The environmental politics of sacrifice
By: edited by Michael Maniates and John M. Meyer
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 343
ISBN-13: 9780262014366; 9780262514361
Description: The idea of sacrifice is the unspoken issue of environmental politics. Politicians, the media, and many environmentalists assume that well-off populations won't make sacrifices now for future environmental benefits and won't change their patterns and perceptions of consumption to make ecological room for the world's three billion or so poor eager to improve their standard of living. The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice challenges these assumptions, arguing that they limit our policy options, weaken our ability to imagine bold action for change, and blind us to the ways sacrifice already figures in everyday life. The concept of sacrifice has been curiously unexamined in both activist and academic conversations about environmental politics, and this book is the first to confront it directly. The chapters bring a variety of disciplinary perspectives to the topic. Contributors offer alternatives to the conventional wisdom on sacrifice; identify connections between sacrifice and human fulfillment in everyday life, finding such concrete examples as parents' sacrifices in raising children, religious practice, artists' pursuit of their art, and soldiers and police officers who risk their lives to do their jobs; and examine particular policies and practices that shape our understanding of environmental problems, including the carbon tax, incentives for cyclists, and the perils of green consumption. The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice puts "sacrifice" firmly into the conversation about effective environmental politics and policies, insisting that activists and scholars do more than change the subject when the idea is introduced.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Must we sacrifice? confronting the politics of sacrifice in an ecologically full world / John M. Meyer and Michael Maniates; title: Asking the right questions; title: A democratic politics of sacrifice? / John M. Meyer; title: Sacrifice in an age of comfort / Paul Wapner; title: Freedom, values, and sacrifice : overcoming obstacles to environmentally sustainable behavior / Cheryl Hall; title: Seeing sacrifice in everyday life; title: Ordinary and extraordinary sacrifices : religion, everyday life, and environmental practice / Anna Peterson; title: The sacred and the profane in the ecological politics of sacrifice / Karen Litfin; title: Consumer sovereignty, heroic sacrifice : two insidious concepts in an endlessly expansionist economy / Thomas Princen; title: Parental sacrifice as atonement for future climate change / Sudhir Chella Rajan; title: Obstacles and opportunities; title: Self-interest, sacrifice and climate change : (re- )framing the British Columbia carbon tax / Shane Gunster; title: Civic virtue and sacrifice in a suburban nation / Peter Cannavò; title: Bikes, sticks, carrots / Justin Williams; title: Intelligent design? : unpacking geoengineering's hidden sacrifices / Simon Nicholson; title: Struggling with sacrifice : take back your time and right2vacation.org / Michael Maniates; title: Conclusion : sacrifice and a new environmental politics / Michael Maniates and John M. Meyer.