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Person/planet politics:

The political ecology of sacrifice

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“For everyone to admit to our inherent drive towards heroism would probably release such pent-up force as to be devastating to societies as they now are."

~Ernst Becker,

The Denial of Death

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Sacrifice, n.

(a) The destruction or surrender of something valued or desired for the sake of something having, or regarded as having, a higher pressing claim

(b) to make sacred; the act of becoming sacred

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Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms

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Ecological Sacrifice: Making Sacrifice Visible

To the extent that the culture of consumption creates the illusion of getting without giving, sacrifice goes underground.

The global economy as massive conversion of gift wealth to market wealth Distancing

geographic temporal

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Ecological debt

The socio-temporal dimension of sacrifice Global flow of wealth from periphery to core Carbon Debt

Shadow ecologies and ecological footprints >> What is being sacrificed and by whom?

North/South divide … and to what “gods?”

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Sacrifice & the political ecology of food

SugarHistory

Slavery, deforestation, symbol of prosperity, colonialism, industrialization, working class

Today: subsidies, chemicals, wetlands

Geography From core to periphery

Health & addiction

BeefHistory: Spanish colonies, New World frontier, British elites, buffalo slaughter, destruction of grasslands, deforestation

Today: subsidies, chemicals, antibiotics, factory farming, bad working conditions, fast food, increased consumption in DCs, symbol of prosperity

Mitigating factors: health concerns, mad cow disease, animal rights movement

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Sacrifice of the unborn and the nonhuman Intergenerational ethics

Toxic & nuclear waste Ozone depletion Climate change Biodiversity

Trans-human sacrifice Animal rights Mass extinction crisis

Most sacrifice is involuntary and unconscious Making the unconscious sacrifice conscious

CHOICE! Are we happier?

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Green consumerism:

Sustainability without sacrifice?

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Are we stuck between a rock and a hard place?

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Interrogating “Sacrifice” Stuck in the Mud

Constraining effect of the shroud of negativity associated with “sacrifice”

Make Current Sacrifice Clear Ecological debt, sacrifice of unborn & nonhuman

Illuminating the Underground “Sacrifice” occurs regularly, but has gone underground.

Practical Ju-Jitsu Today’s “sacrifice” can be tomorrow’s gain.

Deeper exploration of ontology and questions of meaning

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Modernity and sacrifice

Sacrifice ubiquitous across human cultures Modernity denigrates sacrifice

Resistance to environmentalism premised upon gloomy view of sacrifice Sacrifice as loss Inevitable under an ontology of individualism

Sacrifice does not disappear; it goes underground.

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Sacrifice under a cosmology of wholeness

Sacrifice: to make sacred by offering “A celebration of consumption and being consumed”

Relationships To transcendental forces

Sublimating the awesome Forges community

Gift economy as the basis for culture Gifts must flow Market economy occludes gifts, especially nature’s

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An Affirmative Politics of Sacrifice

Global eco-crisis as crisis of meaning Ontology of holism and radical interdependence

Holistic ontology; participatory cosmology; revival of cyclical processes

Sacrifice as a premise of interdependence Not the death of the individual, but his/her entry into

ecological adulthood in a participatory universe Modernity has given us the social construct of the

individual who can choose this. Acknowledging our integral role in Earth’s gift

economy We are Earth becoming conscious of itself

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