ABSTRACT
For the first time, in January 2007 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists included the emerging ecological crisis as part of the planetary catastrophe that threatens humanity, prompting them to move the symbolic “doomsday clock” two minutes closer to midnight. Both natural and social scientists are increasingly demonstrating that human activities are the primary forces responsible for the observed warming of the earth’s atmosphere, the pollution and overexploitation of the world’s ecosystems (including the oceans), and the loss of biodiversity (Halpern et al. 2008; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Given the scale of ecological degradation, scientists are questioning the “business-as-usual” operation of the global economy and the overall organization of the social world (Hansen et al. 2008).
