The modern world is, in the authors' view, undergoing the process of meltdown―global meltdown. Having argued in an earlier book that humankind is headed for an environmental catastrophe that will either eliminate the human species or greatly reduce our numbers, the authors now focus on the breakdown of organized social order that will occur when the ecological crisis happens. Believing that civilization as we know it will not last, even without a definitive environmental cataclysm, they explore here the social, political, and philosophical ramifications of this vision.After outlining the interaction of the forces of environmental destruction, economic rationalism, and technological revolution, this book shows their impact on social problems such as immigration, racial and ethnic conflict, and the loss of personal, spiritual, and religious meaning. In the first chapter, the authors consider the effects of these social conflicts in both the non-Western and the Western world, concluding that the global meltdown theory is supported by the worldwide rise of terrorism. Chapter 2 discusses the technological and ecological forces they believe will led to a new world disorder. The work then goes on to use Australia as a case study illustrating the collision of population and environment. In the concluding chapter, the authors support their thesis further with a review of the literature on the subject.

Global Meltdown: Immigration, Multiculturalism, and National Breakdown in the New World Disorder (History of Cartography)

Politics & Social Sciences

Lyons, Graham

Smith, Joseph Wayne

Moore, Evonne

Social Sciences

Praeger

This scientifically rigorous and philosophically sophisticated defense of environmentalism is meant to excite, educate, and alarm the reader. There is a widespread scientific and public recognition that the world is facing an environmental crisis of vast proportions. What is the relationship between the growth of human population and industrial activity on one hand and the environmental crisis on the other? If this is not determined and dealt with, Earth's ecology may be expected to collapse.

Healing a Wounded World: Economics, Ecology, and Health for a Sustainable Life

Business & Money

Sauer-Thompson, Gary

Economics

We live in times of uncertainty and insecurity, at a personal, national and global level. Writers such as Samuel P. Huntington and Robert D. Kaplan, respectively, have spoken of an emerging 'clash of civilizations' and of 'coming anarchy'. This book is also concerned with the future of civilization, in particular with the conflict between economic growth and the sustainability of the biophysical lifesupport systems of the planet, arguing that the flawed system of orthodox neo-classical economics has justified the modernist belief in the necessity of unending economic growth and the ceaseless exploitation of nature.

The Bankruptcy of Economics: Ecology, Economics and the Sustainability of the Earth

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

This provocative book presents compelling evidence that the fundamental problem behind environmental destruction―and climate change in particular―is the operation of liberal democracy.
Climate change threatens the future of civilization, but humanity is impotent in effecting solutions. Even in those nations with a commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions, they continue to rise. This failure mirrors those in many other spheres that deplete the fish of the sea, erode fertile land, destroy native forests, pollute rivers and streams, and utilize the world's natural resources beyond their replacement rate. In this provocative book, Shearman and Smith present evidence that the fundamental problem causing environmental destruction―and climate change in particular―is the operation of liberal democracy. Its flaws and contradictions bestow upon government―and its institutions, laws, and the markets and corporations that provide its sustenance―an inability to make decisions that could provide a sustainable society.
Having argued that democracy has failed humanity, the authors go even further and demonstrate that this failure can easily lead to authoritarianism without our even noticing. Even more provocatively, they assert that there is merit in preparing for this eventuality if we want to survive climate change. They are not suggesting that existing authoritarian regimes are more successful in mitigating greenhouse emissions, for to be successful economically they have adopted the market system with alacrity. Nevertheless, the authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power. There are in existence highly successful authoritarian structures―for example, in medicine and in corporate empires―that are capable of implementing urgent decisions impossible under liberal democracy. Society is verging on a philosophical choice between liberty or life. But there is a third way between democracy and authoritarianism that the authors leave for the final chapter. Having brought the reader to the realization that in order to halt or even slow the disastrous process of climate change we must choose between liberal democracy and a form of authoritarian government by experts, the authors offer up a radical reform of democracy that would entail the painful choice of curtailing our worldwide reliance on growth economies, along with various legal and fiscal reforms. Unpalatable as this choice may be, they argue for the adoption of this fundamental reform of democracy over the journey to authoritarianism.

The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy (Politics and the Environment)

Science & Math

Shearman, David

Earth Sciences

This study examines the scientific evidence relating to "abrupt" or "dangerous" climate change and explores the social, political, legal, and philosophical significance of this evidence. The authos locate the "climate crisis" within the context of a wider crisis of civilization, consisting of a series of converging threats to human survival.

Climate Change as a Crisis in World Civilization: Why We Must Totally Transform How We Live

Positano, Sandro

Sociology

Edwin Mellen Pr

Wing Chun Kung-fu Volume 2: Fighting &amp; Grappling (Chinese Martial Arts Library) [Paperback]

Wing Chun Kung-Fu: Fighting & Grappling (Chinese Martial Arts Library)

Sports & Outdoors

Individual Sports

Tuttle Pub

The Unreasonable Silence of the World: Universal Reason and the Wreck of the Enlightenment Project (Routledge Revivals)

Philosophy

Routledge

This book attempts to give a comprehensive examination of the principal philosophical issues associated with the AIDS pandemic and in particular with the radical challenges that global diseases raise for modern society and political systems. The thesis of the book is that AIDS is but a part of a wider environmental and social crisis that not only challenges received opinion about the relationships between humantiy, technology and the environment, but challenges the ecological adaptability of modern social and political system. The challenge posed by AIDS, and other diseases likely to appear in the next century, are explored in detail.

AIDS, Philosophy And Beyond: Philosophical Dilemmas of a Modern Pandemic (Avebury Series in Philosophy)

Avebury

The High Tech Fix: Sustainable Ecology or Technocratic Megaprojects for the 21st Century? (Avebury Series in Philosophy)

This text aims to develop a postmodernist critique of philosophy - although not the postmodernism of literary philosophers such as derrida. This postmodernism is one of ecological limitationism coupled with a practical commonsense "realism". The authors affirm the reality of the life-world and the primacy of practice against materialist, physicist and reductionists. They attempt to show that orthodox anglo-american analytic philosophy is not merely incapable of completing its own quest to supply a regionally justified system of reality, but, more importantly, it fails as well to meet the challenges of the age.

The Unreasonable Silence of the World: Universal Reason and the Wreck of the Enlightenment Project (Avebury Series in Philosophy)

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