The last few decades have seen the rise of 'ecological modernization theory' (EMT) as a "green capitalist" tradition extending modernization theory into environmental sociology. This article uses a synthesis of political economy, world-systems theory, and political, economic, and environmental sociology to demonstrate that the EMT presumption of growth and profit as economic priorities (alongside its neglect of core-periphery relations) produces many feedback loops which fatally undermine the viability of EMT's own political, technological, and social prescriptions, alongside creating problems for the fundamental EMT concept of 'ecological rationality.' Furthermore, this article attempts to explain why "green capitalist" approaches to environmental analysis have influence within policy and social science circles despite their inadequacies within environmental sociology. Finally, this article argues that in order to address the ecological challenges of our era, environmental sociology needs to reject "green capitalist" traditions like 'ecological modernization theory' which presuppose the desirability and maintenance of profit and growth as economic priorities (and predominantly fail to critique power imbalances between core and non-core nations), and instead return to the development of traditions willing to critique the fundamental traits of the capitalist world-system.Our planet is in ecological peril-and consequently all living species on it, including humanity, are equally endangered. To address our ecological crises with sufficient quickness and resolution, we need to shelve permanently those attitudes and prescriptions that would put our plans for ecological recovery on the wrong track. Dominant approaches to these problems within environmental sociology often fall within one of two varieties-either "green capitalist" approaches or those of critical environmental sociology. Despite a wide range of established critiques against both the capitalist world-system (CWS) and modernization theory (particularly in the environmental arena), ecological modernization theory (EMT) has emerged as one particularly influential and well-defined variant of "green capitalist" environmental sociologies, both among reformist environmental sociologists and within policy circles (Brulle 2010;Foster, Clark and York 2010). In this paper, I will both (1) critique EMT for its failure to account for the negative ecological impacts of central world-systems factors, and (2) explore why EMT's ideas (as a particular variant of "green capitalist" approaches to environmental sociology) continue to have influence in policy and scholarly circles despite the overwhelming evidence against their viability as ecological prescriptions.The critique in this article will proceed in three primary steps. First, I will situate EMT within the history of environmental sociology more broadly. Second, I will demonstrate that EMT's failure to criticize central CWS features (its profit-and-growth orientation, and the unequal power between the core and the re...

No abstract