Carbon metabolism: Global capitalism, climate change, and the biospheric rift

Theory and Society

Volumn 34, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 391-428

  Clark, Brett ^a   York, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OREGON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 27744436943     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: 15737853     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11186-005-1993-4     Document Type: Article

References (301)

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2. Naomi Oreskes notes that there is a general consensus among climate scientists that human activities are the primary forces responsible for the observed warming of the Earth. See Oreskes, "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," Science 306/December 3 (2004): 1686.
3. John Bellamy Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002), 21, 64.
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8. Maurice Godelier, The Mental and the Material: Thought, Economy and Society (London: Blackwell Verso, 1986), 1-10.
9. The exact characteristics of any society are going to be influenced by numerous variables, including geography, culture, technological development, etc. An historical materialist position embraces this view. Furthermore, culture is seen as part of the material process both shaped and influenced by the larger society, and shaping and influencing society and its transformation of nature. See Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975);
10. Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977);
11. Raymond Williams, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (London: Verso, 1989);
12. Raymond Williams, Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays (London: Verso, 1980).
13. For an interesting anthropological account of the role of culture in relation to economic and productive transformation of a society in Bali, see J. Stephen Lansing, Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).
14. George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature (New York: Charles Scribner, 1864);
15. Brett Clark and John Bellamy Foster, "George Perkins Marsh and the Transformation of Earth," Organization & Environment 15/2 (2002): 164-169;
16. Frederick H. Buttel, "New Directions in Environmental Sociology," Annual Review of Sociology 13 (1987): 465-488;
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19. Peter M. Vitousek, Harold A. Mooney, Jane Lubchenko, and Jerry A. Melilo, "Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems," Science 277(1997): 494-499;
20. Riley R. Dunlap, Frederick H Buttel, Peter Dickens, and August Gijswijt, Sociological Theory and the Environment (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002);
21. John Bellamy Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism;
22. Frederick Buell, From Apocalypse to Way of Life (New York: Routledge, 2003);
23. Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (New York: Knopf, 1971);
24. Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren, "Impact of Population Growth," Science 171(1971): 1212-1217.
25. Richard York, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?: Assessing the Anthropogenic Sources of Global Climate Change with the STIRPAT Model," International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 23/10 (2003): 31-51;
26. Richard York, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas Dietz, "STIRPAT, IPAT, and ImPACT: Analytic Tools for Unpacking the Driving Forces of Environmental Impacts," Ecological Economics 46/3 (2003): 351-365;
27. 2 Emissions 1980-1996," Journal of World-Systems Research 9/2 (2003): 261-275;
28. J. Timmons Roberts, "Global Inequality and Climate Change," Society and Natural Resources 14 (2001): 501-109;
29. J. Timmons Roberts, Peter E. Grimes, and Jodie L. Manale, "Social Roots of Global Environmental Change: A World-Systems Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Emissions," Journal of World-Systems Research 9/2 (2003): 277-315;
30. Eugene A. Rosa, "Global Climate Change: Background and Sociological Contributions," Society and Natural Resources 14 (2001): 491-499;
31. Eugene A. Rosa and Thomas Dietz, "Climate Change and Society: Speculation, Construction and Scientific Investigation," International Sociology 13/4 (1998): 421-455;
32. Thomas K. Rudel, "Population, Development, and Tropical Deforestation: A Cross-National Study," Rural Sociology 54 (1989): 327-338;
33. Thomas K. Rudel, "Sequestering Carbon in Tropical Forests: Experiments, Policy Implications, and Climate Change," Society and Natural Resources 14 (2001): 525-531;
34. Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer, Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002);
35. John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, "Ecological Imperialism: The Curse of Capitalism," in Socialist Register 2004: The New Imperial Challenge, L. Panitch and C. Leys, editors (London: Merlin Press, 2003), 186-201;
36. Loren Lutzenhiser, "The Contours of U.S. Climate Non-Policy," Society and Natural Resources 14 (2001): 511-523;
37. 2 Emissions," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 94 (1997): 175-179;
38. Edward M. Crenshaw and J. Craig Jenkins, "Social Structure and Global Climate Change: Sociological Propositions Concerning the Greenhouse Effect," Sociological Focus 29/4 (1996): 341-358;
39. John Bellamy Foster, Harry Magdoff, and Robert McChesney, "The Pentagon and Climate Change," Monthly Review 56/1 (2004): 1-13;
40. Richard M. White and William Hooke, "Climate Science, Technology and Politics: A Tangled Web," Technology and Society 26 (2004): 375-384.
41. See, for a presentation of the environmental oversights of much of sociology, William R. Catton, Jr. and Riley E. Dunlap, "Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm," The American Sociologist 13 (1978): 41-49.
42. Rosa, "Global Climate Change," 491.
43. Rudel, "Sequestering Carbon";
44. Rudel, "Population, Development, and Tropical Deforestation."
45. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?"
46. Grimes and Kentor, "Exporting the Greenhouse";
47. Roberts, "Global Inequality and Climate Change";
48. Roberts, Grimes, and Manale, "Social Roots of Global Environmental Change";
49. Roberts, "Global Inequality and Climate Change."
50. Crenshaw and Jenkins, "Social Structure and Global Climate Change," 341-346.
51. Marina Fischer-Kowalski, "Society's Metabolism," in International Handbook of Environmental Sociology, Michael Redclift and Graham Woodgate, editors (Northhampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 1997);
52. Arthur Mol, The Refinement of Production (Utrecht, The Netherlands: Van Arkel, 1995);
53. Allan Schnaiberg, The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980);
54. James O'Connor, "Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Theoretical Introduction," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 1 (1988): 11-38;
55. James O'Connor, Natural Causes (New York: Guilford, 1998);
56. John Bellamy Foster, "Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology," American Journal of Sociology 105 (1999): 366-105.
57. For an extended discussion of these issues see John Bellamy Foster, "The Treadmill of Accumulation," Organization & Environment 18/1 (2005): 7-18;
58. also see Allan Schnaiberg, The Environment;
59. Allan Schnaiberg and Kenneth A. Gould, Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994).
60. John Bellamy Foster, "Capitalism and Ecology: The Nature of the Contradiction," Monthly Review 54/4 (2002): 6-16.
61. Foster, "Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift."
62. Stanley Lieberson, "Einstein, Renoir, and Greeley: Some Thoughts about Evidence in Sociology," American Sociological Review 5771 (1992): 1-15.
63. John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, "The Dialectic of Organic/Inorganic Relations: Marx and the Hegelian Philosophy of Nature," Organization & Environment 13/4 (2000): 403-425.
64. Frederick H. Buttel, "Environmental Sociology and the Classical Sociological Tradition: Some Observations on Current Controversies," in Sociological Theory and the Environment: Classical Foundations, Contemporary Insights, Riley E. Dunlap, Frederick H. Buttel, Peter Dickens, and August Gijswijt, editors (Rowan & Littlefleld Publishers: Lanham, Maryland, 2002), 46;
65. Frederick H. Buttel, Peter Dickens, Riley E. Dunlap, and August Gijswijt, "Sociological Theory and the Environment: An Overview and Introduction," in Sociological Theory and the Environment, Dunlap et al., editors (Rowan & Littlefield Publishers: Lanham, Maryland, 2002), 7.
66. Peter Dickens, Society and Nature (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004);
67. Emily Matthews, C. Amann, S. Bringezu, M. Fischer-Kowalski, W. Hüttler, R. Kleijn, Y. Moriguchi, C. Ottke, E. Rodenburg, D. Rogich, H. Schandl, H. Schütz, E. van der Voet, and H. Weisz, Weight of Nations (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 2000);
68. Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature (New York: St. John's Press, 1999);
69. Tim Hayward, Ecological Thought (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994);
70. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?";
71. Fischer-Kowalski, "Society's Metabolism";
72. Jason W. Moore, "The Modern World-System as Environmental History? Ecology and the Rise of Capitalism," Theory and Society 32/3 (2003): 307-377;
73. Richard York, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas Dietz, "Footprints on the Earth; The Environmental Consequences of Modernity," American Sociological Review 68/2 (2003); 279-300;
74. Matthias Gross, "Unexpected Interactions: Georg Simmel and the Observation of Nature," Journal of Classical Sociology 1/3 (2001): 395-414;
75. Paul Burkett, "Marx's Ecology and the Limits of Contemporary Ecosocialism," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 12/3 (2001): 126-133;
76. Jason W. Moore, "Marx's Ecology and the Environmental History of World Capitalism," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 12/3 (2001): 134-139;
77. John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, "The Dialectic of Organic/Inorganic Relations: Marx and the Hegelian Philosophy of Nature," Organization & Environment 13/4 (2000): 403-425;
78. Jason W. Moore, "Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective," Organization & Environment 13/2 (2000): 123-157;
79. Brett Clark, "Ebenezer Howard and the Marriage of Town and Country: An Introduction to Howard's Garden Cities of To-morrow (Selections)," Organization & Environment 16/1 (2003): 87-97;
80. Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Eugene Rosa, Rolf Peter Sieferle, "Linking Society to Nature, Past to Future," Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences 14/2 (2001): 101-102;
81. Marina Fischer-Kowalski and Helmut Haberl, "Sustainable Development: Socio-Economic Metabolism and Colonization of Nature," International Social Science Journal 50/158 (1998): 573-587;
82. Helmut Haberl, Marina Fischer-Kowalski, F. Krausmann, H. Weisz, and V. Winiwarter, "Progress Towards Sustainability? What the Conceptual Framework of Material and Energy Flow Accounting (MEFA) Can Offer," Land Use Policy 21/3 (2004): 199-213.
83. Justus von Liebig, Letters on Modern Agriculture (London: Walton and Maberly, 1859).
84. John Bellamy Foster, Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 159.
85. Ibid., 159.
86. Ibid., 158.
87. Karl Marx, Capital Volume I (New York: Vintage, 1976), 637-638.
88. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (New York: International Publishers, 1964), 112.
89. Karl Marx, Capital Volume III (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 949-950.
90. Marx, Capital Volume I, 283-290.
91. Foster, Marx's Ecology;
92. Foster, "Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift."
93. Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 162-163, 223.
94. See also Daniel Hillel, Out of the Earth: Civilization and the Life of the Soil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
95. For a useful discussion of the accumulation of waste within cities, at this point in time, see Edwin Chadwick, Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (Edinburgh: University Press, 1965 [1842]);
96. Nicholas Goddard, "19th-century Recycling: The Victorians and the Agricultural Utilisation of Sewage," History Today 31/6 (1981): 32-36;
97. Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City (London: Verso, 2003).
98. See Foster and Clark, "Ecological Imperialism," for a discussion of the metabolic rift and the guano trade in the 1800s. Peruvian guano became a valuable fertilizer to replenish the exhausted agricultural fields of Europe and the United States of America.
99. Marx, Capital Volume 1, 637-638.
100. John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff, "Liebig, Marx, and the Depletion of Soil Fertility: Relevance for Today's Agriculture" in Hungry For Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment, F. Magdoff, J.B. Foster, and F.H. Buttel, editors (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000);
101. Fred Magdoff, Les Lanyon, and Bill Liebhardt, "Nutrient Cycling, Transformation and Flows: Implications for a More Sustainable Agriculture," Advances in Agronomy 60 (1997): 1-73.
102. Marx, Capital Volume 1;
103. Marx, Capital Volume III, 959.
104. Jason W. Moore, "The Crisis of Feudalism: An Environmental History," Organization & Environment 15/3 (2002): 301-322;
105. Moore, "The Modern World-System as Environmental History";
106. Foster and Clark, "Ecological Imperialism";
107. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?";
108. Moore, "Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift";
109. Burkett, Marx and Nature;
110. Foster and Magdoff, "Liebig, Marx, and the Depletion of Soil Fertility," 23-41.
111. Foster, "Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift," 375-383.
112. Rosa, "Global Climate Change," 494.
113. Foster, The Vulnerable Planet (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994), 90-96.
114. Here the first law of thermodynamics still holds, but in an entrophic kind of way. See Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971);
115. Georgescu-Roegen, Energy and Economic Myths (New York: Pergamon, 1976);
116. Herman Daly, "The Economics of the Steady State," American Economic Review 64/2 (1974): 15-21 ;
117. Daly, Steady-State Economics (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1977) for discussions of metabolic perspectives interpreted in terms of thermodynamics.
118. Vladimir I. Vernadsky, The Biosphere, (New York: Copernicus, 1998).
119. Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 46-49.
120. Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 236-242;
121. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos (New York: Summit, 1986).
122. Barbara Freese, Coal: A Human History (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 2003).
123. Eugene A. Rosa and Thomas Dietz, "Climate Change and Society: Speculation, Construction and Scientific Investigation," International Sociology 13/4 (1998): 421-455.
124. Spencer Weart, "From the Nuclear Frying Pan into the Global Fire," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 48 (1992): 19-27;
125. Rosa and Dietz, "Climate Change and Society," 426-428.
126. Rosa, "Global Climate Change," 492-493;
127. Gale E. Christianson, Greenhouse: The 200- Year Story of Global Warming (New York: Walker and Company, 1999).
128. 2: Natural Variations Archean to Present, E.T. Sundquist and W.S. Broecker, editors (Washington D.C.: American Geophysical Union, 1985), 1-4.
129. 2 from the atmosphere. See Revelle, "Introduction."
130. P. Falkowski, R.J. Scholes, E. Boyle, J. Canadell, D. Canfield, J. Elser, N. Gruber, K. Hibbard, P. Högberg, S. Linder, FT. Mackenzie, B. Moore III, T. Pedersen, Y. Rosenthal, S. Seitzinger, V. Smetacek, and W. Steffen, "The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of Earth as a System," Science 290 (2000): 291-296.
131. It should be noted that there have been natural climate variations in global temperatures through the centuries, which contributed to a "Little Ice Age," but there is widespread agreement among scientists that the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere driving global warming is the result of human activities. For a discussion of the "Little Ice Age," see Richard H. Grove, Ecology, Climate and Empire: Colonialism and Global Environmental History, 1400-1940 (Knapwell, Cambridge, UK: White Horse Press, 1997);
132. Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850 (New York: Basic Books, 2000);
133. Jean Grove, The Little Ice Age (London; Methuen, 1988);
134. John F. Richards, The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
135. Scientists make great efforts to distinguish between natural variations and human induced variations within systems. For a brief discussion of scientific consensus on global warming, see Oreskes, "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change."
136. For a useful discussion of extra-human and human agency in environmental change, see Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield, Land Degradation and Society (London: Methuen, 1987).
137. Thomas R. Karl and Kevin Trenberth, "Modern Global Climate Change," Science 302 (2003): 1719-1723;
138. also see Peter M. Vitousek, "Beyond Global Warming: Ecology and Global Change," Ecology 75/7 (1994): 1861-1876.
139. Falkowski et al., "The Global Carbon Cycle."
140. Rosa and Dietz, "Climate Change and Society";
141. Elizabeth Crawford, From Ionic Theory to the Greenhouse Effect (Nantucket, MA: Science History Publications, 1996).
142. Furthermore, the concentration of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, since preindustrial times, has increased: methane by 145 percent and nitrous oxide by 15 percent. See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Second Assessment: Climate Change 1995, 21;
143. also see Karl and Trenberth, "Modern Global Climate Change."
144. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?";
145. Rudel, "Sequestering Carbon in Tropical Forests";
146. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism;
147. Foster, Magdoff, McChesney, "The Pentagon and Climate Change."
148. Foster, The Vulnerable Planet;
149. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999);
150. Clive Ponting, The Green History of the World (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991);
151. Frederick Buell, From Apocalypse to Way of Life;
152. Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts (London: Verso, 2001);
153. Franz J. Broswimmer, Ecocide (London: Pluto Press, 2002).
154. Moore, "The Modern World-System as Environmental History'?";
155. for a detailed and useful study of the development of global capitalism, see Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
156. Foster, Marx's Ecology.
157. Foster and Clark, "Ecological Imperialism."
158. Capitalism is a dynamic system, but the drive to accumulate capital dictates throughout its history. Thus, in this discussion, we draw upon Marx to situate the logic of capital and understand how this fueled technological development. As capitalism developed and as capital was concentrated and centralized, the characteristics of monopoly capital came to dominate in the twentieth century, but still the drive to accumulate capital was central. In the larger discussion, we make use of work by Foster and Burkett, both of whom study political economy and the environment, to further understanding of the development of capitalism in relation to nature.
159. In addition to its place in the writings of Marx, Engels, and Liebig, the division between town and country remained a dominant concern in the work of social critics and activists. See Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1902);
160. Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops: Or Industry Combined with Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1913);
161. William Morris, News from Nowhere and Selected Writings and Designs (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1962);
162. William Morris, William Morris on Art and Socialism (Minola, New York: Dover Publications, 1999);
163. Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).
164. Joyce notes that it is important to see that in cities people experienced new freedoms. Politics was a contested realm of moral positions, economic interests, and power. The relational aspect of social developments remains a central issue to be considered. See Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom.
165. Boris Hessen, "The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's 'Principia'," in Science at the Cross Roads, N.I. Bukharin, editor (London: Frank Cass and Company, 1971);
166. Robert K. Merton, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1970);
167. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875 (New York: Vintage Books, 1996);
168. Daniel R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988);
169. Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).
170. Marx, Capital, Volume 1, 497.
171. Ibid., 494-501.
172. Karl Marx, "Wages," in Collected Works, Volume 6 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), 431;
173. also see Burkett, Marx and Nature, 108-112.
174. Karl Marx, Capital, Volume II (New York: Penguin, 1992), 218-219.
175. Marx, "Wages," 431.
176. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, 19.
177. Daly, Steady-State Economics, 23.
178. Ibid., 23.
179. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Essays: On Entrepreneurs, Innovations, Business Cycles, and the Evolution of Capitalism (New Brunswick, NT: Transaction Publishers, 2000), 302.
180. Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 334-335.
181. Paul Burkett, "Natural Capital, Ecological Economics, and Marxism," International Papers in Political Economy 10/3 (2003): 1-61.
182. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, 36;
183. also see Burkett, Marx and Nature;
184. Elmar Altvater, The Future of the Market (London: Verso, 1993);
185. Allan Schnaiberg and Kenneth A. Gould, Environment and Society (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994);
186. Paul Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970);
187. Paul A. Baran, The Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968);
188. Paul A. Baran and Paul Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966) for discussions of capitalism as a system of constant expansion.
189. Paul Sweezy, "Capitalism and the Environment," Monthly Review 56/5 (2004): 86-93.
190. Burkett, Marx and Nature;
191. Paul Burkett, "Nature's 'Free Gifts' and Ecological Significance of Value," Capital and Class 68(1999): 89-110.
192. Burkett, "Natural Capital, Ecological Economics, and Marxism";
193. Moore, "The Crisis of Feudalism: An Environmental History."
194. Marx, Capital Volume III, 955.
195. Marx, Capital Volume I.
196. Marx's adherence to the labor theory of value was not a shortcoming, but key to understanding the operations of capitalism both socially and ecologically. Marx illuminates how capital mystifies nature's contribution to wealth. Burkett argues that simply ascribing a social value to nature will not solve this contradiction, because "any attempt to directly attribute value to nature, without taking account of the historical specificity of wealth's social forms, results in an inability to specify the precise value-form taken by nature (value in terms of what, and for whom?) without running into serious theoretical difficulties." See Burkett, "Nature's 'Free Gifts' and Ecological Significance of Value";
197. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism. Thus, Marx's critique of political economy indicates that part of transcending the capitalist system is transcending the labor theory of value itself.
198. Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (New York: International Publishers, 1972), 47.
199. Marx, Grundrisse, 145.
200. Burkett, Marx and Nature, 84.
201. Marx noted in Volume III of Capital that capital only made efforts to reduce waste (or refuse) when it was profitable (195-198). Yet these efforts do not resolve the ecological crisis, because they only offer new ways to pursue the accumulation of wealth (in the short run), while increasing the demands placed upon the environment for further production, generating more waste. Thus, the pursuit of profit threatens the ability of nature to reproduce itself and to absorb waste and energy. See Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism;
202. Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1971);
203. Doug Dowd, The Waste of Nations (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989).
204. Foster, The Vulnerable Planet.
205. Burkett, "Natural Capital, Ecological Economics, and Marxism," 47;
206. also see Foster, "Capitalism and Ecology";
207. István Mészáros, Socialism or Barbarism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001).
208. Rudel, "Sequestering Carbon in Tropical Forests: Experiments, Policy Implications, and Climate Change";
209. Vitousek, "Beyond Global Warming."
210. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, 66.
211. Rosa and Dietz, "Climate Change and Society," 423.
212. Foster and Clark, "Ecological Imperialism";
213. Michael Perelman, "Myths of the Market: Economics and the Environment," Organization & Environment 16/2 (2003): 168-226;
214. Harry Magdoff, The Age of Imperialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969);
215. Harry Magdoff, Imperialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978).
216. Simms, Meyer, and Robins, Who Owes Who?
217. For a review of this literature, see Soumyananda Dinda, "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics 49 (2004): 431-455;
218. Theresa A. Cavlovic, Kenneth H. Baker, Robert P. Berrens, and Kishore Gawande, "A Meta-Analysis of Environmental Kuznets Curve Studies," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 29/1 (2000): 32-42;
219. and David I. Stem, "Progress on the Environmental Kuznets Curve?" Environment and Development Economics 3 (1998): 173-196.
220. Paul Hawken, "Forward," in Natural Capital and Human Economic Survival, Thomas Prugh, editor (Solomons, MD: International Society for Ecological Economics, 1995);
221. Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1999).
222. Paul Hawken, "Natural Capitalism," Mother Jones Magazine (April 1997): 40-53, 59-62.
223. Arthur P. J. Mol, The Refinement of Production (Utrecht, Netherlands: Van Arkel, 1995);
224. Gert Spaargaren, The Ecological Modernization of Production and Consumption: Essays in Environmental Sociology, Doctoral Dissertation, Wageningen University (Wageningen, Netherlands, 1997).
225. Arthur P. J. Mol, "Ecological Modernisation and Institutional Reflexivity: Environmental Reform in the Late Modern Age," Environmental Politics 5/2 (1996): 302-323;
226. Arthur P. J. Mol, Globalization and Environmental Reform (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
227. This account depends upon Sebastian Budgen's review of Luc Boltanski and Éve Chiapello's book, Le Nouvel Esprit de Capitalisme (Gallimard: Paris, 1999).
228. It should also be noted that, in concluding the review, Budgen states that Boltanski and Chiapello's belief that enlightened capitalists will pursue the development of a society premised on social needs and the common good is "the point at which it [their argument] deserts any sense of realism." See Sebastian Budgen, "A New 'Spirit of Capitalism,'" New Left Review (January-February 2000): 149-156.
229. Roberts, Grimes, and Manale, "Social Roots of Global Environmental Change";
230. Anqing Shi, "The Impact of Population Pressure on Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 1975-1996: Evidence from Pooled Cross-country Data," Ecological Economics 44 (2003): 29-42;
231. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?";
232. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "STIRPAT, IPAT, and ImPACT."
233. Richard York, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas Dietz, "The Ecological Footprint Intensity of National Economies," Journal of Industrial Ecology 8/4 (2004): in press.
234. William Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question; An Enquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal-mines (London: Macmillan, 1865).
235. Brett Clark and John Bellamy Foster, "William Stanley Jevons and The Coal Question: An Introduction to Jevons's 'Of the Economy of Fuel,'" Organization & Environment 14/1 (2001): 93-98;
236. M. Giampietro and K. Mayumi, "Another View of Development, Ecological Degradation, and North-South Trade," Review of Social Economy 56/1 (1998): 20-36.
237. Dowd, The Waste of Nations;
238. also see Baran, The Political Economy of Growth
239. , and Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital.
240. Richard York and Eugene Rosa, "Key Challenges to Ecological Modernization Theory: Institutional Efficacy, Case Study Evidence, Units of Analysis, and the Pace of Eco-Efficiency," Organization & Environment 16/3 (2003): 273-288;
241. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?";
242. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "STIRPAT, IPAT, and ImPACT";
243. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "Footprints on the Earth";
244. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "The Ecological Footprint Intensity of National Economies";
245. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism;
246. Schnaiberg and Gould, Environment and Society;
247. Stephen Bunker, "Raw Material and the Global Economy: Oversights and Distortions in Industrial Ecology," Society and Natural Resources 9 (1996): 419-429.
248. 2 emissions are those from combustion of fossil fuels, including bunker fuels. We present data for this selection of nations because Matthews et al. provide data for only these four nations and Germany. The data for Germany are problematic for this presentation since, for years prior to reunification (1990-1991), data are only presented for the former West Germany.
249. Anqing Shi, "The Impact of Population Pressure on Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 1975-1996";
250. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "A Rift in Modernity?";
251. York, Rosa, and Dietz, "STIR-PAT, IPAT, and ImPACT."
252. Marx, Capital Volume I;
253. also see Crenshaw and Jenkins, "Social Structure and Global Climate Change."
254. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism;
255. Loren Lutzenhiser, "The Contours of U.S. Climate Non-Policy," Society and Natural Resources 14 (2001): 511-523.
256. Crenshaw and Jenkins, "Social Structure and Global Climate Change."
257. Burkett, "Natural Capital, Ecological Economics, and Marxism," 27.
258. Roberts, "Global Inequality and Climate Change";
259. Karl and Trenberth, "Modern Global Climate Change."
260. Falkowski, Scholes, Boyle, Canadell, Canfield, Elser, Gruber, Hibbard, Högberg, Linder, Mackenzie, Moore III, Pedersen, Rosenthal, Seitzinger, Smetacek, and Steffen, "The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of Earth as a System."
261. For analyses and discussion of the carbon sequestration processes in the oceans, see Taro Takahashi, "The Fate of Industrial Carbon Dioxide," Science 305 (2004): 352-353;
262. 3 System in the Oceans," Science 305 (2004): 362-366;
263. 2," Science 305(2004): 367-371.
264. World Bank, World Development Indicators 2002 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002), 148;
265. also see R. A. Houghton and J.L. Hackler, "Emissions of Carbon from Forestry and Land-use Change in Tropical Asia," Global Change Biology 5 (1995): 481-492;
266. R.A. Houghton, "Land-use Change and the Carbon Cycle," Global Change Biology 1 (1995): 275-287.
267. Thomas J. Burns, Edward I. Kick, David A. Murray, and Dixie Murray, "Demography, Development and Deforestation in a World-System Perspective," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 3-4 (1994): 221-239;
268. Edward Kick, Thomas Burns, Byron Davis, David Murray, and Dixie Murray, "Impacts of Domestic Population Dynamics and Foreign Wood Trade on Deforestation," Journal of Developing Societies 12 (1996): 68-87;
269. Rudel, "Population, Development, and Tropical Deforestation: A Cross-National Study";
270. Thomas K. Rudel and Jill Roper, "The Paths to Rain Forest Destruction," World Development 25/1 (1997):53-65.
271. Falkowski, Scholes, Boyle, Canadell, Canfield, Elser, Gruber, Hibbard, Högberg, Linder, Mackenzie, Moore III, Pedersen, Rosenthal, Seitzinger, Smetacek, and Steifen, "The Global Carbon Cycle," 293-294.
272. Roberts, "Global Inequality and Climate Change," 502;
273. also see Bruce Podobnik, "Energy Demands and Consumption," in Cities in a Globalizing World: Global Report on Human Settlements 2001, United Nations, editor (Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2001);
274. Bruce Podobnik, "Global Energy Inequalities: Exploring the Long-term Implications," Journal of World-Systems Research 8/2 (2002): 252-274.
275. For a useful discussion of the historical aspects of uneven development and ecological crisis, see James O'Connor, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism (New York: Guilibrd Press, 1998), 187-199.
276. Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, Global Warmingin an Unequal World (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1991).
277. Simms, Meyer, and Robins, Who Owes Who?
278. 2.
279. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, 18.
280. 2 Emissions 1980-1996."
281. Marx, Capital Volume I (NY: International Publishers, 1967), 475.
282. In 1987, Paul Sweezy stated that the expanding scale of capitalist production created ever greaterthreats to the natural world, especially to nature's resiliency. See Sweezy, "Capitalism and the Environment";
283. also see Commoner, The Closing Circle.
284. Marten Scheffer, Steve Carpenter, Jonathan A. Foley, Carl Folke, and Brian Walker, "Catastrophic Shifts in Ecosystems," Nature 413/October 11 (2001): 591-596;
285. Roldan Muradian, "Ecological Thresholds: A Survey," Ecological Economics 38 (2001): 7-24.
286. Vitousek, "Beyond Global Warming: Ecology and Global Change," 1864.
287. Krajick, "All Downhill From Here?"
288. Vitousek, "Beyond Global Warming: Ecology and Global Change," 1862.
289. Falkowski, Scholes, Boyle, Canadell, Canfield, Elser, Gruber, Hibbard, Högberg, Linder, Mackenzie, Moore III, Pedersen, Rosenthal, Seitzinger, Smetacek, and Steffen, "The Global Carbon Cycle," 293-294.
290. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 7-16;
291. National Research Council, Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2002);
292. Richard B. Alley, The Two-mile Time Machine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000);
293. Kevin Krajick, "All Downhill from here?" Science 303/March 12 (2004): 1600-1602;
294. Wallace S. Broecker, "Does the Trigger for Abrupt Climate Change Reside in the Ocean or in the Atmosphere?" Science 300/June 6 (2003): 1519-1522;
295. 2 Upset the Current Balance?" Science 278/November 28 (1997): 1582-1588;
296. Andrew J. Weaver and Claude Hillaire-Marcel, "Global Warming and the Next Ice Age," Science 304/April 16 (2004): 400-402;
297. Daniel P. Schrag and Richard B. Alley, "Ancient Lessons for Our Future Climate," Science 306/October 29 (2004): 821-822.
298. Indeed, even the Pentagon published a report supporting the reality of the potential for abrupt climate change as a result of anthropogenic carbon emissions. See Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security (2003), available at www.ems.org.
299. For an insightful discussion and critique of the Pentagon's report see Foster, Magdoff, and McChesney, "The Pentagon and Climate Change."
300. Buell, From Apocalypse to Way of Life.
301. Marx, Capital Volume III, 959.