Who Rules the Earth by Paul F. Steinberg covers a variety of topics all in relation to the environmental movement and individual or public effort to combat climate change. He delves into different movements in the past that has created legislation on environmental protection and the action of individuals in these situations. Steinberg also goes […]
Post 3 (Due Apr 17)
Student posts below addressed the following: "Summarize the main argument underlying the WRE text, with citations/quotes as evidence, and reflect on how it may apply to your scholarly and personal life."
Who Truly Rules the Earth
Paul Steinberg most recent book, titled Who Rules the Earth? How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives covers as it suggests: The social rules in place that shape how the world functions, whether we like it or not. Some of these social rules are implied, such as being decently covered in public, whereas others […]
We Rule, Climate Change Drools
ENVS 160 is tied together with the final book, which gives solutions as to how to deal with all of the issues we are presented with in this class. It advises us on how to act in order to make real change. This post discusses the message underlying this book and how it accomplishes this. […]
If You Can’t Solve a Problem, It’s Because You’re Playing By the Rules
Our last text of the ENVS-160 course: Who Rules the Earth by Paul Steinberg is centred around the idea of scaling up (Steinberg, 2015) when dealing with environmental issues and the future of sustainability. Steinberg seeks to examine the environmental problems of our time through a social-science lens, by looking at the idea of “social rules” […]
Great Ideas Come In System-Altering Packages
Social rules are what I like to call “important.” In Who Rules the Earth?, Paul Steinberg explains to his readers how socially constructed rules shape and govern different areas of the earth (Steinberg 2015). He claims that “… these rules — which social scientists call institutions — are the machinery that makes coordinated social activity […]
Road of Rules
Who Rules the Earth centers around the common theme of how social rules and practices work to solve issues of environmental degradation. Steinberg attempts to evaluate the methods that social rules can bring about real change in the long-run. His end goal for this book is to encourage readers to initiate methods for following certain […]
Steinberg’s Overarching Constraints
By: Max Lorenze For eons humans have fought for control of land, water, minerals, in the end for the end goal of power. Who Rules the Earth? by Paul Steinberg asks the very question who rules the world? Paul Steinberg is the Malcolm Lewis Professor of Sustainability and Society and Professor of Political Science and […]
Rules To Live By
A common belief today is that individual action has the ability to make a change for the good. People focus on what companies they are buying their products from, turning off the lights when no one’s in the room, and bringing reusable bags to the market, revealing how actions to combat climate change has largely […]
The Danger of Social Norms in Environmentalism
Who Rules the Earth by Paul Steinberg (2015) is a book focused on challenging the social rules in place in order to enact widespread change within the realm of environmentalism. Especially in regards to moving towards a more sustainable future, to ensure the Earth will be around for generations to come. A recurring theme in […]
Individual Action+Institutional Action=Change
Argument Overview In the final leg of this ENVS 160 course, we read Paul Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. Though the book is highly controversial, the argument laid out in the book is so strong, that many, including myself, who do not completely agree with his […]
The World in the Mirror
The basic premise of Who Rules the Earth, by Paul Steinberg, is that we must change the social rules that govern society, if we are to properly combat climate change and pollution. He argues that there are four misconceptions many of us hold when it comes to combating climate […]
If You Build It, They Will Come… destroy it and build something else
My confusion and disillusionment with consumer and “awareness” raising based modes of change has been a long time coming, although I have dabbled in these complacency-inducing actions. Increasingly, especially given that not everyone has the time and money to make such lifestyle changes, I’ve grown frustrated. I just can’t see any examples or evidence of its […]
New Horizons: Where Should We Go With Social Rules?
The objective of Paul Steinberg’s book, ‘Who Rules The Earth?’ can be summarized in the following quotation: “All forms of social organization, from the European Court of Justice to your favorite restaurant, operate through that other mode of human connectedness: social rules.” (Steinberg 2015, 266). Steinberg has attempted to show the reader how to engage […]
Rules Rule Rules!
When reading Who Rules the Earth? (2015), I was given the opportunity to examine several very important topics in the field of environmental studies ranging all the way from pesticide regulation to cap and trade in China. Over the course of the semester, the class has covered a vast number of topics and discussed so many different pressing concerns […]
Institutions Rule the Earth
Who Rules the Earth? (Steinberg 2015) is a book about action. The text highlights many examples of successful and unsuccessful environmental policy throughout the past and how we can use this information to make better decisions in the future. It also discusses different ideas and problems with our current attempts at solving the problems that […]
Reversing Previous Outlooks
In Who Rules the Earth?, Paul F Steinberg reflects on the various ways that the social rules that govern how we interact with one another also govern the way we interact with our planet (2015). The reader is walked through various scenarios that demonstrate how the rules our society has implemented affect the outcomes, and […]
Does This Look Like a Vacuum to You?
In his book Who Rules the Earth?, Paul F. Steinberg makes many compelling points about what effective environmental action looks like. The overarching argument made in this text is that we do not live in a vacuum. Existing structures dictate how we must go about making new rules as well as how these rules will […]
The Method Behind The Madness
In Who Rules the Earth by Paul Steinberg, the question of governments, their effects, how best to act on them, with them, and around them comes (predictably) to the center stage. One of the important messages I understood from the text specifically is the role of governments in global life and for the average citizen. On a global […]
Social Rules Rule on a Global Scale
“Who rules the Earth?” asks Paul Steinburg, whose book ENVS students like myself have been studying rigorously throughout the last portion of the semester. The answer to this question is not a simple one that can be meticulously picked apart in a short reflection post, but Steinburg makes sure to develop a theme throughout his […]
People do rule the Earth, but it is more than recycling
Who Rules the Earth? (Steinberg, 2015) serves as an very appropriate conclusion to the ENVS 160 course, exploring many of the big concepts regarding the problems of environmentalism that are also examined to the previous texts in the course, but also giving a hopeful and practical solutions to these problems. If anything, Who Rules the Earth? (Steinberg, […]
We Rule the Earth?
Who Rules the Earth by Paul Steinberg portrays that our climate is warming and our forests are being diminished. News with ecological crisis are extremely prevalent and seem to be the main focus as we look towards accomplishing sustainability by doing the little things like recycling and composting. While these are important steps, are they […]
Rules Ruling Rulers: Examining Steinberg & Myself
When attempting to understand, explain, and change the world we humans inhabit it can be easy to forget that life and its systems are never simple. Each actor, factor, and player, be it physical or social plays a key role at keeping the system going. Yet, is keeping the system going, business as usual, […]
What Can You Do?
Introduction The main argument I’ve found in Paul F. Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth is simple: Be extra. That is to say, if you want to achieve anything, let alone anything significant, you have to think about one thousand times bigger than the thing you are trying to affect. Otherwise, nothing will get done. My […]
When Rules Are Meant to Be Broken…or at Least Bent?
In Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth? he explores the governments that form and develop social rules and regulations (2015). He goes on to explain that our efforts for environmental reform are limited by the current social rules that are in place. He started out by exemplifying this by comparing the two outcomes of the battle […]
How rules perpetuate chaos.
In continuing our search for knowledge and the understanding of various complex environmental issues, the final book which concludes our ENVS160 journey gives more hope to the despair produce by the facts from earlier texts. In our collective quest to find solutions to the various social, economic, cultural and environmental issues that face us people […]