Green Political Thought: Intro Pb

by Dobson

Andrew Dobson's highly acclaimed introduction to green political thought is now available in a new edition. It has been fully revised and updated to take into account the areas that have grown in importance since the last edition was published.

The third edition includes:

* a comparison of ecologism with other principal modern ideologies, such as liberalism, conservatism, fascism, socialism, feminism and anarchism
* an assessment of the relationship between green thinking and democracy, justice and citizenship
* an exploration of 'sustainable development' addressing the fundamental question of 'what to sustain?'
* real environmental problems and how green thinking relates to them.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Environment, Climate Change

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1990

Reviews

[mkm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Green Political Thought talked me off socialism (socialism in its entirety of definition) and into ecologism (deep or radical ecology political movement). Its main premise is that ecologism is a political ideology, different from liberalism, socialism, ecofeminism, etc. This is because ecologism goes against industrialism, which is the foundation of liberalism and socialism. Socialism has many good aspects to its name but the main one that goes against ecologism is its belief in industrial growth and its belief that growth can be "green". This goes against ecologism which posits that growth can never be green and that if we want to save our Earth and all that lives on her, we must leave this growth mindset behind.

Green Political Thought is very persuasive and gives intelligent arguments for its position.

CITATIONS:
A third faultline between socialists and political ecologists may befound in disputes over the issue of ‘limits to growth’. Indeed, the most instructive test to carry out on would-be green socialists is to see how far they have accepted the fundamental green position that there are material limits to productive growth. Some have done so completely, and in the process would appear significantly to have reassessed the content of their socialism. Rudolf Bahro, for example, commented when he was still a socialist that he found it ‘quite atrocious that thereare Marxists who contest the finite scope of the earth’s exploitable crust’ (1982, p. 60). We now know that Bahro’s dwelling on thoughts like this led him to abandon socialism entirely. (pg 172)

I do not believe that anyone can read the extensive literature on the ecology crisis without concluding that its impact will oblige us to make changes in production and consumption of a kind, and on a scale, which will entail a break with the lifestyles and expectations that have become habitual in industrialized countries. (Ryle, 1988, p. 6) (pg 172)

WE MUST NOT TRY TO PERSUADE PEOPLE WITH HUMAN-CENTRIC ARGUMENTS (such as, if we don't save Earth, humans will not survive) BUT INSTEAD WE MUST TALK OF NATURE'S INTRISIC VALUE (because this will teach people to think differently and remove themselves as the centre of the world): The whole point of developing a perspective which goes beyond (what I have defined as) a strong anthropocentric principle is that such a principle only serves to reinforce the attitude which radical greens are concerned to invalidate – that which has the universe revolving around the human being. Warwick Fox’s argument is that only the development of an ecological consciousness will turn the tables in favour of the environment, such that the onus of persuasion is on those who want to destroy, rather than on those who want to preserve. The best that may be said of humanprudentialists, from the point of view of the deep ecologists, is that they will get some of if not the entire job done. (pg 46)

The centrality of citizenship to green arguments for democracy comes from the belief that the achievement of sustainability will require more than institutional restructuring of contemporary Western liberal democracies. Such institutional changes are necessary, but not sufficient, from a green point of view. The green contention is that macro- and micro-level reorganization needs to be supplemented with changes in general values and practices. In short, institutional change must be complemented by wider cultural-level changes. (J. Barry, 1999, p. 228) (pg 200-201)

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dobson demonstrates clearly what I too have always believed, that the Green Movement is something entirely new. It's pedigree can not be simply traced back through the history of various leftist and progressive movements. The addition of the concepts of Ecology and systems thinking in general are what the Greens bring to the table that is totally new, without precedent. That makes Ecology, in my mind, not just one of the Four Pillars of the Greens, but the foundation upon which the other three Pillars stand. Dobson explains why this is so.

[Jessica DeWitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise volume that outlines the differences between environmentalism and ecologism, as well as the central tenets and problems with ecologism.

Link to Twitter moment with selected quotes from the volume: https://twitter.com/i/moments/9765875...

[Arda Alkkåskøgen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitaba yalnızca içeriğine göre not vermiş olsaydım şüphesiz 5 üzerinden 5 puan verecektim ancak bu pek mümkün olmadı ne yazık ki (yine de verdiğim puanın ağırlıkla içeriğe olduğunu belirtmek istiyorum). Yeni İnsan Yayınevi'nin dilimize kazandırdığı kitapları seçerken gösterdikleri titiz tavırdan ve çevirilerinden, baskılarından genel itibarı ile oldukça memnunum ancak bu kitap, okurken resmen cebelleştiğim bir kitap oldu ne yazık ki.

Yayınevi tarafından basılan 100. kitap olması sebebiyle daha titiz bir editöryal çalışma beklerdim öncelikle. Elimdeki baskı (kitabın birinci baskısı) başlangıcından sonuna kadar redaksiyon hataları ile dolu. Bazı bölümlerde başa çıkılamayacak kadar fazla hatayla karşılaşıyorsunuz. Kimse çevirilmiş metne göz atmamış, direkt olarak baskıya yollanmış hissi uyandıracak denli bozuk cümleler, yazım yanlışlarıyla karşılaşıyorsunuz ve haliyle, içerikten bağımsız olarak, kitap okuma keyfini muazzam boyutlarda kaçırıyor.

Yayınevi ile ilgili ilk kez böyle bir hayal kırıklığı yaşıyorum. Okuduğum Türkçe baskıya verebileceğim puan en fazla 5 üzerinden 2'dir. Bulursam bir de orijinalini okuyacağım. Herkesin de öyle yapmasını tavsiye ediyorum.

[Andy Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author writes in a very clear manner without too much use of academic jargons. Very pleasant to read and understand the debate surrounding green political thought.

[Avani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but a bit dry and vague.

[Sebastian]

made me sad. good.

[Bima Putra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich idea of green politic, also good introduction, and easy to understand