- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Pluto Press; 2 edition (20 Feb 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0745327281
- ISBN-13: 978-0745327280
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.2 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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"'Creative and compelling.' Guardian 'Essential reading.' Head of the IPCC 'A new phrase has entered the language.' Anita Roddick"
Product Description
--New edition of this highly acclaimed guide-- 'Creative and compelling.' Guardian 'Essential reading.' Head of the IPCC 'A new phrase has entered the language.' Anita Roddick This is the second edition of Andrew Simms's highly regarded guide to ecological debt. Simms shows how millions of us in the West are running up huge ecological debts: from the amount of oil and coal that we burn to heat our houses and run our cars, to what we consume and the waste that we create, the impact of our lifestyles is felt worldwide. Whilst these debts go unpaid, millions more living in poverty in the majority world suffer the burden of paying dubious foreign financial debts. The book explores a great paradox of our age: how the global wealth gap was built on ecological debts, which the world's poorest are now having to pay for. Highlighting how and why this has happened, he also shows what can be done differently in the future. Now updated throughout, this is a clear and passionate account of the steps we can take to stop pushing the planet to the point of environmental bankruptcy.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Ecological Debt is an unusually wide-ranging book, from a writer who understands that climate change, debt, resource depletion, development and lifestyle are all intricately bound together. To do justice to one issue, you have to follow the threads through them all. That could have resulted in a complete tangle of a book, but the idea of ecological debt serves as a locus that keeps it from unravelling.
Ecological debt is basically taking out an environmental overdraft, either on the earth itself or on somebody else. If we assume that everyone has an equal right to emit carbon, for example, then some countries and individuals are using more than their fair share of the atmosphere. That creates climate debtors and climate creditors, and the usual roles of debt are reversed. We are used to thinking of poor countries as heavily indebted, but "it is the inescapable debts of the rich that threaten our collective future".
That's the radical notion that Simms explores here. The richest countries in the world owe both an environmental debt to poorer countries, and a historical one, through colonialism and conquest. Considering that future development is constrained by limited resources and the climate, he argues that we should re-consider the idea of economic growth in rich countries, and start sharing the wealth better: "There is no more fundamental issue than the distribution of wealth in a climate constrained world economy".
That is of course a pretty unwelcome conclusion, but the idea of 'ecological debt' allows Simms to repackage a message that would otherwise be freighted with unhelpful ideology. Economic rebalancing is a moral imperative, neither charity nor socialist idealism - it would be righting a wrong, and repaying a debt.
The book does pack a little too much in - this is the updated 2009 edition, and the last few chapters lose focus a little. Overall however, this is a powerful and creative exercise in joining the dots between the several converging crises of the 21st century.
Ecological debt is basically taking out an environmental overdraft, either on the earth itself or on somebody else. If we assume that everyone has an equal right to emit carbon, for example, then some countries and individuals are using more than their fair share of the atmosphere. That creates climate debtors and climate creditors, and the usual roles of debt are reversed. We are used to thinking of poor countries as heavily indebted, but "it is the inescapable debts of the rich that threaten our collective future".
That's the radical notion that Simms explores here. The richest countries in the world owe both an environmental debt to poorer countries, and a historical one, through colonialism and conquest. Considering that future development is constrained by limited resources and the climate, he argues that we should re-consider the idea of economic growth in rich countries, and start sharing the wealth better: "There is no more fundamental issue than the distribution of wealth in a climate constrained world economy".
That is of course a pretty unwelcome conclusion, but the idea of 'ecological debt' allows Simms to repackage a message that would otherwise be freighted with unhelpful ideology. Economic rebalancing is a moral imperative, neither charity nor socialist idealism - it would be righting a wrong, and repaying a debt.
The book does pack a little too much in - this is the updated 2009 edition, and the last few chapters lose focus a little. Overall however, this is a powerful and creative exercise in joining the dots between the several converging crises of the 21st century.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The whole idea of ecological debt is really exciting, ground-breaking stuff, and Andrew Simms - who came up with it in the first place - as written a brilliantly readable and challenging book. Nor is this the usual depressing stuff about global warming: it offers a way out. If you want a good guide to the debate about the planet, and one that is actually fun to read, you couldn't go wrong with this one!
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The wealth of the developed countries of Europe and North America can be traced back to the exploitation of their colonies in the past several centuries, and up to the unbalanced usage of their environmental assets today. An interesting message, but how this historical debt can in fact be repaid is not convincingly addressed. Regrettably this interesting topic is not explored in nuanced depth, and the book falls into repetitious enumeration of the sins of our fathers. Could be much better.
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