Grace in Intra-action: Complementarity and the Noncircular Gift

Author(s):  
Terra S. Rowe

Commonly, grace is defined as a free gift—in opposition to exchange. Key perspectives in twentieth century Gift theory link this particularly Protestant concept of grace with the individualism and commodification that a fossil fuel addicted capitalism depends on. It also remains unclear how this concept of grace can relate to an intra-actively exchangist world except by interruption or annihilation. This essay argues that while the ideal gift, free of exchange, must be challenged, space for uncapitalized returns and even losses in our gift-investments must be preserved. This particular tide grace as a non-circular gift can resist. Consequently, what are commonly held to be competing and incompatible concepts—unconditional grace and the exchangist, intra-active universe—are actually complementary disruptions of key economic practices contributing to climate change.

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Mark Simpson ◽  
Imre Szeman

Although energy transition—a shift from dirty energy to cleaner, renewable energy—has become a mantra for an effective way of addressing climate change, energy impasse—the incapacity of any transition whatsoever—is actually the defining condition of our age. This essay contributes to a fuller understanding of energy transition, climate change, and the promise of renewable energy by examining the specific temporality of energy impasse. Rather than a simple blockage that can easily be nudged aside, energy impasse is underwritten by a temporal “stuckness” that is a key effect of two centuries of fossil fuel energy use. The specific characteristics of this distinct temporal mode are explored in relation to the twentieth-century project of economic futurity historicized by Timothy Mitchell and two recent versions of sustainable futurity theorized by Allan Stoekl. The time signatures named and explained in these examples of futurity serve, in distinct but complementary ways, to enable and perpetuate the stuckness of energy impasse. The essay’s argument illuminates the abiding challenge posed by petroculture, while considering the implications of impasse time for the form of solar futurity here termed the solar fix.


Author(s):  
Y Widodo ◽  
S Wahyuningsih ◽  
JS Utomo ◽  
A Subagio

Green revolution started at mid of twentieth century was the answer of anxiousness reminded by Malthusian that food scarcity problems in relation with population growth. In concurrence with exploitation of fossil fuel for agriculture mechanization as well as agrochemicals in the form of inorganic fertilizer and pesticide, green revolution by introducing high yielding varieties of cereals and grains was able to nourish the world population by increasing productivity. Indeed, from beginning of mechanization with fossil fuel based as advised by Rudolf Diesel then Arrhenius would be affected to the release of CO2 to the atmosphere and consequently exaggerating climate change as suffered by current and future generations. Under green revolution based on cereals and grains affected forest conversion into open agricultural land, because both commodities are sun-loving crops, which are hate to the shade. On the other hand, to slow the severity of climate change natural forest must be conserved tightly. Entering third millennium demand of food production with ecologically friendly is stronger. Hence, green revolution needs to be amended into greener perspectives. Thus, implementation of agro-forestry into wide range of agro-ecological zone is urgently innovated. Fortunately, shade tolerant of root crops has significant advantage to be developed under agro-forestry. Under shade of forest canopy at basal forest strata, root crops are able to sequester CO2 to be converted into carbohydrate and other compounds to provide food for the dweller. Back to nature is not only a slogan, with root crops under agro-forestry is a reality; fresh root up to 30 t ha-1 can be harvested yearly as the source of food and renewable fuel as well. This potential is very worthy to improve and greening the existing green revolution to be more sustainable.Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 8 (1): 26-37, June, 2018


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Bergman

The fossil fuel divestment movement campaigns for removing investments from fossil fuel companies as a strategy to combat climate change. It is a bottom-up movement, largely based in university student groups, although it has rapidly spread to other institutions. Divestment has been criticised for its naiveté and hard-line stance and dismissed as having little impact on fossil fuel finance. I analyse the impact of divestment through reviewing academic and grey literature, complemented by interviews with activists and financial actors, using a theoretical framework that draws on social movement theory. While the direct impacts of divestment are small, the indirect impacts, in terms of public discourse shift, are significant. Divestment has put questions of finance and climate change on the agenda and played a part in changing discourse around the legitimacy, reputation and viability of the fossil fuel industry. This cultural impact contributed to changes in the finance industry through new demands by shareholders and investors and to changes in political discourse, such as rethinking the notion of ‘fiduciary duty.’ Finally, divestment had significant impact on its participants in terms of empowerment and played a part in the revitalisation of the environmental movement in the UK and elsewhere.


2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-226
Author(s):  
JOSEPH C. d'ORONZIO

The ideal of universal human rights is arguably the most potent moral concept marking the modern world. Its accelerated fruition in the last half of the twentieth century has created a powerful political force, laying the groundwork for future generations to extend and apply. Whereas anything resembling international legal status for human rights had to wait for the post-Nazi era, the bold proclamations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948) loosened a revolutionary force with endless potential for application to the full range of human endeavors. The roots of this movement can be traced to each and every era in which the vulnerable and powerless sought justification to oppose arbitrary domination. Its roots are, therefore, deep and wide.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-226
Author(s):  
Neerja Upadhyaya ◽  
Ruchi Jain ◽  
R. Upadhyaya

Over millions of years, physiology and anatomy of the living organisms has been changed due to internal climate forcing mechanism. This has influenced the world wide distribution of species. External climate forcing mechanism has caused rapid rise in earth’s temperature and it is expected to rise by 2-4 °C by the end of the century. It has now been recognised as the most complex problem of present scenario and being concerned in almost every field of science. Climate change is the most sensitive issue which is a challenge not only for the government and society but also for each individual. In the present communication impact of external climate forcing mechanism on biodiversity and its extinction is being analysed and role of sustainomics for the same is overviewed. Studies reveal that the rate of speciation of flora and fauna is not in the accordance with the rate of externally enforced climate change. Thus, the increased rate of climate change has caused catastrophic mass extinction threat for plants, animals and insects in the anthrapocene era. The pattern of extinction and threatened species are not yet known. Various solutions for the problem have been suggested by the multidisciplinary researches, rooted by the sustainomics. These suggestions include to diverge from fossil fuel, to use renewables, to make and apply rules for 3Rs etc. Only cooperative involvement of social, scientific and industrial bodies may resolve the problem.


Air pollution is the major concern in the recent years because of causing imbalance to the ecosystem and also increases global warming and climate change. This paper, tries to investigate the applicability of photo catalytic cement in removing the pollutants under partially controlled and simpler experimental conditions such that it mimics the ideal state of its use, that is the natural open environment where it always is susceptible to complex physical and chemical interactions. It also gives an overview of the concentrations of the contaminants reduced not limiting to NOx residues alone, by employing Ion Chromatography instead of NOx analyzers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13404
Author(s):  
Georgios Tsantopoulos ◽  
Evangelia Karasmanaki

Humans have been using fossil fuels for centuries, and the development of fossil fuel technology reshaped society in lasting ways [...]


2012 ◽  
Vol 524-527 ◽  
pp. 2388-2393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nan Wang ◽  
Mahjoub Elnimeiri

The phenomenon of climate change is becoming a global problem. One of the most important reasons of climate change is the increase in CO2 levels due to emissions from fossil fuel energy use in daily human activities. This research will use the data of the annual average temperature and energy consumption in the past 41 years of Shanghai, the largest city in China, to establish the statistical relationship between climate change and energy consumption. It is found that there is a strong positive relationship between climate change and energy consumption in Shanghai. The phenomenon of climate change could be controlled by reducing excessive energy consumption in people’s daily life. Furthermore, this paper will also discuss the reason of such relationship, and provide suggesstions of saving energy and protecting our environment.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document