruption, we have environmental degradation. Current formal democratic institutions of states are forms of informal gatekeeping, and as such, intentionally maintain democracy as ecologically "out of sync". He argues that we are unable to reach sustainability without a host of additional ecological checks and balances. These ecological checks and balances would demote corrupt uses of formal institutions by removing capacities for gatekeeping against democratic feedback. Sustainability is a politics that is already here--only waiting to be formally organized.

Toward a Bioregional State

Toward a Bioregional State PDF Author: Mark D. Whitaker
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595346146
Category : Bioregionalism
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book

Book Description
Environmental sociologist Mark D. Whitaker is a comparative historical researcher on the politics of environmental degradation and sustainability. Toward A Bioregional State is his novel approach to development and to sustainability. He proposes that instead of sustainability being an issue of population scale, managerial economics, or technocratic planning, an overhaul of formal democratic institutions is required. This is because environmental degradation has more to do with the biased interactions of formal institutions and informal corruption. Because of corruption, we have environmental degradation. Current formal democratic institutions of states are forms of informal gatekeeping, and as such, intentionally maintain democracy as ecologically "out of sync". He argues that we are unable to reach sustainability without a host of additional ecological checks and balances. These ecological checks and balances would demote corrupt uses of formal institutions by removing capacities for gatekeeping against democratic feedback. Sustainability is a politics that is already here--only waiting to be formally organized.

The Bioregional Economy

The Bioregional Economy PDF Author: Molly Scott Cato
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415500826
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
In a world of climate change and declining oil supplies, what is the plan for the provisioning of resources? Green economists suggest a need to replace the globalised economy, and its extended supply chains, with a more 'local' economy. But what does this mean in more concrete terms? How large is a local economy, how self-reliant can it be, and what resources will still need to be imported? The concept of the 'bioregion' -- developed and popularised within the disciplines of earth sciences, biosciences and planning -- may facilitate the reconceptualisation of the global economy as a system of largely self-sufficient local economies. A bioregional approach to economics assumes a different system of values to that which dominates neoclassical economics. The global economy is driven by growth, and the consumption ethic that matches this is one of expansion in range and quantity. Goods are defined as scarce, and access to them is a process based on competition. The bioregional approach challenges every aspect of that value system. It seeks a new ethic of consumption that prioritises locality, accountability and conviviality in the place of expansion and profit; it proposes a shift in the focus of the economy away from profits and towards provisioning; and it assumes a radical reorientation of work from employment towards livelihood. This book by leading green economist Molly Scott Cato sets out a visionary and yet rigorous account of what a bioregional approach to the economy would mean -- and how to get there from here.

Bioregionalism and Global Ethics

Bioregionalism and Global Ethics PDF Author: Richard Evanoff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136910352
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
While a number of schools of environmental thought — including social ecology, ecofeminism, ecological Marxism, ecoanarchism, and bioregionalism — have attempted to link social issues to a concern for the environment, environmental ethics as an academic discipline has tended to focus more narrowly on ethics related either to changes in personal values or behavior, or to the various ways in which nature might be valued. What is lacking is a framework in which individual, social, and environmental concerns can be looked at not in isolation from each other, but rather in terms of their interrelationships. In this book, Evanoff aims to develop just such a philosophical framework — one in which ethical questions related to interactions between self, society, and nature can be discussed across disciplines and from a variety of different perspectives. The central problem his study investigates is the extent to which a dichotomized view of the relationship between nature and culture, perpetuated in ongoing debates over anthropocentric vs. ecocentric approaches to environmental ethics, might be overcome through the adoption of a transactional perspective, which offers a more dynamic and coevolutionary understanding of how humans interact with their natural environments. Unlike anthropocentric approaches to environmental ethics, which often privilege human concerns over ecological preservation, and some ecocentric approaches, which place more emphasis on preserving natural environments than on meeting human needs, a transactional approach attempts to create more symbiotic and less conflictual modes of interaction between human cultures and natural environments, which allow for the flourishing of both.

Bioregionalism

Bioregionalism PDF Author: Michael Vincent McGinnis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134734344
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Bioregionalism is the first book to explain the theoretical and practical dimensions of bioregionalism from an interdisciplinary standpoint, focusing on the place of bioregional identity within global politics. Leading contributors from a broad range of disciplines introduce this exciting new concept as a framework for thinking about indigenous peoples, local knowledge, globalization, science, global environmental issues, modern society, conservation, history, education and restoration. Bioregionalism's emphasis on place and community radically changes the way we confront human and ecological issues.

Watershed Discipleship

Watershed Discipleship PDF Author: Ched Myers
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498280773
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
This collection introduces and explores "watershed discipleship" as a critical, contextual, and constructive approach to ecological theology and practice, and features emerging voices from a generation that has grown up under the shadow of climate catastrophe. Watershed Discipleship is a "triple entendre" that recognizes we are in a watershed historical moment of crisis, focuses on our intrinsically bioregional locus as followers of Jesus, and urges us to become disciples of our watersheds. Bibliographic framing essays by Myers trace his journey into a bioregionalist Christian faith and practice and offer reflections on incarnational theology, hermeneutics, and ecclesiology. The essays feature more than a dozen activists, educators, and practitioners under the age of forty, whose work and witness attest to a growing movement of resistance and reimagination across North America. This anthology overviews the bioregional paradigm and its theological and political significance for local sustainability, restorative justice, and spiritual renewal. Contributors reread both biblical texts and churchly practices (such as mission, baptism, and liturgy) through the lens of "re-place-ment." Herein is a comprehensive and engaged call for a "Transition church" that can help turn our history around toward environmental resiliency and social justice, by passionate advocates on the front lines of watershed discipleship. CONTRIBUTORS: Sasha Adkins, Jay Beck, Tevyn East, Erinn Fahey, Katarina Friesen, Matt Humphrey, Vickie Machado, Jonathan McRay, Sarah Nolan, Reyna Ortega, Dave Pritchett, Erynn Smith, Sarah Thompson, Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Ecological Revolution

Ecological Revolution PDF Author: Mark Douglas Whitaker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description


Bioregional Planning

Bioregional Planning PDF Author: D J Brunckhorst
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134433182
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
Presenting a pragmatic mixture of science, landscape ecology, ecosystem management, sociology, policy development and methods for transforming social and institutional cultures. Bioregional Planning: Resource Management Beyond the New Millennium is a timely and practical guide for the analysis, planning and development of bioregional projects for a sustainable future. Significantly, this book presents the strategic actions necessary to plan for, manage and adapt to Ecologically Sustainable Development with a view beyond the new millennium and towards the next. Postgraduates, researchers and policy makers in natural resources management, land planning, sustainable agriculture, rural sciences, ecosystem management and conservation biology will find this book captures the essence of bioregional planning succinctly and makes a compelling argument for why it is a key mechanism in the development of effective governance institutions.

The Bioregional Imagination

The Bioregional Imagination PDF Author: Tom Lynch
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820341711
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
Bioregionalism is an innovative way of thinking about place and planet from an ecological perspective. Although bioregional ideas occur regularly in ecocritical writing, until now no systematic effort has been made to outline the principles of bioregional literary criticism and to use it as a way to read, write, understand, and teach literature. The twenty-four original essays here are written by an outstanding selection of international scholars. The range of bioregions covered is global and includes such diverse places as British Columbia's Meldrum Creek and Italy's Po River Valley, the Arctic and the Outback. There are even forays into cyberspace and outer space. In their comprehensive introduction, the editors map the terrain of the bioregional movement, including its history and potential to inspire and invigorate place-based and environmental literary criticism. Responding to bioregional tenets, this volume is divided into four sections. The essays in the “Reinhabiting” section narrate experiments in living-in-place and restoring damaged environments. The “Rereading” essays practice bioregional literary criticism, both by examining texts with strong ties to bioregional paradigms and by opening other, less-obvious texts to bioregional analysis. In “Reimagining,” the essays push bioregionalism to evolve—by expanding its corpus of texts, coupling its perspectives with other approaches, or challenging its core constructs. Essays in the “Renewal” section address bioregional pedagogy, beginning with local habitat studies and concluding with musings about the Internet. In response to the environmental crisis, we must reimagine our relationship to the places we inhabit. This volume shows how literature and literary studies are fundamental tools to such a reimagining.

LifePlace

LifePlace PDF Author: Robert L. Thayer Jr.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520936809
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Robert Thayer brings the concepts and promises of the growing bioregional movement to a wide audience in a book that passionately urges us to discover "where we are" as an antidote to our rootless, stressful modern lives. LifePlace is a provocative meditation on bioregionalism and what it means to live, work, eat, and play in relation to naturally, rather than politically, defined areas. In it, Thayer gives a richly textured portrait of his own home, the Putah-Cache watershed in California's Sacramento Valley, demonstrating how bioregionalism can be practiced in everyday life. Written in a lively anecdotal style and expressing a profound love of place, this book is a guide to the personal rewards and the social benefits of reinhabiting the natural world on a local scale. In LifePlace, Thayer shares what he has learned over the course of thirty years about the Sacramento Valley's geography, minerals, flora, and fauna; its relation to fire, agriculture, and water; and its indigenous peoples, farmers, and artists. He shows how the spirit of bioregionalism springs from learning the history of a place, from participating in its local economy, from living in housing designed in the context of the region. He asks: How can we instill a love of place and knowledge of the local into our education system? How can the economy become more responsive to the ecology of region? This valuable book is also a window onto current writing on bioregionalism, introducing the ideas of its most notable proponents in accessible and highly engaging prose. At the same time that it gives an entirely new appreciation of California's Central Valley, LifePlace shows how we can move toward a new way of being, thinking, and acting in the world that can lead to a sustainable, harmonious, and more satisfying future.

Bioregionalism

Bioregionalism PDF Author: Michael Vincent McGinnis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134734336
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Bioregionalism is the first book to explain the theoretical and practical dimensions of bioregionalism from an interdisciplinary standpoint, focusing on the place of bioregional identity within global politics. Leading contributors from a broad range of disciplines introduce this exciting new concept as a framework for thinking about indigenous peoples, local knowledge, globalization, science, global environmental issues, modern society, conservation, history, education and restoration. Bioregionalism's emphasis on place and community radically changes the way we confront human and ecological issues.