Building on recent developments in social ecology, this book advances a new critical theory of society and nature, exploring social metabolism and global resource flows in contemporary society. Barriers to global sustainability are identified and conditions for transforming industrial economies towards new sustainable resource use are described.

Integrating environmental aims in the agricultural policy of the European Union was a main aim of the 1992 CAP-reform. This book presents a study of the socio-economic framing conditions as well as the attitudes and orientations within the agricultural population towards the European agri-environmental policy. It is based on a research project in three member countries, France, Germany, and Portugal, where more than 600 farmers have been interviewed. The results indicate that a change towards more ecologically sustainable forms of agricultural production requires much broader political and...

This book advances a social-ecological theory to reconnect nature and society through sustainable transformation of interacting social and ecological systems. Social ecology develops as an interdisciplinary science by using knowledge from the social sciences, especially sociology and economics, and from natural-scientific ecology. Knowledge integration across the boundaries of social and natural sciences is not widespread, blocked by the specialisation of theories and their competing forms of explanation and interpretation. Chapters in this book describe a new social-ecological theory that...