Search Results

This chapter presents an overview and critique of many existing distributional theories of ecological justice. After a discussion of some of the key difficulties identified by liberal theorists in applying the concept of justice to the natural world, the chapter examines a number of theories that attempt to expand liberal and distributional notions of justice to future generations of humans and to non-human nature.

This chapter turns to the potential of developing a theory of ecological justice that moves beyond a sole concern with the distributive paradigm. The central focus is on bringing conceptions of recognition of nature, and of capabilities for the non-human world, into a broad and comprehensive understanding of ecological justice. The point is not to develop a singular universal theory of ecological justice, but rather to illustrate the potential of various discourses, concepts and frames as they can be extended to animals, communities, and natural systems.

This chapter presents an introduction and overview of the book as a whole. It lays out the need to apply recent theories of justice — distributive, recognition-based, participatory, and capabilities — to environmental justice movements. It discusses the gap between the academic accounts of environmental justice (or justice among humans on environmental issues and risks) and ecological justice (or justice to non-human nature).

This chapter addresses the difficult question of how to reconcile the multiple and multifaceted notions of justice that exist simultaneously in environmental and ecological justice. Rather than insisting on a singular and static definition of justice, the point is that a plurality of themes is needed to apply to particular cases as the context requires. The chapter argues for a pluralist approach that allows for unity among different concerns and movements while avoiding the uniformity that is so often debilitating in constructing broad discourses and movements.

This chapter focuses on developing principles of distributive justice — not only looking at ecological justice but also proposing complementary principles of environmental justice. In the context of a multitude of environmental crises and in regard to considerations about distributive justice in particular, it has become apparent that the circumstance of scarcity plays an important role for the articulation of appropriate principles of justice. Based on the assumption that ecological space is (to a degree) finite, considering different scarcity scenarios becomes highly relevant in order for considerations of distributive justice to be able to make recommendations for a world shaped by scarcity, which in turn is where distributive justice becomes most salient. The chapter begins by considering the character of scarcity of ecological space and then turns to the demands of environmental and ecological justice in moderate scarcity scenarios. Based on this, it introduces a grid of different principles of justice that follow from different, more demanding, scarcity scenarios. Finally, the chapter sketches some of the theoretical space surrounding this distributive justice framework by highlighting, among other things, its links with environmental virtue ethics.

This chapter provides an overview of ecological justice. Although the term ecological justice suggests that its focus lies on holistic systems rather than individuals, its scholarly discussions range from justice to individuals to justice to broader systems. The term 'interspecies justice' might imply a bidirectional justice relationship, but the book argues that it also should be seen to only focus on humans doing, or failing to do, justice to nonhuman beings; more accurately, individual nonhumans (and potentially also as groups) instead of attributing justice entitlements to species themselves. Even though the term ecological justice (sometimes referred to as ecojustice) has received slightly more attention than interspecies justice, the latter more accurately describes the author's relational and global understanding of the justice relationship between humans and nonhumans. In a nutshell, what is sought is an account of global distributive ecological justice to 'wild' living nonhuman beings.

This chapter analyses the question of how one can move from claims about moral considerability to claims about justice. Moral considerability is a necessary, but not sufficient, criterion for being a holder of entitlements of justice. Taking it as a premise that all living beings are morally considerable, the chapter proposes that a grounded justification for interspecies justice in terms of just biological conservation requires an additional four-step argumentative process as a method for including all wild living nonhuman beings in the community of justice. It claims that humans and wild nonhuman living beings constitute a community of justice which can be called a community of fate. Because moral considerability alone is not able to ground the more specific claim that duties of justice are owed to a certain entity, the theoretical move towards grounding a community of justice is a crucial feature of accounts of ecological justice.

This chapter evaluates the debate on just conservation that has developed around the so-called Half-Earth proposal. The Half-Earth proposal was put forward most prominently to a non-expert audience by biologist Edward O. Wilson. Its central idea can be found in earlier work that observed that an average of 50 per cent of every region needs to be protected to conserve biodiversity, which is meant as a partial solution to the current mass extinction event on Earth. It is suggested that this crisis can be mitigated somewhat by 'setting aside' half of the Earth's land and half of sea spaces for nonhuman living beings. Based on the framework developed in the previous chapters, this chapter argues that the Half-Earth proposal can constitute a distributively just compromise between demands of ecological and environmental justice on the question of distribution of space in terms of habitat, but only if several conditions are fulfilled. Moreover, whether it can even constitute an all-things-considered demand of justice is, in turn, again dependent on a range of further considerations. In the end, the aim is not to have merely effective, but also just conservation practices.

This chapter presents an alternative theoretical framework for grounding ecological justice: the capabilities approach. Rather than focusing on the distribution of some material goods themselves, the focus of the capabilities approach lies on the functionings — that is, doings and beings — and the capabilities — that is, opportunities or freedoms to achieve these functionings — of humans. The provision of these capabilities, which require different inputs depending on the individual in question, are at the heart of its concern. In other words, capability theorists are concerned with the opportunities that individuals need to live fully functioning — or flourishing — lives. On first examination, the capabilities approach has a lot of intuitive force in the domain of ecological justice, arguably because of its close connection to the concepts of needs and flourishing. However, accounts of interspecies justice based on the capabilities approach have been met with powerful criticism which leads to the conclusion that the project of expanding the capabilities approach into the nonhuman sphere will require considerable adjustments, and consequently the task of developing interspecies justice should rather be left to less anthropomorphist approaches.

This concluding chapter begins with the observation that when dealing with environmental harms described and examined in this book, there are tensions both within and between the three approaches to justice. The chapter discusses how in their extreme versions, the weighing of certain elements within the particular approaches skew the moral compass in certain directions: for example, toward an environmental justice that is ssocially exclusive to specific oppressed human communities and downplays or ignores ecological inclusion and species interests; an ecological justice that pprioritises places over people and sacrifices specific community interests for the sake of ecocentric conservation ideals; and a species justice that hold the rights of animals over those of human need and the requirements of specific biocentric environments. The chapter attempts to grapple with these tensions by illuminating key dilemmas and identifying possible pathways for their resolution.

This chapter explores some implications of the book's framework in terms of how to implement and discharge duties of ecological justice, as for example in terms of ecological citizenship. The book presents an account of global non-ranking biocentric distributive ecological/interspecies justice to wild nonhuman beings. Based on this theoretical framework, the human takeover of the Earth's ecological space — its resources, ecosystem benefits, and actual spaces — that ultimately leads to species extinctions constitutes an injustice; it should be discussed and responded to as a matter of justice. Duties of global justice are held collectively by humanity and thus need to be acted upon collectively via political institutions. But these duties are not held equally globally due to different historical and present responsibilities for the injustices at hand. Discharging duties of distributive interspecies justice becomes a matter of just implementation which in turn is driven by intra-social justice considerations.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the concept of Climate Change Criminology. Climate Change Criminology rests upon the four pillars of crime and harm; global connectedness and ecological justice; causes and consequences; and power and interests. These are separate but inextricably linked domains of analysis, interpretation, and critique. Each area demands novel ways of thinking about the problem, employing methods and approaches that necessarily push the boundaries of contemporary criminological theory and the purview of modern criminal justice institutions. In several important respects, Climate Change Criminology parallels work which focuses on ‘social harm’ as a constitutive concept. What makes a social harm ‘social’ is the fact that it does not stem from natural causes; it is intrinsically caused by humans. Analysis and response to this is central to the project of Climate Change Criminology.

This chapter outlines an implication that a commitment to ecological justice has for theorising environmental justice. One necessary, but not sufficient, criterium for achieving compatibility between the author's framework of ecological justice and theories of social justice between humans is that theories of justice must be based on the premise that the Earth is originally unowned. Thus, the chapter develops a critique of the notion of humanity's original ownership of the Earth that has been influential throughout the history of political thought. The critique of this notion can be seen as an extension of the critical investigation of some environmental ethicists on the relationship between ownership and animals, as well as contributing to a necessary 'denaturalisation' of assumptions within political thought that 'Otherise' the nonhuman. Attributing original ownership of the Earth to humans only creates a similar problematic power asymmetry between agents that matter and objects that cannot own and can potentially even be owned. Such philosophical theories exhibit a form of theoretical exclusion of an Other, which is nonhuman living beings in this case. The problem is that such perspectives exclude nonhumans from mattering in theory which can then translate into not mattering in practice.

This chapter provides analysis of environmental harm, ecocide that is directly linked to specific eco-systems. The notion of ecological justice refers to the relationship of humans generally to the rest of the natural world, and includes concerns relating to the health of the bio-sphere, and also the plants and creatures that inhabit the biosphere. The main concern of the chapter is with the quality of the planetary environment (that is frequently seen to possess its own intrinsic value) conservation, preservation and the rights of other species (particularly animals) to live free from torture, abuse and destruction of habitat. It is argued that which eco-systems and bio-spheres are privileged or valued above others is an important consideration in critical evaluation of environmental harm as this pertains to ecological justice.

Reflexivity requires the capacity to reconsider core values: notably justice, which many people think is the most important societal value. Injustice looms large in an unstable Earth system, as pre-existing injustices are intensified and new ones emerge. Against those who think that the Anthropocene overrides or ignores justice by invoking ideas of emergency or by blaming humans as a whole for our predicament, this chapter shows how justice itself can be productively reimagined for the Anthropocene. The resultant planetary justice can incorporate traditional concerns about distribution of resources across rich and poor groups, recognition of the standing of historically marginalized groups, and the need to alleviate poverty. But planetary justice is much more imaginative in how it integrates justice toward future generations, non-humans, and the Earth system itself. The continuing vitality of core social values such as justice depends on their ability to co-evolve with a changing Earth system.

This chapter presents an in-depth analysis of the Women's Intercultural Center in Anthony, New Mexico. The nonprofit organization draws women interested in personal skill-building and empowerment as well as those interested in broader change for social and ecological justice. Using ethnographic methods and document analysis of the news stories, brochures, and videos by the center, the chapter examines how narratives about the environment are articulated in the everyday activities of contemporary activists in the U.S. Southwest. Similar to the chapters on cultural production, one of the draws in studying this particular organization is that its mission is not explicitly environmental. Nevertheless, ecological consciousness is woven throughout the center's focus on women's empowerment in a way that can teach us something new about the intersection between social and ecological justice.

This chapter discusses the notion of victimhood as this pertains to climate change. Each section deals with a specific victim category — non-human environmental entities, children and young people, and Indigenous communities. Each grouping has its own specific histories, stories, and issues. What perhaps unites the discussion is an underlying emphasis on adopting an ecocentric perspective that incorporates social and ecological justice. From a human perspective, ecocentrism attempts to strike a balance between the need to utilise resources for human survival and the need to develop rules that facilitate the benign use of the ecosphere. Thus, for example, ensuring the preservation of biocentric values becomes integral to maintaining long-term human needs. To do this means minimising the victimisation of both the human and the non-human — in essence, to assert a form of ecological citizenship.