Ecology, Soils, and the Left

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Muted Everyday Disasters

   • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

   Pages 1-12

3. Soils and Their Classification: Ecological Processes and Social Struggles

   • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

   Pages 13-34

4. Soil Properties and the Political Aspects of Soil Quality

   • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

   Pages 35-58

5. Soil Degradation: Overview and Critique

   • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

   Pages 59-95

6. Capitalism-Friendly Explanations of Soil Degradation

   • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

   Pages 97-122

7. Leftist Alternatives and Failures

   • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

   Pages 123-162

8. Toward an Eco-Social Approach to Environmental Degradation

   • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

   Pages 163-176

9. Back Matter

   Pages 177-232

   PDF

Soil degradation is real and global, even if the evidence is not so easy to glean. Degradation poses comparable risks to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and nonhuman animal extinctions. Few have noticed soil degradation as the problem it has become, except most indigenous peoples in their struggles for survival.

• capital
• classification
• ecology
• emissions
• environment
• forest
• gas
• Greenhouse gas
• soil
• soil quality

Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro is an Associate Professor of Geography at SUNY New Paltz, where he works, presents, and writes on soil degradation. He received a MSc degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Physical Geography specialising in soils, and a PhD in Geography at Rutgers University (2000), focusing on the impact of social processes on soil use and quality.

Policies and ethics