The Environmental Responsibility Reader

The Environmental Responsibility Reader is a definitive collection of classic and contemporary environmental works that offers a comprehensive overview of the issues involved in environmental responsibility, steering the reader through each development in thought with a unifying and expert editorial voice.

This essential text expertly explores seemingly intractable modern-day environmental dilemmas - including climate change, fossil fuel consumption, fresh water quality, industrial pollution, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss. Starting with 'Silent Spring' and moving through to more recent works the book draws on contemporary ideas of environmental ethics, corporate social responsibility, ecological justice, fair trade, global citizenship, and the connections between environmental and social justice; configuring these ideas into practical notions for responsible action with a unique global and integral focus on responsibility.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Introduction to environmental responsibility - Martin Reynolds

Section 2: Ethical and Cultural Traditions
Introduction to part one - Martin Reynolds, Chris Blackmore and Mark J. Smith
1. Silent spring (a) A fable for tomorrow (b) And no birds sing - Rachel Carson
2. The land ethic - Aldo Leopold
3. On values and obligations to the environment - Luke Martell
4. Environmental ethics - Martin Reynolds
5. The consequentialist side of environmental ethics - Daniel Holbrook
6. Deontological environmental ethics - Robert Elliot
7. The virtues of ecological citizenship - James Connelly
8. Summary of part one - Martin Reynolds, Chris Blackmore and Mark J. Smith

Section 3: Nature Matters
Introduction to part two - Martin Reynolds
9. Toward an ecological conversation - Stephen Talbott
10. Contemporary environmental ethics - Andrew Light
11. The two-culture problem: ecological restoration and the integration of knowledge - Eric Higgs
12. The framing paradox - Ronald Moore
13. Systems thinking for environmental responsibility (a) The web of life - Fritjof Capra (b) Hidden connections - Fritjof Capra
(C) Can we secure future-responsive management through systems thinking and design? - Werner Ulrich
14. Environmental pragmatism, ecocentrism and deliberative democracy - Robyn Eckersley
15. Knowledge, justice and democracy - Shiv Visvanathan
Summary of part two - Martin Reynolds

Section 4: Individual and collective responsibility
Introduction to part three - Chris Blackmore
16. Autonomous yet responsible? - Geoffrey Vickers
17. Individualization: plant a tree, buy a bike, save the world? - Michael Maniates
18. Obligations to future generations - Martin P. Golding
19. The tragedy of the commons - Garret Hardin
20. The struggle to govern the commons - Thomas Dietz, Elinor Ostrom and Paul Stern
21. The big debate: reform or revolution? - Jonathan Porritt and Claire Fauset
22. Social Learning and environmental responsibility - Chris Blackmore
23. Uncertainty, environmental policy and social learning - Robin Grove-White
Summary of part three - Chris Blackmore

Section 5: Ecological citizenship
Introduction to part four - Mark J. Smith
24. Environmental justice in the United States and South Africa - Joan Martinez-Alier
25. Ecological citizenship - Andrew Dobson
26. Just sustainability in practice - Julian Agyeman
27. Justice, governance and sustainability: some persepectives on environmental citizenship from North America and Europe - Julian Agyeman and Bob Evans
28. The project of feminist ecological citizenship - Sherilyn MacGregor
29. Shopping for sustainability: can sustainable consumption promote ecological citizenship? - Gill Seyfang
30. Buddhist virtues and environmental responsibility in Thailand - Mark J. Smith and Piya Pangsapa
31. Strategic thinking and the practices of ecological citizenship: bringing together the ties that bind and bond - Mark J. Smith and Piya Pangsapa
Summary of part four - Mark J. Smith

Section 6: Epilogue - Martin Reynolds, Chris Blackmore and Mark J. Smith

About the Authors:

Martin Reynolds, a Lecturer in Systems at The Open University, is Course Team Chair for the OU postgraduate course Environmental responsibility and, since 2002, Chair for Environmental ethics. He started work at The Open University in 2000 and has been writing for postgraduate courses on environmental ethics, environmental decision making and institutional development. He has researched and published widely, including his book: Operational Research and Environmental Management (co-authored with Gerald Midgley), and contributed many book chapters, journal papers and policy briefings.

Chris Blackmore, a Senior Lecturer in Systems and Environment at The Open University, is a founding course team member for the OU postgraduate course Environmental ethics. She is currently a member of the management team for the OU-wide Ethics Centre. She's also the founding Course Team Chair of the postgraduate course Environmental decision making and still one of its Co-Chairs and a course author. Her main research area, in which she has various publications, is in learning systems and communities of practice for environmental decision making, including issues of ethics, social learning, global citizenship, sustainability and responsibility.

Mark J. Smith, Politics and International Studies and the Center for Citizenship, Identities and Governance at The Open University, researches environmental responsibility, transnational corporations, civic engagement and the role of ethics in politics and the environment. He is author or editor of numerous books, including Environment and Citizenship, Responsible Politics, Ecologism, Social Science in Question, Thinking through the Environment, Rethinking State Theory and Culture, as well as many chapters and articles. Formerly at Sussex University, his visiting professorships include the University of Oslo and Norwegian Business School and he has been a researcher in universities in the US and South Africa.