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For decades, scholars have warned of an
impending environmental crisis. Yet politicians, particularly
in the United States, have consistently shown that they
are not taking the threat seriously. Initiatives aimed at
protecting the planet are commonly seen as belonging to
a category unto themselves -- the preserve of scientists
and environmental enthusiasts.
In this groundbreaking book, Robert L. Nadeau
warns that we have moved menacingly close to a global environmental
catastrophe and that to avoid this fate we must stop drawing
a distinction between issues that are "environmental"
or "scientific" and those that reside in the sphere
of "real life." Although scientists have attempted
to bring ecological concerns to the forefront of global
issues, problems are rarely communicated in ways that can
be readily understood by those outside the scientific community.
Bringing together perspectives from a variety
of disciplines, including economics, politics, biology,
and the history of science, The Environmental Endgame
articulates the concerns of scientists in a way that they
become the real-life, tangible concerns of people around
the world. Nadeau asserts that we have entered a new phase
of human history that cannot be one of separation and division
but must be one of cooperation and mutual goals.
Nadeau demonstrates that our current governmental
and financial institutions, based on neoclassical economics,
lack the mechanisms for implementing viable solutions to
large-scale crises. Such steps cannot be taken without moving
beyond the power politics of the nation-state system. The
book concludes with a call to view the natural world as
part of humanity, not separate from it. This unifying worldview
would be a catalyst for implementing the international government
organizations necessary to resolving the crisis.
The Environmental Endgame is an ambitious
and timely book that will change the way we think about
our economy, our government, and the environment. It should
be read by everyone who cares about the pervasive neglect
and abuse of planet Earth and wants to know what can be
done about it.
Robert L. Nadeau is a professor of environmental
science and public policy at George Mason University in
Fairfax, Virginia. He is the author of eight books, including
Mind, Machines and Human Consiousness; S/he: Science
and Sexual Politics; The Non-Local Universe;
The New Physics and Matters of the Mind; and The
Wealth of Nature: How Mainstream Economics Failed the Environment.
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