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Ecological Degradation Past and Present

A Trilogy

Ecological Degradation Past and Present cover

Ecological Degradation Past and Present

A Trilogy

Description

In his trilogy of environmental studies-World Ecological Degradation, The Recurring Dark Ages, and Ecological Futures-Sing Chew surveys 5,000 years of human history and finds a distinctive, recurring pattern: Civilizations that amass vast wealth do so by exhausting their environment, thus sowing the seeds of their collapse. Again and again, Chew observes, periods of over-accumulation are followed by extreme environmental degradation, the collapse of social systems, and a Dark Age. Today, at the beginning of the third millennium A.D., we are in the midst of a period of unprecedented accumulation, this time on a global scale, and we are experiencing worldwide environmental degradation, from the ozone layer to the rain forest. If past is prologue, Chew warns, then modern mankind may face a broad collapse of social systems and an unsettling future.

Table of Contents

Part 1 World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation, Urbanization, and Deforestation, 3000BC to AD2000
Part 2 The Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transformation
Part 3 Ecological Futures: What History Can Teach Us

Product details

Published 27 Jun 2008
Format Ebook Bundle
Edition 1st
ISBN 9781461740643
Imprint AltaMira Press
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Sing C. Chew

Sing C. Chew is professor emeritus at Humboldt Sta…

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