ABSTRACT
The paper reviews the work of E. Altvater dealing with the challenges of the environmental depletion to humankind survival. It shows the logic of its analytical structure, built to demonstrate its central thesis: growing environmental problems are inherent to capitalism development, leading to a sharp division between a small number of countries with high levels of natural resources consumption and the others, poor ones, destined to play a role as natural resources reserves for the former. The paper argues about the validity of the hypothesis of this analytical model. It assumes as true only the first one, on the impossibility to diffuse all over the world the Euro-American production and consumption patterns without causing an environmental disaster. The other ones are viewed either as lacking empirical evidence or more solid arguments.
KEYWORDS:
Environmental economics; sustainable development; energetic transition; solar energy