What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism

by Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster

Overview

Praise for Foster and Magdoff’s The Great Financial Crisis: In this timely and thorough analysis of the current financial crisis, Foster and Magdoff explore its roots and the radical changes that might be undertaken in response. . . . This book makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing examination of our current debt crisis, one that deserves our full attention.—Publishers Weekly
There is a growing consensus that the planet is heading toward environmental catastrophe: climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, global freshwater use, loss of biodiversity, and chemical pollution all threaten our future unless we act. What is less clear is how humanity should respond. The contemporary environmental movement is the site of many competing plans and prescriptions, and composed of a diverse set of actors, from militant activists to corporate chief executives.
This short, readable book is a sharply argued manifesto for those environmentalists who reject schemes of “green capitalism” or piecemeal reform. Environmental and economic scholars Magdoff and Foster contend that the struggle to reverse ecological degradation requires a firm grasp of economic reality. Going further, they argue that efforts to reform capitalism along environmental lines or rely solely on new technology to avert catastrophe misses the point. The main cause of the looming environmental disaster is the driving logic of the system itself, and those in power—no matter how “green”—are incapable of making the changes that are necessary.
What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism tackles the two largest issues of our time, the ecological crisis and the faltering capitalist economy, in a way that is thorough, accessible, and sure to provoke debate in the environmental movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583672730
Publisher:	Monthly Review Press
Publication date:	06/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	272 KB

About the Author

Fred Magdoff taught at the University of Vermont in Burlington, is a director of the Monthly Review Foundation, and has written on political economy for many years. He is most recently the author (with John Bellamy Foster) of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (Monthly Review Press).
John Bellamy Foster is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Oregon and editor of Monthly Review. He has written many books including The Robbery of Nature (with Brett Clark) and The Return of Nature, which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize.

Table of Contents

Preface 7

1 The Planetary Ecological Crisis 11

2 Business as Usual: The Road to Planetary Destruction 27

3 The Growth Imperative of Capitalism 37

4 The Environment and Capitalism 61

5 Can Capitalism Go Green? 95

6 An Ecological Revolution Is Not Just Possible-It's Essential 123

Appendix: Peoples' Agreement (Pueblos Acuerdos): World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change 145

Notes 159

Index 179