Ecological Security: An Evolutionary Perspective on Globalization - Softcover

The author's attempt to create a holistic explanatory model is impressive. Recommended for larger public and academic libraries. Library Journal An indispensable resource for understanding globalization. Highly recommended! -- Herman Daly, University of Maryland Ecological Security presents an innovative approach toward environmental issues, weaving them together with the trend toward economic globalization and its implications for the distribution of wealth in the world. Authors Dennis Clark Pirages and Theresa Manley DeGeest have produced a well-written and readable text that will be understood and appreciated by a broad readership. -- Marvin S. Soroos, North Carolina State University With each passing day, it appears more and more obvious that the prevailing explanations for turbulence and crisis in world affairs are wholly inadequate, and that existing policy responses are of little use in addressing emerging dangers. We desperately need a new mode of analysis for deciphering international developments and devising new policy mechanisms. Ecological Security provides exactly what we require: a comprehensive approach to the study of world affairs that combines economic, political, sociological, biological, and ecological perspectives, and does so in a way that enables us to grasp the dramatic changes taking place. More than this, it lays the groundwork for a truly evolutionary approach to the management of world affairs. -- Michael Klare, Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Affairs, Hampshire College Pirages and DeGeest recognize that globalization is driven by a multiplicity of co-evolving processes, that this has been going on for thousands of years, and that the processes involved appear to have undergone an evolutionary shift in recent times. This book will help to get these important points across to a wide audience. -- William R. Thompson, Indiana University In Ecological Security authors Pirages and DeGeest embrace and integrate environmental, demographic, and technological dynamics into their analysis of the paths from international to global relations to great advantage. Building on Pirages's decades-long contributions in this tradition, they cast aside the more typical approach to compartmentalize and therefore marginalize these supposedly background variables of international politics. -- Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ecological Security moves the analysis of global environmental and resource issues to the next level by developing an 'eco-evolutionary' perspective for analyzing emerging problems associated with rapid globalization. Preserving future ecological security will depend upon maintaining dynamic equilibriums among human populations, and between them and pathogenic microorganisms, other species, and the sustaining capabilities of nature. This eco-evolutionary framework is used to anticipate and analyze emerging demographic, ecological, and technological discontinuities and dilemmas associated with rapid globalization. The authors conclude by stressing the need for new kinds of global public goods to mitigate the harshest impacts of these rapid and interrelated changes.