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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 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 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 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.

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.

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.

Here, I build on the conception of children’s interests outlined in chapter 3, I show how Nussbaum’s list of valuable goods can be productively extended once the requirement to be neutral about ethics is dropped. I offer a view of flourishing grounded in the importance of interpersonal relationships, of agency and an appreciation of the natural world. I then discuss a few more concrete examples of the kinds of beliefs that will be required by progressive upbringing. These are i) a personal commitment to gender equality) knowledge of controversial scientific and historical truths, iii) an openness to sexual choice and iv) a rejection of consumerism. Taken together, these discussions show why justice for children requires them to be raised in an environment conducive to socially liberal beliefs and values, a view that stands in deep tension with theories of liberalism that apply only to politics, and to the preferences of many parents. I turn to these concerns in the next section.

This chapter explores traditions within U.S. Catholicism that exemplify working alternatives proposed by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’. The first part of the chapter presents resources that emerge within Dorothy Day’s and Peter Maurin’s Catholic Worker newspaper, with special attention to the perspectives of John Hugo and Paul Hanly Furfey on Catholic farming communes in the 1940s and Thomas Merton’s view on the emerging U.S. ecological movement in the 1960s. The second part of the chapter examines the ways in which contemporary communities of religious women and their lay collaborators pursue ecological justice in the early twenty-first century. Taken together, a long-standing tradition of Catholic working alternatives emerges that emphasizes the combination of prayer and work thus presenting a significant alternative to a cultural and political-economic system that denigrates human dignity and imperils natural ecology by rupturing the divine-human relationship.