Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order
We are living beyond our means, running up debts both economic and ecological,consuming the planet's resources at rates not remotely sustainable. But it's hard to imagine a different way. How can we live without cheap goods and easy credit? How can we consume without consuming the systems that suport life? How can we live well and live within our means? In Treading Softly, Thomas Princen helps us imagine an alternative. We need, he says, a new normal, a new ecological order that is actually...
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How to imagine and then realize an ecological order based on living within our biophysical means. Publishers Weekly Rejecting the "tried-and-true path" as well as the promise of high-tech innovation, University of Michigan professor Princen (Confronting Consumption) makes an impassioned and illustrative plea for radical societal transformation, from consumerism to sustainability. Taking issue with a stripe of environmentalist and progressive thinker, like Thomas L. Friedman, anticipating a quick fix (high-tech or otherwise) to retrofit the existing, growth-based consumer economy, Princen rejects the idea of endless growth, which defies all laws of logic and physics: "A system that grows endlessly crashes... unendingly increasing consumption cannot continue on a finite planet." Looking to historical economic reversals, like the upheaval that occurred after slavery was abolished or the plummeting popularity of cigarettes, Princen argues that society must dethrone the "sovereign consumer" and adopt the ethos of sacrifice if it is to survive. Practically, many more people need to overcome widespread alienation from the natural world by prioritizing community over profit, becoming direct producers of goods, and adapting better to the rhythms (and limits) of nature; ideas include an intermittent electricity supply, season-appropriate availability of many foods, and communities that are largely self-sufficient. Genuinely provocative, this book challenges practices and theories sacred to both sides of the ecology debate. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1 Within Our Means 1I The Disordered Order 192 From House to Home: A Parable 213 To the Heart of the Beast 294 Only When ... 49II A Home Economy 595 Principles 616 The Elm Stand 797 Beyond the Consumer Economy 91III Tools for an Ecological Order 1038 It Isn't Easy 1059 Work, Workers, and Working: Toward an Economy That Works 11910 Speaking of the Environment: Two Worlds, Two Languages 13511 To Sustainabilize: The Adaptive Strategy of World-views 15712 The New Normal 179Notes 197Index 207
\ Publishers Weekly - Library Journal\ Rejecting the "tried-and-true path" as well as the promise of high-tech innovation, University of Michigan professor Princen (Confronting Consumption) makes an impassioned and illustrative plea for radical societal transformation, from consumerism to sustainability. Taking issue with a stripe of environmentalist and progressive thinker, like Thomas L. Friedman, anticipating a quick fix (high-tech or otherwise) to retrofit the existing, growth-based consumer economy, Princen rejects the idea of endless growth, which defies all laws of logic and physics: "A system that grows endlessly crashes... unendingly increasing consumption cannot continue on a finite planet." Looking to historical economic reversals, like the upheaval that occurred after slavery was abolished or the plummeting popularity of cigarettes, Princen argues that society must dethrone the "sovereign consumer" and adopt the ethos of sacrifice if it is to survive. Practically, many more people need to overcome widespread alienation from the natural world by prioritizing community over profit, becoming direct producers of goods, and adapting better to the rhythms (and limits) of nature; ideas include an intermittent electricity supply, season-appropriate availability of many foods, and communities that are largely self-sufficient. Genuinely provocative, this book challenges practices and theories sacred to both sides of the ecology debate. \ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher"As the epoch of seemingly limitless expansion comes to an end, Treading Softly represents an important springboard for debate about what comes next. It finds an appropriate balance of 'realistic hope,' going beyond the easy answers so often put forward in environmental debates. Above all, it succeeds in encouraging readers to imagine a possible new world, and in emboldening us to get to work in creating it." Anders Hayden Sustainability: Science, Practice,& Policy\ \
