Exploring Political Ecology Issues, Problems, and Solutions to the Climate Change Crisis

Preface

Acknowledgments

1—What is Political Ecology?

Part I: Agriculture

2—Overview of Global Food Production: Pressures to Industrialize

High Modernism and Contemporary Agriculture; A Major Critique of Industrial Agriculture; The Green Revolution; Political Motives for the Green Revolution and Other Global Agricultural Policies; Value Chains; Foreign Land Grabs; Conclusions.

3—Field Crops: Grains and Soy

Corn; NAFTA, Corn, Mexico, and the United States; Soy; Conclusions

4—Livestock Production

The Virtual Extinction of the American Buffalo and the Rise of the Beef Industry; Cattle Ranching and the Brazilian Amazon; Pork Production; Conclusions

5—Who Really “Feeds a Hungry World”?

Industrial Food Chains vs Peasant and Small-Farmer Food Webs; La Vía Campesina and Food Sovereignty; Conclusions

Part II: Energy

6—Coal

Overview of the Significance of Coal and Its Environmental, Social, and Health Impacts; West Virginia and Mountain-Top Removal Coal Mining; Conclusions

7—The “Devil’s Excrement”—Petroleum

Petrostates; The Alberta Tar-Sands; Conclusions

8—HydroElectric and Irrigation Dams

Environmental, Health, and Social Impacts of Major Dam Construction; Conclusions

9—Uranium and Nuclear Power: The Case Against

Uranium and Nuclear Power in Canada; Uranium in Saskatchewan; The Problem of Nuclear Waste; The Search for a Nuclear Waste “Repository” in Canada, Focusing on Saskatchewan; Conclusions

Part III: Solutions

10—Transforming our Political Economies and Dealing with the Issue of Constant Growth

Green Growth; Green New Deals; Degrowth; Politically Who is Going to Take Responsibility for Solutions?; Conclusions

11—Some Solutions in Agriculture

Agroecology; Regenerative or Restorative Agriculture; Natural Systems Agriculture and Perennial Grains; Some Other Considerations and Conclusions

12—Renewable Energy Solutions

Sources of Renewable Energy; Transportation; Buildings; Industry; Storing Renewable Energy; Bringing it All Together through Redesigning the Grid with Major Diversification and Nested Localization; Worrisome Caveats and Conclusions

Part IV: Conclusions

13—The Big Moral Question

“Buck-Passing”; Morality, Law, and Some Issues Concerning the Young, Future Generations, and Nature; Movements and Mass Action—Manifesting “Climate X”; Conclusions

14—What Might Happen Next?

A New Green New Deal?; How Could People Respond to the Scenario of Global Warming and the Collapse of a Global Civilization?; Conclusions and Final Words

References

Index

Biography

Alexander M. Ervin (PhD Illinois) is Professor Emeritus, Anthropology, University of Saskatchewan where he taught and researched for 51 years. His specialities include environmental anthropology, socio-cultural change, and applied anthropology. He is a past president of the Society for Applied Anthropology. His books include Canadian Perspectives in Cultural Anthropology (2001), Applied Anthropology: Tools and Perspectives for Contemporary Practice (2005) and Cultural Transformations and Globalization: Theory, Development, and Social Change (2015).

"Ervin’s personal engagement as both a scholar and activist adds authenticity and depth to the discourse which reflects a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary perspectives. This makes the book accessible not only to academics in environmental studies, political science, and anthropology but also to policymakers, activists, and students seeking to understand and address climate change comprehensively."

- Historis Soterman Halawa & Irvan Renaldi in Journal of Human Development and Capabilities