ABSTRACT
For more than a century the logic of capitalism has imbued European and American society and in the past two decades it has permeated the rest of the world as well. Inherent in this logic and the scientific and technological revolution it has entailed is the idea that humans have become the self-proclaimed masters of the planet Earth with the moral right to use and consume the environment they inhabit. The logic also posits nature and society as opposed spheres of life that only come in contact when humans interfere in their environment to hunt animals and fish, cultivate the land, extract oil, gas and minerals, or manipulate their own biology. Recent concerns over climate change and global warming, however, have made scholars, reporters, and activists question the equity and fairness of the world's distribution and use of natural resources (Beck 2010) and ask for a more “genuine human community” to control the economic interests that drive capitalism and jeopardize the global environmental balance ( Foster et al. 2009: 1094). Some even argue that capitalism is “the main engine behind impending catastrophic climate change” and they therefore call for an “ecological revolution” and a “planetary emergency” to prevent the disastrous consequences that continuous economic growth entails (ibid.: 1085). Acknowledging that humans belong to nature and that social life and biological life are mutually constitutive is a first step in such an agenda.
