John S. Dryzek, University of Canberra
Earth system governance is an increasingly popular concept that captures multi-level governance in social-ecological systems, a large multi-national project that joins hundreds of researchers, and the title of this book. Frank Biermann is the link between these three—the instigator of the field, the Director of the Project, and the author of this book. Not all of those who have joined the project would endorse the specific positions taken in Earth System Governance (as Biermann allows), or its conceptual scheme, but all would recognize the significance and pressing nature of the topics this book tackles. The Anthropocene in the subtitle connotes both urgency and novelty; this is the name for the emerging epoch of human-induced instability in the Earth system, the successor to the unusually stable Holocene in which human civilization began (though for most of the book the Anthropocene and its challenge fade into the background, and most of the analysis does not depend crucially on the concept).
Perspectives on Politics / Volume 14 / Issue 01 / March 2016, pp 176-178
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