Today's social and ecological crises, which threaten the preservation of life on our planet, require our attention to understand the dynamics of patriarchy and capitalism, as well as to unmask "answers" or false solutions that obscure, perpetuate, and even worsen the current situation. Ecofeminists have critically examined several of the underlying assumptions of the capitalist-patriarchal conceptual framework, such as the promotion of the destructive transformation of nature, hierarchical thinking, the encouragement of dualism, the enforcement of the logic of domination over life, even the hatred for life itself, and speciesism. Yet ecofeminism's attempts to call attention to and stop the destruction of the planet have not yet been able to tackle the growing problem of climate change, which is threatening not only life on earth, but the earth and all her "living systems." Climate change and extreme weather are exacerbating existing social inequalities and political conflicts globally. Climate justice is the starting point from which we can begin to build the kind of local and international solidarity that is needed to address climate change and transform the socio-economic hierarchies that caused it. This volume re-examines existing analyses from this new and much broader point of view in theory and practise, and points to the need for a new concept of nature and the earth as a living being, a cosmic being, so that it is the life of the earth herself that today must be protected.

Ana Isla is a professor in the Department of Sociology and the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. She works on issues of development, sustainable development, climate change, ecofeminism, environmental justice, gender and society. She is the author of The "Greening" of Costa Rica: Women, Peasants, Indigenous People and the Remaking of Nature.

Claudia von Werlhof is Professor Emerita at the University of Innsbruck, in the Department of Political Science and Sociology. Her work focuses on the "modern world system,"seen from the South, the neoliberal globalization of "capitalist patriarchy," alternatives to patriarchal societies inspired by matriarchal and Indigenous societies/civilizations, as well as on the elaboration of the "Critical Theory of Patriarchy" as a new paradigm. Her books in English include Women: The Last Colony; There is an Alternative; and The Failure of Modern Civilization and the Struggle for a "Deep" Alternative.

Ana Isla's profile page

"This collection provides a sharp focus on the severe ecological problems of the 21st century. An ecofeminist perspective casts a novel light on the politics of climate change. These politics that have created conditions for the exploitation of people, the oppression of women, and the expropriation and destruction of Indigenous people's land and bodies. Authors offer an alternative framework to transition to a new world."
—June Corman, Brock University, St. Catharines

"In this analytically astute and politically grounded book, American ecofeminism matures beyond academic critique to find its own transnational voice."
—Ariel Salleh, activist and scholar, co-editor of Pluriverse: The Post-Development Dictionary

"At a time when macho politics are intensifying while the basis of survival for most of humanity is being undermined, ecofeminist readings could not be more important in examining the social causes and chaotic consequences of a most pressing and globally destructive process that is capitalism-induced: accelerated climate change. In this edited volume, activist intellectuals from many backgrounds methodically expose the structural intersection of diverse forms of oppression (social as well as beyond) that characterize an always profoundly patriarchal, racist, heteronormative capitalist world disorder that produces the current manifold global predicament. This systematic ecofeminist analysis of the linkage between climate change and intersecting oppressions is long overdue. This is not only because it facilitates a holistic understanding of climate change that continues to be largely omitted in the mainstream and wilfully absent or attacked in re-emergent violent groupings of oppression supporters. This book provides essential guidance to those who take seriously the need to combine social justice with ecologically constructive existence. It re-introduces and further develops immediately practicable alternatives that ecofeminists have been formulating for decades and, as much as feasible, putting into action."
—Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, Associate Professor, SUNY New Paltz; Editor, Capitalism Nature Socialism