Trouble in Paradise: Globalization and Environmental Crises in Latin America

ISBN-13: 9780415929806 / Angielski / Miękka / 2003 / 304 str.

J. Timmons Roberts; Nikki Demetria Thanos; David Helvarg

Opis

Environmental degradation in Latin America has become one of the most pressing issues on the international agenda. The volume began to crescendo when space shuttle astronauts photographed five thousand fires on a single night in the Brazilian Amazon state of Rondonia in 1985, and grew shrill when rubber tapper Chico Mendes was shot in 1988 trying to stop ranchers from clearing rainforests near his home in Acre. Since the early 80s, we've heard pleas from rock stars, environmental groups and scientists, asking us to focus our attention on environmental destruction in Latin America: oil spills, lax NAFTA-driven ecological standards, endangered indigenous cultures and the destruction of the rainforests.

Recenzje

"Fast-paced, complex, challenging and important. Their analysis of the broad scale of loss and biological decline occurring in the Amazon basin, and the factors driving it, are as stunning as any I've read." -- David Helvarg, from the Foreword
"Presents vignettes detailing the real stories people dealing with an acute environmental problem; describes the current extent and depth of the problem (and) explores the historical roots of the problem, viewed broadly." -- Journal of Economic Literature

Spis treści

Preface and Acknowledgements 1. The Scene, Its Problems and Roots 2. Pollution Havens on the U.S./Mexico Border? NAFTA, Free Trade, and the Environment 3. Green Revolutions, Deforestation, and New Ideas 4. Hazards of an Urban Continent 5. Bio-splendor, Devastation and Competing Visions in the Amazon 6. Indigenous Peoples, Development Megaprojects, and Internet Resistance, With Leo B. Gorman 7. Building a Global Civil Society: Living What We Know

O autorze

J. Timmons Roberts is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Mellon Program in Environmental Science and Policy at the College of William and Mary. He is author of Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline, and From Modernization to Globalization. Nikki Demetria Thanos works in MDexico as a Popular Educator and Political Analyst for Witness For Peace, a US-based non-profit organization. She studied environmental policy and Latin American studies at Tulane University, and has conducted research in Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, MDexico and the Andes.