Extinction Curve: Growth and Globalisation in the Climate Endgame

Global communities have arrived at a critical crossroads. The planet is heating up at a historically unprecedented rate and the ecological conditions sustaining vast species, including our own, are poised at irreversible tipping points. Time is up to avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. In such dire circumstances, 'business as usual' - and by extension 'politics as usual' - can no longer be accommodated--Back cover.
Van der Velden, an independent socialist writer in Australia, and White, a professor of criminology in Australia, examine the issue of capitalist growth and accumulation that is at the core of globalized crises in economic and ecological well-being, results of an economic system grounded in the social exploitation of the natural world. They describe the political economy underpinning the science of climate change and ecological extinction, drawing on works from politics, academia, media, and popular political culture. They discuss historical and conceptual elements of the capitalist political economy and hegemony, the current ecological crises and structural contradictions in global capitalism, the political challenges of these trends and the demands they make on the Left and environmental activists to reshape intervention around climate politics, and how this unsustainable growth needs to end. Distributed in North America by Turpin Distribution. Annotation ©2021 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Attempts to create a greener capitalism have failed and the world stands on the edge of a climate and ecological catastrophe. This book maps out a fresh direction - based on a democratic social, economic and sustainable ecological transformation in the interests of the global majority - and demonstrates precisely how this can be achieved.
Global communities have arrived at a critical crossroads. The planet is heating up at a historically unprecedented rate and the ecological conditions sustaining vast species, including our own, are poised at irreversible tipping points. Time is up to avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. In such dire circumstances, 'business as usual' - and by extension 'politics as usual' - can no longer be accommodated.The Extinction Curve charts the dynamics of the economic and social relations driving this perilous climate endgame. Recent economic crises have fractured consent over the consequences of growth and globalisation, and political fracturing is now at a defining moment. Ultra-right nationalism, shaped by the vested interests of a tiny minority at the expense of the global majority, threatens descent into a darker and more fortressed world. In contrast, enhanced progressive and environmental activism presents hope of an alternative course.The 50-year attempt by the mainstream environmental movement to create a greener capitalism has failed to reach the required objectives. This book argues that reversing the extinction curve requires ending the growth pandemic embedded within the core of capitalism as a mode of production and consumption. It maps fresh directions for a democratic social, economic and sustainable ecological transformation in the interests of the global majority and, crucially, demonstrates how this can be achieved.
Global communities have arrived at a critical crossroads. The planet is heating up at a historically unprecedented rate and the ecological conditions sustaining vast species, including our own, are poised at irreversible tipping points. Time is up to avoid climate and ecological catastrophe. In such dire circumstances, 'business as usual' - and by extension 'politics as usual' - can no longer be accommodated. The Extinction Curve charts the dynamics of the economic and social relations driving this perilous climate endgame. Recent economic crises have fractured consent over the consequences of growth and globalisation, and political fracturing is now at a defining moment. Ultra-right nationalism, shaped by the vested interests of a tiny minority at the expense of the global majority, threatens descent into a darker and more fortressed world. In contrast, enhanced progressive and environmental activism presents hope of an alternative course. The 50-year attempt by the mainstream environmental movement to create a greener capitalism has failed to reach the required objectives. This book argues that reversing the extinction curve requires ending the growth pandemic embedded within the core of capitalism as a mode of production and consumption. It maps fresh directions for a democratic social, economic and sustainable ecological transformation in the interests of the global majority and, crucially, demonstrates how this can be achieved.