Ecological Rift

Capitalism’s War on the Earth

John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, Richard York

Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision — if we don’t alter course.

Contents

PART ONE
Capitalism and Unsustainable Development
1. The Paradox of Wealth
2. Rifts and Shifts
3. Capitalism in Wonderland
4. The Midas Effect
5. Carbon Metabolism and Global Capital Accumulation
6. The Planetary Moment of Truth

PART TWO
Ecological Paradoxes
7. The Return of the Jevons Paradox
8. The Paperless Office and Other Ecological Paradoxes
9. The Treadmill of Accumulation
10. The Absolute General Law of Environmental
Degradation under Capitalism

PART THREE
Dialectical Ecology
11. The Dialectics of Nature and Marxist Ecology
12. Dialectical Materialism and Nature
13. Marx’s Grundrisse and the Ecology of Capitalism
14. The Sociology of Ecology
15. Imperialism and Ecological Metabolism

PART FOUR
Ways Out
16. The Ecology of Consumption
17. The Metabolism of Twenty-First Century Socialism
18. Why Ecological Revolution?

NOTES
INDEX

About the Authors

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review. He is professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and author of  The Ecological Revolution, The Great Financial Crisis  (with Fred Magdoff), Critique of Intelligent Design (with Brett Clark and Richard York), Ecology Against Capitalism, Marx’s Ecology, and The Vulnerable Planet.

Brett Clark is assistant professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. He is coauthor (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York) of Critique of Intelligent Design.

Richard York is associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is co-editor of the journal Organization & Environment and coauthor (with John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark) of Critique of Intelligent Design.