Environmental movements have produced some impressive results, including cleaner air and the preservation of selected species and places. But movements that challenged western prosperity and comfort seldom made much progress, and many radical environmentalists have been unabashed utopianists. In this short guide, Peterson del Mar untangles this paradox by showing how prosperity is essential to environmentalism. Industrialisation made conservation sensible, but also drove people to look for meaning in nature even as they consumed its products more relentlessly. Hence Englandled the wa.
In recent decades, environmental issues have increasingly been incorporated into liberal democratic thought and political practice. Environmentalism and ecologism have become fashionable, even respectable schools of political thought. This apparently successful integration of environmental movements, issues and ideas in mainstream politics raises the question of whether there is a future for what once was a counter-movement and counter-ideology. Liberal Democracy and Environmentalism provides a reflective assessment of recent developments, social relevance and future of environmental.
"In the summer of 2014, representatives of several environmental groups in Pittsburgh began meeting to plan for local participation in the People's Climate March to be held in New York City on September 21, 2014. The Sierra Club, 350.org, and other national and international groups were organizing the march around a UN meeting on climate change held in New York in advance of the Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015. Across the country, grassroots groups, including affiliates of Rising Tide North America and the Climate Justice Alliance, were organizing to attend the People's Climate March and to participate in a week of activities that would include a nonviolent direct action in New York's financial district to "flood Wall Street" on the day following the main march. Radical and mainstream environmentalists alike were eager to be part of these events, and participants in the Pittsburgh meetings included a staff member of the Sierra Club and members of the Global Warming Action Team of the Allegheny Group of the Sierra Club, local anti-fracking and environmental justice groups, student environmental groups, and a community organization called Action United. In addition to organizing Pittsburgh residents to attend the People's Climate March, their goal was to build a diverse local climate movement consisting not only of environmentalists, but also unions, faith leaders, students, and residents of disadvantaged communities"--
In the environmental politics literature, cities are commonly framed as key sites for a shift towards greater sustainability and urban grassroots initiatives, such as food co-ops, urban gardening initiatives, repair café ; s, and libraries of things, are commonly portrayed as such a shift&rsquo ; s key drivers. This paper develops a critical perspective on both common portrayals. It does so by drawing on critical urban theory, especially Lefebvre&rsquo ; s Right to the City. First, inspired by Lefebvre&rsquo ; s critique of city-centrism, the paper argues that the scope and limits of urban environmentalism hinge not only on the goals pursued but also on how the urban is framed. Urban environmentalism may mean mere lifeworld environmentalism: the greening of cities as if there were (relatively) bounded sites. Yet urban environmentalism may also mean planetary environmentalism: the mapping, problematization, and transformation of unsustainable urbanization processes that underpin given sites and lifeworlds, but also operate at beyond the latter&mdash ; at a societal and planetary scale. Second, inspired by Lefebvre&rsquo ; s reformulation of right claims as a transformative political tool, this paper takes issue with environmental practices and discourses that present society&rsquo ; s niches, cracks, and margins as a key fermenting ground for radical environmental change. Since not only institutional but also bottom-up pursuits of more sustainable nature-society relations often remain stuck in mere lifeworld reform, this paper foregrounds heterodox right claims as an underexplored modus operandi in active pursuits of and discourses on radical environmental change. Heterodox right claims mean the active appropriation of dominant political languages, such as the language of the right, while seeking to change their grammar. What this may mean in the realm of environmental politics will be spelled out at hand of the example of claims to a right to public transport.
In the environmental politics literature, cities are commonly framed as key sites for a shift towards greater sustainability and urban grassroots initiatives, such as food co-ops, urban gardening initiatives, repair cafés, and libraries of things, are commonly portrayed as such a shift's key drivers. This paper develops a critical perspective on both common portrayals. It does so by drawing on critical urban theory, especially Lefebvre's Right to the City. First, inspired by Lefebvre's critique of city-centrism, the paper argues that the scope and limits of urban environmentalism hinge not only on the goals pursued but also on how the urban is framed. Urban environmentalism may mean mere lifeworld environmentalism: the greening of cities as if there were (relatively) bounded sites. Yet urban environmentalism may also mean planetary environmentalism: the mapping, problematization, and transformation of unsustainable urbanization processes that underpin given sites and lifeworlds, but also operate at beyond the latter—at a societal and planetary scale. Second, inspired by Lefebvre's reformulation of right claims as a transformative political tool, this paper takes issue with environmental practices and discourses that present society's niches, cracks, and margins as a key fermenting ground for radical environmental change. Since not only institutional but also bottom-up pursuits of more sustainable nature-society relations often remain stuck in mere lifeworld reform, this paper foregrounds heterodox right claims as an underexplored modus operandi in active pursuits of and discourses on radical environmental change. Heterodox right claims mean the active appropriation of dominant political languages, such as the language of right, while seeking to change the latter's grammar. What this may mean in the realm of environmental politics, will be spelled out at hand of the example of claims to a right to public transport.
1. What is the influence of the multifaceted state on corporate environmentalism in China? 2. What economic and political factors can exert influences on the propensity of a Chinese business group affiliate to adopt an environmental management system?
This piece for the University of Chicago Law Review Symposium: Reassessing the State and Local Government Toolkit, examines how local governments can use private law mechanisms to entrench policy in ways that circumvent typical legal limitations. The piece examines in detail a specific example of a town donating conservation easements over property it owns to a third-party not-for-profit conservation organization in order ensure that the property would not be developed in the future. This is nearly the functional equivalent of passing an unrepealable zoning ordinance restricting development, something existing anti-entrenchment rules would never permit. The piece examines the costs and benefits of using such a device. It theorizes generally about the nature of entrenchment outside of public law, and identifies anti-entrenchment protections designed to prevent the worst abuses. It ultimately argues that eminent domain serves an important role in allowing subsequent governments to escape the precommitments of prior governments and proposes a modest modification in compensation rules to limit the extent to which conservation easements can entrench an anti-development agenda.
Protecting the natural environment and promoting sustainability have become important objectives, but achieving such goals presents myriad challenges for even the most committed environmentalist. American Environmentalism: Philosophy, History, and Public Policy examines whether competing interests can be reconciled while developing consistent, coherent, effective public policy to regulate uses and protection of the natural environment without destroying the national economy. It then reviews a range of possible solutions. The book delves into key normative concepts that undergird American persp.
