Overview
- Makes a highly relevant contribution to knowledge on the mutual histories of ecology, economics and energy
- Illuminates contemporary aporias in the conduct of energy, climate and environmental policy
- Scrutinises the metaphorical affinities that both disciplines have derived from the ‘hard sciences’ in terms of the social values encoded therein
- Pays close attention to the historical evolution of disciplines and the constant hybridization between economic and environmental discourses
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About this book
This book traces the interacting histories of the disciplines of ecology and economics, from their common origin in the ancient Greek concept of oikonomia, through their distinct encounters with energy physics, to the current obstruction of neoliberal economics to responses to the ecological and climate crisis of the so-called Anthropocene. Reconstructing their constitution as separate sciences in the era of fossil-fuelled industrial capitalism, the book offers an explanation of how the ecological sciences have moved from a position of critical collision with mainstream economics in the 1970s, to one of collusion with the project of permanent growth, in and through the thermal crisis of the biosphere.
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Keywords
Table of contents (14 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Ecology as Social Physics
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
"We live in a world of rapid, irreversible environmental change. The interplay of fire, life, atmosphere and land now constrain and propel humanity’s destiny. How have we arrived at this situation? Jeremy Walker presents a fascinating, insightful argument that the answer lies in the historical tensions between ecology and economics in broader political debates about resource use and fossil fuel combustion." (David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, Director of the Fire Centre Research Hub, University of Tasmania, Australia)
"Neoliberal proposals for re-organizing the global economy rose to prominence in parallel with the emergence of a consciousness of the global economy’s material limits. Jeremy Walker has written the first book devoted to the fraught relationship between neoliberal economics and ecology—an essential contribution to today’s most pressing discussions." (Quinn Slobodian, Associate Professor of History, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA)
"Neoliberal proposals for re-organizing the global economy rose to prominence in parallel with the emergence of a consciousness of the global economy’s material limits. Jeremy Walker has written the first book devoted to the fraught relationship between neoliberal economics and ecology—an essential contribution to today’s most pressing discussions." (Quinn Slobodian, Associate Professor of History, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA)
"Blazing a trail between photosynthesis and pyrotechnology, Walker guides us masterfully through the making of today’s global thermo-industrial catastrophe." (Nigel Clark, Professor, Chair of Social Sustainability, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Jeremy Walker is Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Sciences and a member of the Climate Justice Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (University of New South Wales), a Bachelor of Communications (Social Inquiry, Hons, UTS) and a PhD (History and Philosophy of Science, UTS).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: More Heat than Life: The Tangled Roots of Ecology, Energy, and Economics
Authors: Jeremy Walker
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3936-7
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-3935-0Published: 15 July 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-3938-1Published: 15 July 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-3936-7Published: 14 July 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 374
Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations
Topics: Environmental Economics, International Political Economy, Sustainable Development, Organizational Studies, Economic Sociology, Economic Geography, Energy Policy, Economics and Management