Schnaiberg's concept of the treadmill of production is arguably the most visible and enduring theory to emerge in three decades of environmental sociology. Elaborated and tested, it has been found to be an accurate predictor of political-economic changes in the global economy. In the global South, it has figures prominently in the work of structural environmental analysts and has been used by many political-economic movements. Building new extensions and applications of the treadmill theory, this new book shows how and why northern analysts and governments have failed to protect our environment and secure our future. Using an empirically based political-economic perspective, the authors outline the causes of environmental degradation, the limits of environmental protection policies, and the failures of institutional decision-makers to protect human well-being.

Md Saidul Islam and Md Ismail Hossain investigate how neoliberal globalization generates unique conditions, contradictions, and confrontations in labor, gender and environmental relations; and how a broader global social justice can mitigate the tensions and improve the conditions.

Drawing on the work of Allan Schnaiberg, this book returns political economy to green criminology and examines how the expansion of capitalism shapes environmental law, crime and justice. The book is organized around crimes of ecological withdrawals and ecological additions. The Treadmill of Crime is written by acclaimed experts on the subject of green criminology and examines issues such as the crime in the energy sector as well as the release of toxic waste into the environment and its impact on ecosystems. This book also sets a new research agenda by highlighting problems of ecological disorganization for animal abuse and social disorganization. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and academics in the fields of criminology, political science, environmental sociology, and natural resources.

In recent years, environmentalism in the US has increasingly emerged at the community level, focusing on local ecological problems. Correspondingly, the American environmental movement has exhorted its supporters to 'think globally' but 'act locally'. The authors examine this modern environmental mantra by analysing the opportunities and constraints on local environmental action posed by economic and political structures at all levels. The difficulties involved in local activism are explored in three case studies - a wetlands protection project, water pollution of the Great Lakes, and consumer waste recycling. The final chapter then reflects on the challenges facing citizen-worker movements in each case study, and concludes that, despite the inherent difficulties, any successful attempt at mobilisation must have a local component.

Schnaiberg's concept of the treadmill of production is arguably the most visible and enduring theory to emerge in three decades of environmental sociology. Elaborated and tested, it has been found to be an accurate predictor of political-economic changes in the global economy. In the global South, it has figures prominently in the work of structural environmental analysts and has been used by many political-economic movements. Building new extensions and applications of the treadmill theory, this new book shows how and why northern analysts and governments have failed to protect our environment and secure our future. Using an empirically based political-economic perspective, the authors outline the causes of environmental degradation, the limits of environmental protection policies, and the failures of institutional decision-makers to protect human well-being.

At a time of societal urgency surrounding ecological crises from depleted fisheries to mineral extraction and potential pathways towards environmental and ecological justice, this book re-examines ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) from a historical and comparative perspective. The theory of ecologically unequal exchange posits that core or northern consumption and capital accumulation is based on peripheral or southern environmental degradation and extraction. In other words, structures of social and environmental inequality between the Global North and Global South are founded in the extraction of materials from, as well as displacement of waste to, the South. This volume represents a set of tightly interlinked papers with the aim to assess ecologically unequal exchange and to move it forward. Chapters are organised into three main sections: theoretical foundations and critical reflections on ecologically unequal exchange; empirical research on mining, deforestation, fisheries, and the like; and strategies for responding to the adverse consequences associated with unequal ecological exchange. Scholars as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students will benefit from the spirited re-evaluation and extension of ecologically unequal exchange theory, research, and praxis.

Civil society participants have voiced concerns that the environmental problems that were the subject of multilateral environmental agreements negotiated during the 1992 Rio processes are not serving to ameliorate global environmental problems. These concerns raise significant questions regarding the utility of negotiating agreements through the UN. This book elucidates the complexity of how participants engage in these negotiations through the various processes that take place under the auspices of the UN—primarily those related to climate and biological diversity. By taking an ethnographic approach and providing concrete examples of how it is that civil society participants engage in making policy, this book develops a robust sense of the implications of the current terrain of policy-making—both for the environment, and for the continued participation of non-state actors in multilateral environmental governance. Using data gathered at actual negotiations, the book develops concepts such as participation and governance beyond theory. The research uses participant observation ethnographic methods to tie the theoretical frameworks to people’s actual activities as policy is generated and contested. Whereas topics associated with global environmental governance are traditionally addressed in fields such as international relations and political science, this book contributes to developing a richer understanding of the theories using a sociological framework, tying individual activities into larger social relations and shedding light on critical questions associated with transnational civil society and global politics.

An argument that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. Discard studies is an emerging field that looks at waste and wasting broadly construed. Rather than focusing on waste and trash as the primary objects of study, discard studies looks at wider systems of waste and wasting to explore how some materials, practices, regions, and people are valued or devalued, becoming dominant or disposable. In this book, Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky argue that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. They show how the theories and methods of discard studies can be applied in a variety of cases, many of which do not involve waste, trash, or pollution. Liboiron and Lepawsky consider the partiality of knowledge and offer a theory of scale, exploring the myth that most waste is municipal solid waste produced by consumers; discuss peripheries, centers, and power, using content moderation as an example of how dominant systems find ways to discard; and use theories of difference to show that universalism, stereotypes, and inclusion all have politics of discard and even purification—as exemplified in “inclusive” efforts to broaden the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally, they develop a theory of change by considering “wasting well,” outlining techniques, methods, and propositions for a justice-oriented discard studies that keeps power in view.

We need to break free from the capitalist economy. Degrowth gives us the tools to bend its bars. Economic growth isn’t working, and it cannot be made to work. Offering a counter-history of how economic growth emerged in the context of colonialism, fossil-fueled industrialization, and capitalist modernity, The Future Is Degrowth argues that the ideology of growth conceals the rising inequalities and ecological destructions associated with capitalism, and points to desirable alternatives to it. Not only in society at large, but also on the left, we are held captive by the hegemony of growth. Even proposals for emancipatory Green New Deals or postcapitalism base their utopian hopes on the development of productive forces, on redistributing the fruits of economic growth and technological progress. Yet growing evidence shows that continued economic growth cannot be made compatible with sustaining life and is not necessary for a good life for all. This book provides a vision for postcapitalism beyond growth. Building on a vibrant field of research, it discusses the political economy and the politics of a non-growing economy. It charts a path forward through policies that democratise the economy, “now-topias” that create free spaces for experimentation, and counter-hegemonic movements that make it possible to break with the logic of growth. Degrowth perspectives offer a way to step off the treadmill of an alienating, expansionist, and hierarchical system. A handbook and a manifesto, The Future Is Degrowth is a must-read for all interested in charting a way beyond the current crises.

Academic and general interest in environmental crimes, harms, and threats, as well as in environmental legislation and regulation, has grown sharply in recent years. The Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology is the most in-depth and comprehensive volume on these issues to date. With contributions from leading international green criminologists and scholars in related fields, the Handbook examines a wide range of substantive issues, including: climate change corporate criminality and impacts on the environment environmental justice media representations pollution (e.g. air, water) questions of responsibility and risk wildlife trafficking The chapters explore green criminology in depth, its theory, history and development, as well as methodological concerns for this area of academic interest. With examples of environmental crimes, harms, and threats from Africa, Asia, Australia, Eastern Europe, South America, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this book will serve as a vital resource for international scholars and students in criminology, sociology, law and socio-legal studies, as well as environmental science, environmental studies, politics and international relations.