
Computing Our Way to Paradise?
The Role of Internet and Communication Technologies in Sustainable Consumption and Globalization
Robert Rattle(Author)
AltaMira Press
Published on 16. January 2010
Book
Hardback
246 pages
978-0-7591-0948-3 (ISBN)
Description
Rattle's new book challenges key assumptions concerning the role of Internet and communication technologies (ICTs) in globalization processes. The author argues that while globalization is predicated upon a strong, extensive, and interconnected global ICT network of products, processes, and services, the real environmental and health benefits remain far from certain. ICTs have been promoted as the next economic wave with the potential to generate jobs, wealth, and prosperity to surpass that of the industrial era. It is assumed the environmental impacts will be negligible or even beneficial in this shift towards a service economy. Rattle investigates these current and expected trends in ICTs and their potential contribution to sustainable development. His book is an indispensable overview for researchers and instructors in globalization, Internet communication technologies, and environmental anthropology or sociology, as well as a resource for policy makers in environmental protection, sustainable development, sustainable consumption, and the social role of science and technology.
Reviews / Votes
A timely, engaging read.... Highly recommended. * Choice Reviews * Computers, cell phones, and other novel information and communication technologies surround us, and will certainly shape our future. Can they help us move toward environmental sustainability, or will they make our impact on the environment worse? Computing Our Way to Paradise? offers the most comprehensive reply to those questions now available. It covers all the key issues, and, more importantly, it explores the big picture, the ways in which such technologies form part of our worldview, our capitalist economy, and our resource- and energy-intensive way of life. Computing Our Way to Paradise? reveals that only by understanding and acting on these fundamental matters can we fulfill the environmentally positive potential of our information and communication technologies. -- Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies, University of Texas at El Paso This book amplifies the growing fissures emerging in our collective understanding of ICTs and how they can benefit sustainable consumption....This book is a timely and useful contribution to the debate on how we are to deal with unfolding social, economic, political and environmental chaos. It adds clarity to the unsustainable trends in consumer driven lifestyles, how ICTs drive them and how their extra-ordinary potential for a better future has yet to be fully harnessed. * The Learning Edge *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
California
United States
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
512 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7591-0948-3 (9780759109483)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Robert Rattle
Computing Our Way to Paradise?
The Role of Internet and Communication Technologies in Sustainable Consumption and Globalization
E-Book
01/2010
1st Edition
AltaMira Press
€132.99
Available for download

Robert Rattle
Computing Our Way to Paradise?
The Role of Internet and Communication Technologies in Sustainable Consumption and Globalization
E-Book
01/2010
1st Edition
AltaMira Press
€132.99
Available for download
Person
Robert Rattle is an independent consultant working for NGOs, business and governmental organizations. For the last two decades, Rattle has conducted research and provided consulting services in the areas of sustainable development and sustainable consumption; ecosystems and human health; ecological economics; impact assessment; information and telecommunications policy; Aboriginal well-being; and globalization.
Content
Chapter 1 Foreword: Global Social Narcosis at the Speed of Light: How the Internet and Communications Technologies are gobbling resources, eradicating cultures, and destroying the planet, and what can be done to stop the runaway train
Chapter 2 Chapter 1. ICTs and Globalization: Asking Important Questions
Chapter 3 Chapter 2. The Poverty of Affluence: Sustainable Consumption and Global Environmental Change
Chapter 4 Chapter 3. Virtual Morality: Globalization, ICTs, and Sustainable Consumption
Chapter 5 Chapter 4. Lulled to Complacency: ICTs and Energy and Materials Consumption
Chapter 6 Chapter 5. The Efficiency Paradox: Intensity and Consumption
Chapter 7 Chapter 6. From Social Meanings to Global Conformity: ICTs and the Global Commons
Chapter 8 Chapter 7. Pathological Tendencies: The Health Link
Chapter 9 Chapter 8. Incantations and ICTs: A Global Ideological Pervasion
Chapter 10 Chapter 9. Redefining Reality, Transforming Values
Chapter 11 Chapter 10. Global Transformations: Serious Considerations and Promising Opportunities
Chapter 2 Chapter 1. ICTs and Globalization: Asking Important Questions
Chapter 3 Chapter 2. The Poverty of Affluence: Sustainable Consumption and Global Environmental Change
Chapter 4 Chapter 3. Virtual Morality: Globalization, ICTs, and Sustainable Consumption
Chapter 5 Chapter 4. Lulled to Complacency: ICTs and Energy and Materials Consumption
Chapter 6 Chapter 5. The Efficiency Paradox: Intensity and Consumption
Chapter 7 Chapter 6. From Social Meanings to Global Conformity: ICTs and the Global Commons
Chapter 8 Chapter 7. Pathological Tendencies: The Health Link
Chapter 9 Chapter 8. Incantations and ICTs: A Global Ideological Pervasion
Chapter 10 Chapter 9. Redefining Reality, Transforming Values
Chapter 11 Chapter 10. Global Transformations: Serious Considerations and Promising Opportunities