Greening Criminology in the 21st Century

Contemporary debates and future directions in the study of environmental harm

Matthew Hall, Tanya Wyatt, Nigel South, Angus Nurse, Gary Potter, Jennifer Maher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317124504
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Diritto
• Subtopic: Teoria e pratica del diritto

In the 21st century, environmental harm is an ever-present reality of our globalised world. Over the last 20 years, criminologists, working alongside a range of other disciplines from the social and physical sciences, have made great strides in their understanding of how different institutions in society, and criminal justice systems in particular – respond – or fail to respond – to the harm imposed on ecosystems and their human and non-human components. Such research has crystallised into the rapidly evolving field of green criminology. This pioneering volume, with contributions from leading experts along with younger scholars, represents the state of the art in criminologists' pursuit of understanding in the environmental sphere while at the same time challenging academics, lawmakers and policy developers to explore new directions in the study of environmental harm.

Part I
Examining green criminology

1 Carbon economics and transnational resistance to ecocide

Rob White

Introduction

The concept of ‘ecocide’ refers to extensive damage, destruction or loss of the ecosystems of a given territory and includes both natural (for example, pest infestation of an ecosystem) and anthropocentric (that is, as a result of human activity) causes for the harm. From a legal and criminological perspective, it is argued that if such harms occur as a result of human agency, then these acts or omissions should be defined as a crime against humanity (Higgins, 2010, 2012). The reason why detailed descriptions, definitions and histories of ecocide are once again emerging – and why the efficacy of the concept is currently being debated in various forums at the international level – is due to the sheer scale of environmental degradation now occurring worldwide. The concept of ecocide has been around since at least the 1970s (Gray, 1996; Teclaff, 1994) and for a time was under consideration for inclusion in the Rome Statute as a ‘crime against humanity’ (Higgins et al., 2013). But the impetus for ecocide to be officially recognised as a bona fide crime at the present time has been heightened by the current inadequacy of government responses, individually and collectively, to global warming.

Climate change is rapidly and radically altering the very basis of world ecology, yet until very recently little action has been taken by states or corporations to rein in the worst contributors to the problem. Carbon emissions are not decreasing, and ‘dirty industries’ such as coal and oil continue to flourish (although recent pronouncements by world leaders such as President Obama of the United States indicate that such industries have now been placed on notice to either change their methods or pay a premium for their continued pollution; see The White House, 2015). Meanwhile, the widespread destruction of natural amenities (such as forests, lakes, rivers, oceans, mountaintops and marshlands), systematic pollution of the environment (air, land and water), and rampant exploitation of plant and animal species (via destruction of habitats, illegal and legal trade, and the introduction and mass use of genetically modified organisms) are not only bad in their own right – destroying ecosystems and leading to species extinction – but also simultaneously contribute to present and looming climate chaos. This is ecocide on a planetary scale.

This chapter provides a critical examination of the causes of ecocide in the contemporary era, the reasons why business and government responses have sustained rather than addressed environmental calamity, and the need for counter-hegemonic challenges to the neo-liberal movement. It begins by outlining the varied ways in which ecocide is being accomplished, especially through global warming, and then explores the commodification of nature and the privileging of corporate interests, in large measure fostered by neo-liberal policies and practices. It then turns to the question of global solidarity and the pursuit of social and ecological justice and the need for a platform of transformative politics in a period demanding revolutionary change if ecocide is to be averted. Environmental harm requires urgent action, as the scale, pace and specific nature of the harm mean that everyone is affected by it, especially in the light of climate change. It is therefore vital that action be taken now to ensure that ecocide is robustly addressed. At the centre of our efforts must be the reduction of carbon emissions.

Climate change, carbon and commodities

Climate change is the most important international issue facing humanity today. Global warming is transforming the bio-physical world in ways that are radically and rapidly reshaping social and ecological futures. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2013) reports that:

• ‘Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, [the] sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased’ (4).
• ‘Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850’ (5).
• ‘Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010’ (8).
• ‘Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent’ (9).
• ‘The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia’ (11).

Climate change has been associated with the advent of varying types of natural disasters, which are projected to increase in intensity and frequency in the foreseeable future. These include such phenomena as floods, cyclones and extreme heat spells.

Bio-physical changes have been and will continue to be accompanied by various crime threats. But the destruction of the environment in ways that differentially, unequally and universally affect humans, ecosystems and non-human species can also be conceptualised criminologically as a specific type of crime – namely, ecocide. A key feature of this crime is that it occurs in the context of foreknowledge and intent. That is, ecocide arising from global warming, while marked by uncertainty in regards to specific rates and types of ecological change, is nonetheless founded upon generalised scientific knowledge that profound change is unavoidable unless carbon emissions – the key source of global warming – are not radically reduced now.

Ecocide describes an attempt to criminalise human activities that destroy and diminish the well-being and health of ecosystems and species within these, including humans. Climate change and the gross exploitation of natural resources are leading to the general demise of the ecological status quo – hence increasing the need for just such a crime. From an eco-justice perspective, ecocide involves transgressions that violate the principles and central constituent elements of environmental justice, ecological justice and species justice. At the core of the problem are carbon emissions. As pointed out by the IPCC (2013):

• ‘The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years’ (11).
• ‘Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions’ (11).
• ‘Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions’ (19).

If carbon emissions are at the forefront of the causes of global warming and subsequent climate chaos, then the obvious question is: why continue to emit such dangerous, planet-altering substances into the atmosphere? To explain this requires an understanding of the relationship between nature and commodification.

In the capitalist mode of production (which dominates on a world scale), goods and services are produced for exchange on the market. These goods and services are ‘commodities’ in that they are produced not for their immediate use value but for their exchange value (i.e. the monetary equivalent they fetch on the market). Although these commodities possess qualitatively distinct use values (e.g. shoes, sandwiches, sun cream), they also express quantitatively distinct exchange values (i.e. dollar value). As Marx (1954: 45) points out: ‘As use-values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange-values they are merely different quantities.’ What counts for business, therefore, is the exchange value of the commodity, for this is where the realisation of profit occurs.

Profit comes from the process of production itself. The total value of a commodity is made up of the expenditure of capital in the production of a good or service, plus a surplus value which is added. Labour power possesses the exceptional quality of being able to produce more value than is necessary to reproduce it. Simply stated, labour is the only thing in the production process which can be exploited (as distinct from machinery and raw materials, which constitute ‘fixed’ or constant capital). The total value of a commodity is greater than the elements which combine to produce it (i.e. constant capital and ‘variable’ capital as represented in the wages paid for the use of workers’ labour power). The source of surplus value therefore lies in the surplus labour power which is expended by the worker, for which he or she is not paid. The product of this surplus labour ultimately translates into profit for the capitalist (Mandel, 1968; Onimode, 1985).

The sphere of production worldwide is dominated by the production of commodities, the advance of technology and bio-technologies, and the exploitation of labour in the service of mass production of goods and services that, in turn, demand a high turnover rate. Extensive and intensive forms of consumption are essential to the realisation of surplus value – that is, profit depends upon a critical mass of buyers purchasing the mass-produced commodities. Economic efficiency is measured by how quickly and cheaply commodities can be produced, channelled to markets and consumed. It is a process that is inherently exploitative of both humans and nature (Pepper, 1993) and that has a huge impact on the wider environment, humans and non-human animals (for example, in the form of pollution and toxicity levels in air, water and land). These same processes pose major threats to biodiversity and the shrinking of the number of plant and animal species generally.

Expansion of material consumption is built into the logic and dynamics of capitalism (Foster, 2002), a tendency that is reinforced and facilitated by neo-liberal ideologies and policies. Commodification refers to the transformation of use value into exchange value, as more and more aspects of social life and environment are commercialised and ‘worth’ is gauged by how much something, including basic necessities such as water, sells for on the commodity markets. The monopolisation of control over production (and thereby consumption) by corporate conglomerates has ensured that private interests dominate over public interests in the use and re-use of natural resources.

Table 1.1 Productive and Unproductive Labour and Consumption

Politics of Labour	Politics of Consumption
‘Productive labour’ (based upon profit, private ownership of means of production and extraction of surplus value)	‘Productive consumption’ (based upon profit and exchange value of commodities that are capitalistically produced)
Versus	Versus
‘Unproductive labour’ (based upon need and ownership of own means of production and collective ownership of resources)	‘Unproductive consumption’ (based upon need and satisfied via self-sufficiency, state provision and/or cooperatives)

The capitalist accumulation process is one driven by the fundamental imperative to continually extend the horizons of productive labour (the source of surplus value) and productive consumption (related to the realisation – and further creation – of surplus value) (see Table 1.1). In simple terms, this means that capital is constantly seeking new areas for investment and consumption in order to maintain and increase profit rates. Thus, every aspect of human existence is subject to transformation insofar as capital seeks to create new forms of consumption (e.g. fads, fashions) and seeks the transformation of existing use values into exchange values through commodification of all types of human activity and human requirements (e.g. water, food, entertainment, recreation).

Increasing the production of surplus value by labour – the source of profit – demands constant changes to the ways in which labour is exploited and in the things which can be transformed from simple use values (i.e. objects of need) into exchange values (i.e. commodities). The first can be achieved via changes in the organisation of work, by manipulation of the conditions within specific workplaces and by transforming previously unproductive or non-capitalist forms of activity into sites of productive labour (e.g. family farming and subsistence farming into agribusiness). The second can be achieved by not only subsuming previously non-capitalist activities into capitalist forms of production but also by expanding capitalist commodity consumption into new spheres of activity. The exploitation of human beings and the exploitation of the natural world are inextricably bound up in this process.

The four elements – water, air, earth (land) and sun (energy) – are thus ever more subject to conversion into something that produces value for private interests. Effectively, consumption has been put at the service of production in the sense that consumer decisions and practices are embedded in what is actually produced and how it is produced. Yet it is via consumption practices, and the cultural contexts for constantly growing and changing forms of consumption, that production realises its value.

‘Consumerism’ is the name given to a process in which certain habits of consumption are generated by the pursuit of profit. The process involves the transformation of the production of goods and services according to the dictates of exchange rather than simply immediate use. It involves the incorporation of certain kinds of consumption, over time, into the unconscious routines of everyday life. For instance, it has been observed that the ‘reproduction of the commodity of labour-power is increasingly achieved by means of capitalistically produced commodities and capitalistically organized and supplied services’ (Mandel, 1975: 391). This takes the form of pre-cooked meals, ready-made clothes, electrical household appliances and so on, goods which previously would have been produced by family members as immediate use values (and to which contemporary community farms and local self-help environmental groups are, in part, responding and objecting to). Importantly, consumerism is driven by private interests rather than communal or state concerns. It is based upon private investments by individuals or private companies in production, in distribution services, in entertainment and shopping complexes, in food outlets and restaurants, in leisure pursuits, and in financial services (Bocock, 1993).

Systemic imperatives to expand require that natural resources be subjected to varying processes of commodification – that is, the transformation of existing or potential use values into exchange values (for example, clean drinking water becomes something to be bought and sold amongst consumers rather than being a right for citizens). One consequence of commodification is that the distribution of goods and services using market mechanisms is privileged rather than, for instance, being based upon communal and ecological assessments of need. In this context – and somewhat perversely – scarcity makes the natural commodity (for example, clean drinking water) even more valuable to the owner. Scarcity thus equates to high profit levels.

Commodity production and consumption take place within the context of a global political system that is hierarchical and uneven. In the area of energy, the oil and gas ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction: green criminology in the 21st century
• Part I Examining green criminology
• Part II Case studies in green criminology
• Part III Questions and agendas in green criminology
• Index