Environmental Justice In The Anthropocene

Through various international case studies presented by both practitioners and scholars, Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene explores how an environmental justice approach is necessary for reflections on inequality in the Anthropocene and for forging societal transitions toward a more just and sustainable future. Environmental justice is a central component of sustainability politics during the Anthropocene – the current geological age in which human activity is the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Every aspect of sustainability politics requires a close analysis of equity implications, including problematizing the notion that humans as a collective are equally responsible for ushering in this new epoch. Environmental justice provides us with the tools to critically investigate the drivers and characteristics of this era and the debates over the inequitable outcomes of the Anthropocene for historically marginalized peoples. The contributors to this volume focus on a critical approach to power and issues of environmental injustice across time, space, and context, drawing from twelve national contexts: Austria, Bangladesh, Chile, China, India, Nicaragua, Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, Sweden, Tanzania, and the United States. Beyond highlighting injustices, the volume highlights forward-facing efforts at building just transitions, with a goal of identifying practical steps to connect theory and movement and envision an environmentally and ecologically just future. This interdisciplinary work will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners focused on conservation, environmental politics and governance, environmental and earth sciences, environmental sociology, environment and planning, environmental justice, and global sustainability and governance. It will also be of interest to social and environmental justice advocates and activists.

Environment, Social Justice, and the Media in the Age of Anthropocene addresses three imminent challenges to human society in the age of the Anthropocene. The first challenge involves the survival of the species; the second the breakdown of social justice; and the third the inability of the media to provide global audiences with an adequate orientation about these issues. The notion of the Anthropocene as a geological age shaped by human intervention implies a new understanding of the human context that influences the physical and biological sciences. Human existence continues to be affected by the physical and biological reality from which it evolved but, in turn, it affects that reality as well. This work addresses this paradox by bringing together the contributions of researchers from very different disciplines in conversation about the complex relationships between the physical/biological world and the human world to offer different perspectives and solutions in establishing social and environmental justice in the age of the Anthropocene.

This book addresses the social and environmental justice challenge to live sustainably and well. It considers the consequences of our social, economic and environmental policy and governance decisions for this generation and the next. The book tests out ways to improve representation, accountability and re-generation. It addresses the need to take into account the ethical implications of policy and governance decisions in the short, medium and long term based on testing out the implications for self, other and the environment. This book recognizes the negative impact that humans have had on the Earth’s ecosystem and recommends a less anthropocentric way of looking at policies and governance. The chapters discuss the geologic impact that people have had on the globe, both positive and negative, and brings awareness to the anthropocentric interventions that have influenced life on Earth during the Holocene era. Based on these observations, the authors discuss original ideas and critical reviews on ways to govern those who interpret the world in terms of human values and experience, and to conduct an egalitarian lifestyle. These ideas address the growing rise in the size of the ecological footprints of some at the expense of the majority, the growth in unsustainable food choices and of displaced people, and the need for a new sense of relationship with nature and other animals, among other issues. The chapters included in Balancing Individualism and Collectivism: Social and Environmental Justice encourage readers to challenge the sustainability agenda of the anthropocentric life. Proposed solutions to these unsustainable actions include structuralized interventions and volunteerism through encouragement and education, with a focus on protecting current and future generations of life through new governmental etiquette and human cognizance.

The Politics of the Anthropocene is a sophisticated yet accessible treatment of how human institutions, practices, and principles need to be re-thought in response to the challenges of the Anthropocene, the emerging epoch of human-induced instability in the Earth system and its life-support capacities. However, the world remains stuck with practices and modes of thinking that were developed in the Holocene - the epoch of around 12,000 years of unusual stability in the Earth system, toward the end of which modern institutions such as states and capitalist markets arose. These institutions persist despite their potentially catastrophic failure to respond to the challenges of the Anthropocene, foremost among them a rapidly changing climate and accelerating biodiversity loss. The pathological trajectories of these institutions need to be disrupted by advancing ecological reflexivity: the capacity of structures, systems, and sets of ideas to question their own core commitments, and if necessary change themselves, while listening and responding effectively to signals from the Earth system. This book envisages a world in which humans are no longer estranged from the Earth system but engage with it in a more productive relationship. We can still pursue democracy, social justice, and sustainability - but not as before. In future, all politics should be first and foremost a politics of the Anthropocene. The arguments are developed in the context of issues such as climate change, biodiversity, and global efforts to address sustainability.

This book offers a critical analysis of core concepts that have influenced contemporary conversations about environment-society relations in academic, political, and civil circles. Considering these conceptualizations are currently shaping responses to environmental crises in fundamental ways, critical reflections on concepts such as the Anthropocene, metabolism, risk, resilience, environmental governance, environmental justice and others, are well-warranted. Contributors to this volume, working across a multitude of areas within environmental social science, scrutinize underlying worldviews and assumptions, asking a common set of key questions: What are the different concepts able to explain? How do they take into account society-environment relations? What social, cultural, or geo-political biases and blinders are inherent? What actions or practices do the concepts inspire? The transdisciplinary engagement and reflexivity regarding concepts of environment-society relations represented in these chapters is needed in all spheres of society—in academia, policy and practice—not the least to confront current tendencies of anti-reflexivity and denialism.

This open access book crosses disciplinary boundaries to connect theories of environmental justice with Indigenous people's experiences of freshwater management and governance. It traces the history of one freshwater crisis - the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand's Waipā River- to the settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession resulting in intergenerational injustices for Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes). The authors draw on a rich empirical base to document the negative consequences of imposing Western knowledge, worldviews, laws, governance and management approaches onto Māori and their ancestral landscapes and waterscapes. Importantly, this book demonstrates how degraded freshwater systems can and are being addressed by Māori seeking to reassert their knowledge, authority, and practices of kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship). Co-governance and co-management agreements between iwi and the New Zealand Government, over the Waipā River, highlight how Māori are envisioning and enacting more sustainable freshwater management and governance, thus seeking to achieve Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ). The book provides an accessible way for readers coming from a diversity of different backgrounds, be they academics, students, practitioners or decision-makers, to develop an understanding of IEJ and its applicability to freshwater management and governance in the context of changing socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that characterise the Anthropocene. Meg Parsons is senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand who specialises in historical geography and Indigenous peoples' experiences of environmental changes. Of Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage (Ngāpuhi, Pākehā, Lebanese), Parsons is a contributing author to IPCC's Sixth Assessment of Working Group II report and the author of 34 publications. Karen Fisher (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato-Tainui, Pākehā) is an associate professor in the School Environment, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a human geographer with research interests in environmental governance and the politics of resource use in freshwater and marine environments. Roa Petra Crease (Ngāti Maniapoto, Filipino, Pākehā) is an early career researcher who employs theorising from feminist political ecology to examine climate change adaptation for Indigenous and marginalised peoples. Recent publications explore the intersections of gender justice and climate justice in the Philippines, and mātuaranga Māori (knowledge) of flooding.--

This book examines the relationship between man and nature through different cultural approaches to encourage new environmental legislation as a means of fostering acceptance at a local level. In 2019, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) recognised that we have entered a new era, the Anthropocene, specifically characterised by the impact of one species, mankind, on environmental change. The Anthropocene is penetrating the discourse of both hard sciences and humanities and social sciences, by posing new epistemological as well as practical challenges to many disciplines. Legal sciences have so far been at the margins of this intellectual renewal, with few contributions on the central role that the notion of Anthropocene could play in forging a more effective and just environmental law. By applying a multidisciplinary approach and adopting a Law as Culture paradigm to the study of law, this book explores new paths of investigation and possible solutions to be applied. New perspectives for the constitutional framing of environmental policies, rights, and alternative methods for bottom-up participatory law-making and conflict resolution are investigated, showing that environmental justice is not just an option, but an objective within reach. The book will be essential reading for students, academics, and policymakers in the areas of law, environmental studies and anthropology.

"This collection provides a powerful and sophisticated analysis of how environmental movements influence politics in Asia, and how politics influences movements." -- John S. Dryzek, Centenary Professor, University of Canberra "This important book reflects the challenges and questions currently foremost in scholars', activists' and policy-makers' minds-the Anthropocene, environmental justice, China's Belt and Road Initiative, and post-politics-all addressed through the lens of environmental movements in Asia. -- Jonathan Rigg, Professor at the School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol "How have authoritarianism, democratization and political change affected environmentalism in East and Southeast Asia? How have environmental mobilization and demands for environmental justice at the grassroots influenced politics there? These are among the vital questions answered by this insightful and well-crafted volume." --Paul G. Harris, Chair Professor of Global and Environmental Studies, Education University of Hong Kong "This book shows convincingly that the concept of Anthropocene is as relevant in Asia as anywhere." -- Philip Hirsch, Emeritus Professor of Human Geography, University of Sydney "Despite its claims to universality, the Anthropocene concept remains largely a Western phenomenon. This book is crucial in correcting this view by putting environmental movements in Asia center stage." -- Eva Horn, Professor of Literature and Cultural History, University of Vienna