Global Environmental Harm

Criminological Perspectives

Rob White

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134030385
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Criminologia

This book brings together original cutting edge work that deals with global environmental harm from a wide variety of geographical and critical perspectives. The topics covered in the book are global, regional and local in nature, although in each case there are clear transnational or global dimensions.

The book explores topics that provide theoretical, methodological and substantive insights into the nature and dynamics of environmental harm, and the transference of this harm across regions, continents and globally. Specific topics include the criminal nature of global warming, an ethnographic study of pollution and consciousness of environmental harm, environmental destruction associated with huge industrial developments, chaos theory and environmental social justice, de-forestation as a global phenomenon, illegal trade in endangered species, and transference of toxicity.

The collection as a whole reinforces the importance of eco-global criminology as a dynamic paradigm for theory and action on environmental issues in the 21st century. The criminological perspectives presented herein are important both in discerning the nature and complexities of global environmental harms and, ultimately, in forging responses to them.

Part 1

Global problems

Chapter 1

Globalisation and environmental harm

Rob White

Introduction

Global environmental harm is not new. For many centuries humans have done things to the environment that have fundamentally transformed local landscapes and regional biodiversities. From bringing plants and animals from the ‘homeland’ to new parts of the world, to polluting rivers and seas with industrial outfall, to fire burning in particular local biospheres, ecological change has been part and parcel of how humans have worked with each other, and nature, for millennia. Not all such activities have been viewed as harmful, and the transformation of environments has not always been seen as a negative.

In ecological terms, however, there are, today, several areas of acknowledged harm that are garnering ever greater attention and concern from the scientific community and from the population at large. The main reason for this is a consensus that the relationship between human activity and environmental well-being is essentially toxic – we are killing the world as we know it. Thus, the last four decades have seen much greater international cooperation and sharing of knowledge among scientists, including social scientists, from many different areas of endeavour. One result of these efforts at collaboration and synthesis is a better sense of global ecological health. This is well documented, and baseline data are now available with which to measure the impact of human activity on all types of life on the planet (United Nations Environment Programme 2007). Basically, the message is that the human ecological footprint is too big to sustain us, and everything else, for much longer into the foreseeable future.

Briefly, there are three key problem areas of ecological harm (White 2008a). These are:

• the problem of climate change, in which the concern is to investigate activities that contribute to global warming, such as the replacement of forests with cropland

• the problem of waste and pollution, in which the concern is with activities that defile the environment, leading to such phenomena as the diminishment of clean water

• the problem of biodiversity, in which the concern is to stem the tide of species extinction and the overall reduction in species through application of certain forms of human production, including the use of genetically modified organisms.

Ecological understandings of harm view these matters in essentially trans-boundary terms; there is worldwide transference of harms. The bottom line is that, regardless of legal status, action must be taken now to prevent harms associated with global warming, further pollution and waste generation, and threats to biodiversity. The key issue is that of sustainability, and the division of social practices into benign and destructive, from the point of view of ecological sustainability. The imperative is ecological, and the goal is no less than that of human survival.

Within this context of increasing concern about environments and the ecological limits of human activity, there has emerged enhanced interest within criminology about conventional environmental crimes and more broadly defined environmental harms (White 2009a). Whether termed green, environmental or conservation criminology, this interest in environmental issues and ecological matters is reflected in a broad and expanding range of issues, and in the work of a small but growing network of scholars and researchers who are concerned about various aspects of the environment (e.g. Beirne and South 2007; White 2008b, Gibbs et al. 2009). Inevitably, some of this attention has also been directed at the transnational nature of the harm that is at the core of recent investigations, whether this is in relation to the illegal trade in ivory (Lemieux and Clarke 2009) or disposal of hazardous waste (White 2009b). Institutionally, efforts to combat international environmental crime have also been stepped up by Interpol, which has further professionalised its resources and general approach to pollution issues, and to issues pertaining to the illegal trade in flora and fauna (e.g. Interpol 2009).

Simultaneous with the increasing interest in environmental issues within criminology and criminal justice agencies, there has been growing interest in the development of a global criminology. This takes several different forms, from the publication of recent books explicitly concerned with global and comparative criminological issues (e.g. Aas 2007; Van Djik 2008), through to new international networks whose brief is expressly that of building transnational knowledge and colleague linkages. The latter include, for example, the International and Comparative Criminal Justice Network (functionally based at Leeds, UK, and Sydney, Australia) and the Supranational Criminology Group (based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands). There are also similar groups linked to Australia’s Monash University (via the Prato campus in Italy) and in the USA to Old Dominion University (namely, the International State Crime Research Consortium). The shift to a global stage means that issues such as terrorism, national security, cybercrime and environmental harm are being dealt with in ways that transcend the usual parochialism of much mainstream criminology. It also poses special challenges from the point of view of conceptualisation and methodology (Larson and Smandych 2007; White 2009c).

Those who study global environmental harm have much to learn from this new movement that is stressing the importance of global scholarship. Likewise, global criminology can be enhanced by those pursuing their interest in environmental issues. In either case, it is clear that very often the issues of power, class, ethnicity and discrimination are at the heart of processes of both victimisation and criminalisation (including the lack thereof vis-à-vis corporate crime). Taking the perspective of the globe as a whole, it becomes hard not to discuss North–South relations, and to see social injustice as at the heart of much that is wrong in the world today (e.g. Pellow 2007). The continuing legacy of imperialism and colonialism is found in the racism and entrenched class inequalities in both the metropole and the periphery. It is also evident in the ways in which the voices from below, including those from the South (e.g. the indigenous, the Islamic, the poor), are marginalised in contemporary writings and substantive research, including and especially that on globalisation (Connell 2007).

Dealing with issues of global environmental harm, therefore, is a complex and multifaceted task. It involves not only turning one’s gaze to specific incidents and events of environmental destruction, to learning about the ecological imperatives that demand more and more of our attention, and to hearing what the Other have to say about their socio-ecological worlds. It means forging new frameworks of seeing and acting on the world around us. Within criminology, one such framework or paradigm is that of ecoglobal criminology.

Ecoglobal criminology

Ecoglobal criminology refers to a criminological approach that is informed by ecological considerations and by a critical analysis that is worldwide in its scale and perspective (White 2009ab).

How we interpret and respond to global developments depends upon how we define environmental harm; how we envisage the protection of human, ecological and animal rights; and how we understand the power and interests that underpin recent trends and issues. For critical environmental criminology, there is no doubt that new typologies of harm have to be developed, new methodologies for global research instigated, and new modes of social control devised if we are to adequately address present issues.

The research agenda offered by an ecoglobal criminology is one that expresses a concern that there be an inclusive definition of harm, and that a multidisciplinary approach be adopted to the study of environmental harm. For example, there are a number of intersecting dimensions that need to be considered in any analysis of specific instances of environmental harm. These include consideration of who the victim is (human or non-human), where the harm is manifest (global through to local levels), the main site in which the harm is apparent (built or natural environment), and the time frame within which harm can be analysed (immediate and delayed consequences). Many of the key features pertaining to environmental harm are inherently international in scope and substance. Expanding our vision to incorporate the large and the small, the ecological and the social, the temporal and the spatial – these are essential to a theoretically informed analysis of contemporary environmental harms (White 2009b).

There already exists ample documentation of environmental harm across many different domains of human activity (White 2009a). One task of ecoglobal criminology is to name these harms as ‘criminal’, even if not considered illegal in conventional terms. Those who determine and shape the law are very often those whose activities need to be criminalised for the sake of planetary well-being. Environmental harm is thus intrinsically contestable, both at the level of definition and in terms of visions of what is required for desired social and ecological change. The question of power is of vital concern to ecoglobal criminology.

This kind of work has ranged across a broad range of theoretical and substantive areas, including, for example, issues pertaining to ecojustice (which deals with transgressions against humans, non-human animals, and environments), disposal of waste (both legal and illegal), risk and the precautionary principle (and the contributions of crime prevention to addressing these), ecophilosophy and conceptualisations of harm (which relate to conventional, ecological, and green criminological theoretical and definitional concerns), and the opportunities and possibilities for global research into environmental harm (including considerations of whose views of the globe are heard or are most prominent in criminological investigations). Methods of investigation have involved document analysis, collation of statistics, interviews with key players and a mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

As indicated, a crucial aspect of more recent work has been the need to shift the analytical and methodological focus toward global issues and international concerns. Consideration of scale and focus are implicit in the framing of research into transnational environmental harm, including climate change. There are at least three different ways in which transnational research can be approached (White 2009b):

1 global – refers to transnational harms, processes and agencies (universal effects, processes, agencies across the globe)

2 comparative – refers to differences between nation states, including ‘failed states’ (particular differences between nation states and regions)

3 historical – refers to epochal differences in modes of production and global trends (systemic differences over time, within and between different types of social formation).

The first approach focuses on globalisation as a far-reaching process in which harm can be traced in its movements across the world and its presence documented in many different locales. The second approach has a comparative focus, with a concern to study particular countries and regions, including failed states, in relation to each other. The nature of similarities and differences is fundamental to this kind of study. The third approach is based upon historical appreciation of social change and social differences. It views trends and issues in terms of major epochs, such as the transitions from feudalism to capitalism, or the shift from competitive capitalism to global monopoly capitalism.

Undertaking study of transnational harm is not only a matter of choosing one’s focus (e.g. global, comparative or historical) or substantive subject (e.g. terrorism, torture or environmental harm). There are also epistemological issues at stake: we need to query whose knowledge, whose perspectives, and whose ideas come to dominate our understandings of the social world. This, too, needs to be borne in mind when considering how best to advance the agenda of ecoglobal criminology. Likewise, and especially in the context of this book, the question of scale becomes of vital importance.

Geographies of harm

To appreciate fully the nature of global environmental harm, for instance, it is useful to consider the physical location of harm within particular geographical contexts. This is an exercise that is simple to undertake, yet potentially confrontational in its impact.

Johnomaps.com http://johomaps.com/world/worldblankbw.html

Figure 1.1 Map of the world, by political divisions

Consider, for example, a political map of the world (Figure 1.1). This describes the planet as divided up into political entities – the nation state. On this map, it is possible to plot out a myriad of different types of harms, some of which are common across the surface of the globe, and others of which are specific to particular locales, regions and countries. Layer after layer of harm, present and potential, can be determined by, on the one hand, investigating ecological trends that involve degradation and destruction of environments (such as clear-felling of forests), and, on the other hand, by considering existing documentation of specific types of environmental crime (such as illegal international trade in flora and fauna). The harms so described are interconnected and intertwined in various ways: the ‘butterfly effect’ means that what happens at the local level has consequences for those on the other side of the planet. What happens in any one place is intrinsically important to what happen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of abbreviations
• List of figures and tables
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction by Rob White
• Part I Global problems
• Part II Specific issues
• Part III Alternative visions
• Index