| Environmental sociology arose in the 1970s to address the ecological crisis. It examined social forces that caused environmental degradation, but it suffered from theoretical underdevelopment. A comprehensive account of the interpenetration of nature and society, which entails the historical and dialectical coevolution of the two, is needed. This requires an environmental sociology conversant with both natural and social science and one that recognizes nature and society as active realms of transformation. Karl Marx's metabolic approach serves as the means to grapple with both sides of the nature-society dialectic. It elucidates the regulative processes that govern the relationships of interchange within and between natural cycles and systems. Marx described labor as a metabolic process, whereby humans interact and transform nature. By combining Marx's critique of political economy and his metabolic analysis, as explicated by John Bellamy Foster, an examination of capitalism as a metabolic order is undertaken, revealing how capital creates a metabolic rift in natural systems, undermining the ability of nature to replenish itself within a time scale meaningful to humans. The logic of accumulation drives capital toward ceaseless expansion, intensifying the metabolic rift through the division and alienation of both nature and labor. The theory of metabolic rift is used to examine global warming and the degradation of marine ecosystems and to ascertain the anthropogenic drivers of these environmental problems. It is argued that the social metabolic order of capitalism operates in a fundamental contradiction with nature, causing an ecological crisis that threatens the conditions of life and nature. The theory of metabolic rift establishes a sociology of ecological crisis and illuminates the necessity of a social-environmental revolution.; Chapters III and IV are based upon previously published, co-authored materials. Chapter III is drawn from the article (co-authored with Richard York), "Carbon Metabolism: Global Capitalism, Climate Change, and the Biospheric Rift," published in Theory and Society in 2005. Chapter IV is based upon the article (co-authored with Rebecca Clausen), "The Metabolic Rift and Marine Ecology: An Analysis of the Oceanic Crisis Within Capitalist Production," published in Organization & Environment in 2005. Both chapters have been substantially rewritten, expanding the analysis. |
