Sustainability in the Anthropocene

Reviews / Votes

Roisin Lally's Sustainability in the Anthropocene provides a wealth of essays on the philosophical meanings and implications of renewable technologies, as well as glimpses of novel ways toward a sustainable future that integrate deeply meaningful ways of being for humans.This volume shows us some ways of doing just that, and I commend Lally for putting together such a robust collection on an increasingly important subject. * Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition * Offering an alternative to analytical and pragmatic approaches to ecocide, these twelve essays invite readers to rethink economics, technology, and the concept of sustainability in philosophical terms. Phenomenology is here reshaped as applied philosophy, aiming at an alternative future. Contributors to this four-part edited volume adopt a range of angles from which to view the global problem we all face: that when the goods of developing economies sustain human life, those same processes degrade the environment at an alarming rate. Most chapters offer creative alternatives, even hope, supporting the proposition that future generations may flourish. Part 1 looks at the philosophical origins of sustainability; part 2 examines renewable technologies. One instructive example from part 3 ("Sustainability and Design") is Belu's essay (chapter 7) on in vitro fertilization, arguing that the surrogate womb has become a technology and the woman a receptacle or resource. Turning women's reproductive rights on their head, Belu shows how in vitro fertilization is premised on the same consumerist principles that lead to ecological degradation. The three challenging essays of part 4 ("Sustainability and Ethics") complete this philosophical tour de force, linking specific trends in modern thought to the ecological dilemma of our time.



Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. * Choice Reviews *