Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism

(MIT Press) In this book, the author addresses the meaning of environmentalism in a “postnature” age when wildness is coming undone and efforts to “preserve” nature necessitate excessive human intervention. He outlines two opposing outlooks: the environmentalist dream of living in harmony with nature, and the opposing desire to master nature. Ultimately, he argues that neither approach is appropriate for addressing problems like biodiversity loss and climate change; instead, environmentalists must exploit the tensions between naturalism and mastery in order to build a more sustainable, ecologically vibrant, and socially just world. Wapner is an associate professor and director of the Global Environmental Politics Program in the School of International Service at American University. He is the author of Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics .