Violence Through Environmental Discrimination


Book Description

Since all-out interstate wars for the time being seem to belong to the past, con flict studies focus more and more on domestic conflicts. This is a broad field, not only because the arbitrary line between war and sub-war violence disap pears and the analyst is confronted with phenomena reaching from criminal violence and clashes between communities to violent conflicts of long duration and civil wars with massacres and genocides as their characteristics. It is also because there are so many different types of conflicts to be analyzed, so many different types of behavior to be studied, whereas there is often little informa tion available on what is really going on. Against the background of internal conflicts, which tend to be as protracted as diffuse in terms of time, intensity, actors, and their goals, this study aims to follow a specific pathway through the current thicket of violent circumstances. It focuses on causation patterns by exploring the causal role of the environ mental factor in the genesis of violent conflicts occurring today and probably even more so tomorrow. This approach, which for once does not focus on a specific level of the conflict system, on one area in the conflict geography, or on a specific category of actors, analyzes causation dynamics.




Sustainability


Book Description

A critical resource for approaching sustainability across the disciplines Sustainability and social justice remain elusive even though each is unattainable without the other. Across the industrialized West and the Global South, unsustainable practices and social inequities exacerbate one another. How do social justice and sustainability connect? What does sustainability mean and, most importantly, how can we achieve it with justice? This volume tackles these questions, placing social justice and interdisciplinary approaches at the center of efforts for a more sustainable world. Contributors present empirical case studies that illustrate how sustainability can take place without contributing to social inequality. From indigenous land rights, climate conflict, militarization and urban drought resilience, the book offers examples of ways in which sustainability and social justice strengthen one another. Through an understanding of history, diverse cultural traditions, and complexity in relation to race, class, and gender, this volume demonstrates ways in which sustainability can help to shape better and more robust solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Blending methods from the humanities, environmental sciences and the humanistic social sciences, this book offers an essential guide for the next generation of global citizens.




Environmental Security


Book Description

Since the end of the Cold War, environmental matters -- especially the international implications of environmental degradation -- have figured prominently in debates about rethinking security. But do the assumptions underlying such discussions hold up under close scrutiny? In this first treatment of environmental security from a truly critical perspective, Simon Dalby shows how attempts to explain contemporary insecurity falter over unexamined notions of both environment and security. Adding environmental history, aboriginal perspectives, and geopolitics to the analysis explicitly suggests that the growing disruptions caused by a carbon-fueled and expanding modernity are at the root of contemporary difficulties. Environmental Security argues that rethinking security means revisiting the question of how we conceive identities as endangered and how we perceive threats to these identities. The book clearly demonstrates that the conceptual basis for critical security studies requires an extended engagement with political theory and with the assumptions of the modern subject as progressive political agent. Viewed thus on a global scale, the environmental security discourse raises profoundly troubling political questions as to who we are and what kind of world we are collectively making in our efforts to be secure.




Environmental Change and Security


Book Description

Does a connection exist between environmental degradation, resource scarcity and violent conflicts? Global environmental changes, such as climate change and sea level rise, shortage of fresh water and rapid soil degradation increasingly highlight the dimensions of environmental change in foreign and security policy. To reverse these negative environmental consequences over the long term, comprehensive and preventive policy approaches are urgently required. This state-of-the-art book contains numerous articles by renown German-speaking experts from different scientific disciplines as well as international and European political advisors and diplomats. Together they discuss the complex causes of environmentally induced conflicts and the political and societal mechanisms for conflict prevention.




Environmental Security


Book Description

Economic development, population growth and poor resource management have combined to alter the planet’s natural environment in dramatic and alarming ways. For over twenty years, considerable research and debate have focused on clarifying or disputing linkages between various forms of environmental change and various understandings of security. At one extreme lie sceptics who contend that the linkages are weak or even non-existent; they are simply attempts to harness the resources of the security arena to an environmental agenda. At the other extreme lie those who believe that these linkages may be the most important drivers of security in the 21st century; indeed, the very future of humankind may be at stake. This book brings together contributions from a range of disciplines to present a critical and comprehensive overview of the research and debate linking environmental factors to security. It provides a framework for representing and understanding key areas of intellectual convergence and disagreement, clarifying achievements of the research as well as identifying its weaknesses and gaps. Part I explores the various ways environmental change and security have been linked, and provides principal critiques of this linkage. Part II explores the linkage through analysis of key issue areas such as climate change, energy, water, food, population, and development. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of the value of this subfield of security studies, and with some ideas about the questions it might profitably address in the future. This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the field. With contributions from around the world, it combines established and emerging scholars to offer a platform for the next wave of research and policy activity. It is invaluable for both students and practitioners interested in international relations, environment studies and human geography.







Dumping In Dixie


Book Description

To be poor, working-class, or a person of color in the United States often means bearing a disproportionate share of the country’s environmental problems. Starting with the premise that all Americans have a basic right to live in a healthy environment, Dumping in Dixie chronicles the efforts of five African American communities, empowered by the civil rights movement, to link environmentalism with issues of social justice. In the third edition, Bullard speaks to us from the front lines of the environmental justice movement about new developments in environmental racism, different organizing strategies, and success stories in the struggle for environmental equity.




Environmental Peacemaking


Book Description

Eight contributions written by professors of political science, government, and politics as well as researchers and program directors for environmental change, energy, and security projects provide insight into the process of environmental peacemaking, based on their experiences in a variety of international regions. An initial chapter makes a case for the process; successive chapters address the Baltic, South Asia, the Aral Sea basin, southern Africa, the Caspian Sea, and the US-Mexican border. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).




Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict


Book Description

Severe droughts, damaging floods and mass migration: Climate change is becoming a focal point for security and conflict research and a challenge for the world’s governance structures. But how severe are the security risks and conflict potentials of climate change? Could global warming trigger a sequence of events leading to economic decline, social unrest and political instability? What are the causal relationships between resource scarcity and violent conflict? This book brings together international experts to explore these questions using in-depth case studies from around the world. Furthermore, the authors discuss strategies, institutions and cooperative approaches to stabilize the climate-society interaction.




Toxic Communities


Book Description

From St. Louis to New Orleans, from Baltimore to Oklahoma City, there are poor and minority neighborhoods so beset by pollution that just living in them can be hazardous to your health. Due to entrenched segregation, zoning ordinances that privilege wealthier communities, or because businesses have found the OCypaths of least resistance, OCO there are many hazardous waste and toxic facilities in these communities, leading residents to experience health and wellness problems on top of the race and class discrimination most already experience. Taking stock of the recent environmental justice scholarship, a Toxic Communities aexamines the connections among residential segregation, zoning, and exposure to environmental hazards. Renowned environmental sociologist Dorceta Taylor focuses on the locations of hazardous facilities in low-income and minority communities and shows how they have been dumped on, contaminated and exposed. Drawing on an array of historical and contemporary case studies from across the country, Taylor explores controversies over racially-motivated decisions in zoning laws, eminent domain, government regulation (or lack thereof), and urban renewal. She provides a comprehensive overview of the debate over whether or not there is a link between environmental transgressions and discrimination, drawing a clear picture of the state of the environmental justice field today and where it is going. In doing so, she introduces new concepts and theories for understanding environmental racism that will be essential for environmental justice scholars. A fascinating landmark study, a Toxic Communities agreatly contributes to the study of race, the environment, and space in the contemporary United States."