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Analysis of 579 environmental protest events in Greece, reported in Eleftherotypia during 1988–97, showed an uneven decline of protest during the decade, an overrepresentation of urban environmental claims, and the prominence of nature conservation, pollution, urban, and industrial claims made by both formal and informal environmental groups. Claims involving the health effects of environmental degradation declined, due to a steeper reduction in the reported incidence of grassroots environmental activism. In general, there was limited variation in the tactics used, with conventional protest predominating, followed by confrontation and demonstrations, and rarely by violence. Community activists tended to opt more often for confrontational or violent actions than did formal NGOs. The observed patterns are influenced by the changing political and economic opportunity structure associated with economic liberalization, the pattern of newspaper coverage, and the organization of social space.

This chapter examines the campaigns for constitutional rights to environmental protection. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Congress was passing landmark environmental regulations and an entire executive agency had been developed to address the subject, environmental activists continued to lobby for the insertion of positive rights to environmental protection into their state constitutions. As a result, state constitutions came to include broad rights to environmental health and protection. The chapter first provides an overview of environmental activism during the 1960s and 1970s before explaining why environmental activists targeted state constitutions despite so much environmental action at the national level. It argues that environmentalists did not choose to pursue constitutional rights to environmental protection only at the federal level. Instead, states' constitutional conventions, environmental organizations, and even legislatures continued to alter state constitutions by adding mandates for protective and interventionist government.

Ironic in many ways is the opposition that environmental activists have shown toward transgenic crops. They oppose biotechnology in general: today’s transgenic plants that have indirect environmental benefits and those transgenic plants of the future that are explicitly designed to have direct environmental benefits. It is also ironic that the modern environmental movement was largely started in response to overuse of agricultural chemicals as described in the seminal book Silent Spring. Transgenic plants that are insect-resistant have made the need for many chemical insecticides obsolete. Several prominent green groups are examined with regards to their positions on transgenic plants. Their blanket hostility towards biotechnology is ubiquitous, as is their equally enthusiastic embrace of organic agriculture. Paradoxically, mass organic farming would require far more energy and land to feed the world than utilizing the best technologies available, including biotechnology.

This chapter investigates the debt stage in the relationship between Congress and the IMF and World Bank that was triggered by the external shocks of the 1982 Mexican default, subsequent Latin American debt crisis, and the end of the Cold War. The chief endogenous change was the increasing use of omnibus legislation in the period of divided government that followed the election of Ronald Reagan. The chapter argues that omnibus bills were effective vehicles for issues related to the IMF and World Bank. Through them, party leaders could secure funding for the IMF and World Bank, yet prevent individual members from having to take a public stand on an individual measure. However, by the end of the stage, the same external changes altered domestic constituencies of support. As the banking industry recovered from the debt crisis and other forms of credit appeared, the money-center banks directed a smaller percentage of transnational capital flows. Congressional advocacy efforts on behalf of environmental activists were directed at the World Bank’s activities. Use of legislative procedure allowed members of Congress to advocate for policy change on issues such as African development, the “Pelosi Amendment,” and the World Bank inspection panel.

This chapter traces the history of the Latina/o environmental justice movement and assesses its future prospects. This movement arose from a break with the mainstream, Anglo-dominated environmental movement; Latina/o activists criticized it as being more concerned with the preservation of pristine recreational areas than with the issues most likely to affect poor and nonwhite communities, primarily exposure to toxins from illegal dumping, lead paint in aging homes, commercial pesticide use, dangerous working conditions, and the location of polluting industries in regions whose residents have the least power to exclude them. The chapter recounts some of the many victories achieved by Latina/o environmental activists during the 1990s. Recently, however, the movement faces an uncertain future, but its activists are committed to the long-term struggle that will be necessary.

This chapter presents interviews with Charles Elson “Buddy” Roemer, Carroll Wascom, Maureen O’Neill, Kai David Midboe, Dan Borne, Robert Kuehn, Audrey Evans, Paul Templet, Will Collette, and William “Willie” A. Fontenot. Their perspectives offer insight into the complex issues that had to be considered before a law could be changed, a policy created, a permit granted, or a regulation enforced.

This chapter examines three different enactments of the corporation and their ethical entailments by analyzing an incident in which village residents attacked environmental activists. Environmental activists enacted Newmont as environmentally destructive (“Newmonster”), mine managers enacted it as environmentally friendly (“Goodmont”), and local attackers enacted Newmont as a patron under their protection. Each of these enactments entailed specific ethical stances among its adherents and motivated them to different kinds of action. By exploring the actions and commitments of the latter groups who defended capital against activists, the chapter seeks to complement the extensive anthropological literature on transnational advocacy networks supporting indigenous rights, social justice, and environmentalism against extractive industries.

This chapter presents the stories of five women—Sister Helen Vinton, Lorna Bourg, Marylee Orr, Linda King, and Wilma Subra—who established careers in environmental activism, and who made unique contributions to Louisiana’s environmental movement by providing technical information, guidance on strategy, and moral support.

This chapter looks at whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) really is a “technocracy” through the lens of “trade-environment” issues, focusing on the Shrimp-Turtle case. It begins with an overview of the democratic deficit critique as it applies to the WTO. It then turns to describing the deliberative features of two of the three principal functions of the WTO-dispute settlement, and what has been called the “missing middle” between the negotiation of treaties and dispute settlement. The fourth section is devoted to an analysis of the Shrimp-Turtle case. The chapter concludes with an assessment of how “technocratic” the WTO really is. It argues that it is not dominated by a “trade elite” to the extent that critics have charged, but the impact of environmental activists does not necessarily make it a more deliberatively democratic institution.

This chapter presents some final words from Wilma Subra. Wilma discusses three big disasters that have tested Louisiana since 2000—Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, and the BP spill—each of which brought her into contact with both national and local groups. She believes that the challenge for the future is to know how the local and the national can now work together.

This chapter presents the stories of six women—Ann Williams, Rose Jackson, Marietta Herr, Ruth Shepherd, Theresa Robert, and Kay Gaudet—set against the backdrop of decades of racial segregation, the power of white elites, and the 1960s civil rights movement. From initially invisible changes in attitudes emerged the realization of shared problems and the formation of ladders of assistance, one to another, older to younger, white to black, educated to uneducated, extrovert to introvert. The women’s successes and failures also illustrate the lapse of time in which especially toxic waste dumping and incineration came to the state.

This chapter presents the stories of seven women—Mildred Fossier, Mary McCastle, Florence Gossen, Clara Baudoin, Liz Avants, Les Ann Kirkland, and Mary Tutwiler—demonstrating how their work as women often informed, motivated, and connected them. These women reiterate that the biggest beneficiaries of the Louisiana grassroots environmental movement are children and subsequent generations.

This final chapter consolidates the book’s arguments and findings into a reflection on the limits and dangers of environmentalism of the rich. Policies and programs are producing gains, especially on per product efficiency measures. But these gains are not aggregating into global solutions. Efficiencies are lost as firms reinvest savings to stimulate even higher levels of unsustainable consumption. Regulatory successes are lost as firms substitute new products and increase exports into countries with lower standards. Certification benefits are lost as investors and buyers shift to new sectors and locations. The growing dominance of environmentalism of the rich risks deluding consumers – and even committed environmental activists – into thinking of capitalism and consumerism as solutions, rather than root causes of unsustainability. As this chapter concludes, if the goal is global sustainability, the mainstream environmental community cannot simply ignore the problems of inequality and consumption.

This chapter considers how thousands of individuals rose up across England in the seventeenth century to defend the newly emerging, endangered countryside, as well as draws attention to issues of environmental justice. Radical groups known as Levellers and Diggers developed a number of very modern environmental positions by arguing the need for diversity (both in plant and animal life); suggesting that changes to local ecosystems can have regional, even national, consequences; proposing that human cultures should be built on customs that respond to the particular conditions of local habitats; resisting the introduction of agricultural monocultures; and so forth. However, while the protesters were articulating this environmental discourse, prospective developers of England's early modern countryside were countering with their own by systematically touting the benefits of introduced species and monocultures; arguing that the vagaries of certain local ecosystems were so great that destruction of these otherwise fertile places was justified; and suggesting that the benefit to the poor would warrant the destruction of existing ecosystems.

This chapter presents the stories of six women—Jessie Price, Gay Hanks, Mary Brasseaux, Florence Robinson, Mary Ellender, and Carol Savoy—whose environmental activism became especially difficult in the mid-1980s, when the decline of Louisiana’s oil and gas industry devastated the state’s economy. Louisiana’s political and economic climate pitted these women against individuals and companies wielding a great deal of power and not afraid to use it.

This chapter presents the stories of five women—Lorena Pospisil, Shirley Goldsmith, Gerry Ardoin, Janice Crador, and Debra Ramirez—whose religious beliefs shaped their environmental actions. Two practices united these women. First, they considered the place of the church primarily as a change maker, or at least a support, in helping communities remain vigilant in protecting the environment and the health of residents. Second, the women also often spoke of prayer and the need to call upon a higher power.

This chapter describes the environmental activism of seven women in Morgan City in Saint Mary Parish, Louisiana: Sally Herman, Fernell Cryar, Barbara LeLeux, Catherine Holcomb, Monica Laughlin Mancuso, Helen Solar, and Miriam Price. From the household and schoolroom, these women made a leap to public arenas, passing petitions, writing press releases, and testifying at permit hearings. Their efforts led to the closure of Marine Shale’s waste operations in Morgan City.