Land and Resource Scarcity ─ Capitalism, Struggle and Well-Being in a World Without Fossil Fuels

This book brings together geological, biological, radical economic, technological, historical and social perspectives on peak oil and other scarce resources. The contributors to this volume argue that these scarcities will put an end to the capitalist system as we know it and alternatives must be created. The book combines natural science with emancipatory thinking, focusing on bottom up alternatives and social struggles to change the world by taking action. The volume introduces original contributions to the debates on peak oil, land grabbing and social alternatives, thus creating a synthesis to gain an overview of the multiple crises of our times.

The book sets out to analyse how crises of energy, climate, metals, minerals and the soil relate to the global land grab which has accelerated greatly since 2008, as well as to examine the crisis of profit production and political legitimacy. Based on a theoretical understanding of the multiple crises and the effects of peak oil and other scarcities on capital accumulation, the contributors explore the social innovations that provide an alternative.

Using the most up to date research on resource crises, this integrative and critical analysis brings together the issues with a radical perspective on possibilites for future change as well as a strong social economic and ethical dimesion. The book should be of interest to researchers and students of environmental policy, politics, sustainable development and natural resource management.

Andreas Exner is an ecologist at Umweltburo GmbH, Austria.

Peter Fleissner was Professor at Vienna University of Technology, Austria, until he retired in 2006.

Lukas Kranzl is a senior researcher at the Energy Economics Group at Vienna University of Technology, Austria.

Werner Zittel is a scientist at Ludwig Bolkow Systemtechnik GmbH, Germany.