Work on Marx’s metabolic rift further explains how the mediation of resource use across space
and time via social institutions enables a worsening of ecological conditions without experiencing
ecological harms. Foster’s (1999) work on the metabolic rift under capitalism demonstrates how
social production systems outpace nature’s production (in this case, soil) by transferring nutrients
over long distances to new locations and new scientific and technology intensify removal of resources
from the soil. Clark and York (2005) build on this understanding to advance the understanding of
climate change, noting that society is harvesting solar energy stored in the carbon bonds of fossil
fuels that accumulated over millions of years and emitting greenhouse gases far faster than ecological
sinks can reabsorb them. A productive route for future research emerging from this proposition
would focus on how social institutions mediate an organization’s relationships with its material environment
in everyday practices.