Nature, choice and social power, by Erica Schoenberger, Abingdon, UK, Routledge, 2015, 223 pp., ￡31.99 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-415-83387-5; ￡90.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-415-83386-8

摘要

I was intrigued when I read the details of this book, which promise that it examines through "case studies from different environmental domains" how social power shapes the choices we have available and has contributed to environmental degradation, and also that it "challenges conventional wisdoms about what we need to do now". Written by a Professor of Geography and Environmental Engineering, it is underpinned by a political economy framework and also draws on disciplines such as history, moral philosophy and science and technology studies. This cross-disciplinary focus is essential to the study of "wicked problems" (Rittel and Webber 1973), of which environmental issues are exemplars, characterised as they are by complexity, uncertainty, contested problems, resistance to change, and numerous possible approaches to solutions/resolution; no single discipline can provide a broad enough understanding of such problems.