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Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order

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"We are living beyond our means, running up debts both economic and ecological, consuming the planet's resources at rates not remotely sustainable. But it's hard to imagine a different way. How can we live without cheap goods and easy credit? How can we consume without consuming the systems that support life? How can we live well and live within our means? In Treading Softly, Thomas Princen helps us imagine an alternative. We need, he says, a new normal, a new ecological order that is actually economical with resources, that embraces limits, that sees sustainable living not as a "lifestyle" but as a long-term connection to fresh, free-flowing water, fertile soil, and healthy food." "That economies must grow is a fundamental belief among economists, politicians, and journalists. But it is rampant material growth that has brought us to this precipice. Princen argues that it is time to build an economy that is grounded in the way natural systems work; that operates as if we have just the right amount of resources rather than endless frontiers. The goal would be to live well by living well within the capacities of those resources. Society's material foundations would be grounded in the biophysical, its practices based on satisfying work, self-reliance, and restraint rather than the purchasing of goods. Princen doesn't offer a quick fix - there's no list of easy ways to save the planet to hang on the refrigerator. He gives us instead a positive, realistic sense of the possible, with an abundance of examples, concepts, and tools for imagining, then realizing, how to live within our biophysical means."--Jacket.OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

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Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

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Publisher

Cambridge, Mass. : : The MIT Press., 2010

Collation

1 online resource (xi, 210 pages)

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262266079

Classification

NONE

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

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Subject(s)

Nature
Environmental policy.
Human ecology
Consumption (Economics)
Sustainable development.

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

Thomas Princen

Other Information

Cataloger

Citra

Source

https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/2363/Treading-SoftlyPaths-to-Ecological-Order

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8573.001.0001

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