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Ecological Crisis (ecological + crisis)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences66%

Selected Abstracts

Ecological Theology: Roots in Tradition, Liturgical and Ethical Practice for Today

DIALOG, Issue 3 2003
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Abstract Often it is claimed that themes occasionally present in Christianity such as anthropocentrism, ecological alienation, and redemption as a world-escaping disembodied immortality, translated directly into large-scale abuse of nature and subsequent ecological crisis. Such a view is too simplistic, however. Instead the present environmental and ecological crisis may be primarily traced to cultural, economic, and technological developments of the last 500 years. Indeed, within Christian monasticism, ecofeminism, covenantal ethics, and cosmic christology, one finds ample resources for the transformation of human attitudes towards nature and a brighter ecological future. [source]

Constructing Vulnerability: The Historical, Natural and Social Generation of Flooding in Metropolitan Manila

DISASTERS, Issue 3 2003
Greg Bankoff
Flooding is not a recent hazard in the Philippines but one that has occurred throughout the recorded history of the archipelago. On the one hand, it is related to a wider global ecological crisis to do with climatic change and rising sea levels but on the other hand, it is also the effect of more localised human activities. A whole range of socio-economic factors such as land use practices, living standards and policy responses are increasingly influencing the frequency of natural hazards such as floods and the corresponding occurrence of disasters. In particular, the reason why flooding has come to pose such a pervasive risk to the residents of metropolitan Manila has its basis in a complex mix of inter-relating factors that emphasise how the nature of vulnerability is constructed through the lack of mutuality between environment and human activity over time. This paper examines three aspects of this flooding: first, the importance of an historical approach in understanding how hazards are generated; second, the degree of interplay between environment and society in creating risk; and third, the manner in which vulnerability is a complex construction. [source]

Comments on the Brenner,Wood Exchange on the Low Countries

JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1 2002
Charles Post
The exchange between Brenner and Wood on the Low Countries in the early modern period raises a number of theoretical and historical issues relating to the conditions for the emergence of capitalist social-property relations and their unique historical laws of motion. This contribution focuses on three issues raised in the Brenner-Wood exchange: the conditions under which rural house-hold producers become subject to ,market coercion', the potential for ecological crisis to restructure agricultural production, and the relative role of foreign trade and the transformation of domestic, rural class relations to capitalist industrialization. [source]

Politics and the numinous: evolution, spiritual emergency, and the re-emergence of transpersonal consciousness

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND POLITICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2008
Mick Collins
Abstract Philosopher Herbert Marcuse observed in 1964 that modern people's materialistic and consumer-based lifestyles have resulted in societies becoming more one dimensional, which has contributed to a growing attitude of ,uncritical conformity'. Marcuse advocated that in order to transcend a one-dimensional existence people will have to engage and actualize their human potential. The increasing environmental and ecological crisis that is confronting the world today identifies a pressing need for change and adaptation at all levels of society including governments, businesses, individual and collective consciousness. The transformation of a one-dimensional consumer-based society will require people and societies to engage different dimensions of conscious experience in order to bring about change. This article discusses how developments within human consciousness have evolved in conjunction with spiritual capacities and how collective ritual encounters with the numinous have contributed to developments in the human brain, mind and culture. I propose that the modern phenomenon of spiritual emergencies can be evaluated from an evolutionary perspective, which may be revealing transformational patterns within consciousness that go beyond a one-dimensional materialistic existence. Spiritual emergency reinforces the need for spiritual awareness to challenge the one-sided materialistic consciousness prevalent within modern consumer based societies. The process of psycho-spiritual transformation could lead to a resacralized socio-political vision and validation of a re-emergent transpersonal consciousness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Pre-Columbian population dynamics in coastal southern Peru: A diachronic investigation of mtDNA patterns in the Palpa region by ancient DNA analysis

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
Lars Fehren-Schmitz
Abstract Alternative models have been proposed to explain the formation and decline of the south Peruvian Nasca culture, ranging from migration or invasion to autochthonous development and ecological crisis. To reveal to what extent population dynamic processes accounted for cultural development in the Nasca mainland, or were influenced by them, we analyzed ancient mitochondrial DNA of 218 individuals, originating from chronologically successive archaeological sites in the Palpa region, the Paracas Peninsula, and the Andean highlands in southern Peru. The sampling strategy allowed a diachronic analysis in a time frame from approximately 800 BC to 800 AD. Mitochondrial coding region polymorphisms were successfully analyzed and replicated for 130 individuals and control region sequences (np 16021,16408) for 104 individuals to determine Native American mitochondrial DNA haplogroups and haplotypes. The results were compared with ancient and contemporary Peruvian populations to reveal genetic relations of the archaeological samples. Frequency data and statistics show clear proximity of the Nasca populations to the populations of the preceding Paracas culture from Palpa and the Peninsula, and suggest, along with archaeological data, that the Nasca culture developed autochthonously in the Rio Grande drainage. Furthermore, the influence of changes in socioeconomic complexity in the Palpa area on the genetic diversity of the local population could be observed. In all, a strong genetic affinity between pre-Columbian coastal populations from southern Peru could be determined, together with a significant differentiation from ancient highland and all present-day Peruvian reference populations, best shown in the differential distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups. Am J Phys Anthropol 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]