Suggestive Authors on Our Current Ecological Crisis

We are in the starts of the crisis of our era, our degradation of our social and environmental framework. A large part of my personal education rotates around the sustainability movement. In one of my courses, I dissected different notable authors and their sociological explanations of why we are at this pith of human survival. The following short paragraphs are taken out of one of my final exams at Parsons.

Lynn White's thesis about Judeo-Christian anthropocentrism is a causal factor of our current ecological crisis. He states that because of prevailing Judeo-Christian values. From the start of religious experiences, we have seen values imposed upon followers which refer to anthropocentrism as a pivotal norm. The preachings and writings have led to a people-centered mindset, in terms of ecological harmonization. The values passed through religious medium instruct people that "man" has mastery over nature, and that we are to exploit its resources (to some degree). This implicates generations of environmental misconduct, leading to crisis.

Lewis Moncrief critiques Lynn White's thesis, and while he does not refute it, he writes an alternative explanation, which indirectly includes White's thesis. Moncrief writes that because of democratization and capitalism we have increased population, wealth, urbanization, and industrialization (India, China..). These resulting factors are, and have been, the cause of our environmental crises. Moncrief writes on White that, Judeo-Christian values did play a contributing factor to democratization and capitalism, and this could be indirectly involved. Moncrief also writes that environmental degradation has been occuring since before Judeo-Christian values prevailed.