This book shows how globalisation and international trade create environmental injustices between different parts of the world. Richer nations are able to shift their environmental loads onto poorer areas of the world-system, where labour and natural resources are cheaper and environmental legislation less of an obstacle. The chapters discuss recent approaches to ecological unequal exchange and environmental load displacement that use biophysical metrics rather than money to measure the uneven flows and the environmental impacts of international trade. The approaches discussed include social...

In modern society, we tend to have faith in technology. But is our concept of technology itself a cultural illusion? This book challenges the idea that humanity as a whole is united in a common development toward increasingly efficient technologies.

In modern society, we tend to have faith in technology. But is our concept of 'technology' itself a cultural illusion? This book challenges the idea that humanity as a whole is united in a common development toward increasingly efficient technologies. Instead it argues that modern technology implies a kind of global 'zero-sum game' involving uneven resource flows, which make it possible for wealthier parts of global society to save time and space at the expense of humans and environments in the poorer parts.

We tend to think of the functioning of machines as if it was detached from...