Green Crime Flashcards
Definition of environmental crime…
Green Crime or Environmental Crime has been defined by Rob White as “any action that harms the physical environment and any creatures that live within it, even if no law has technically been broken’.
Rob White - two main views of green crime…
He states that there are two main views of Green crime:
Ecocentric: Damage to the environment is damage to the other species as well putting the human race at risk in the future.
Anthropocentric: Humans have the right to exploit the environment and other species for their own benefit.
Green crime and globalisation…
Green crime is linked to globalisation and the idea crimes which transcend national boundaries. Despite the fact that the world is separated into nation states and continents, the planet is in fact one eco-system and threats to that eco-system are increasingly global rather then local in nature. Ulrich Beck reminds us that many environmental issues are manufactured rather than natural.
Example of green crime being global…
Atmospheric pollution may be caused by industry in parts of the world that could lead to acid rain falling in another part of the world. In addition, an accident in the nuclear industry, such as the one that occurred in 1986 in Chernobyl in what is now Ukraine, which spread radioactive material over thousands of miles. There were even reports of glowing, radioactive sheep in Wales and Scotland.
Chernobyl facts…
In the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (formerly part of the Soviet Union) exploded, creating what many consider the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen.
The radiation reached hundreds, and potentially thousands, of miles across the globes, some even claim they saw glowing sheep in wales.
The shocking part is according to official statistics only 31 individuals were victims to the disaster however scientist have estimate the true extent of the disaster to have led to 1.8 million victims.
Classifications of green crime…
Nigel South et al (2008) classification of green crimes into two distinct types, primary and secondary.
Primary – Harm inflicted on the environment.
Secondary - Crime that grows out of the flouting of rules.
Primary green crimes…
Primary green crimes are those crimes which constitute harm inflicted on the environment (and, by extension, those that inflict harm on people because of damage to the environment – our classic ‘environmental victims’ who suffer health or other problems when the land, water or air they interact with is polluted, damaged or destroyed).
South et al recognised four main categories of primary green crimes:
> crimes of air pollution
crimes of deforestation
crimes of species decline and animal rights
crimes of water pollution.
Secondary green crimes…
Secondary green crime: “symbiotic green crime is crime that grows out of the flouting of rules that seek to regulate environmental disasters” (Carrabine et al. 2004).
South provides two examples of secondary crime:
State violence against oppositional groups’, such as when the French government bombed the Greenpeace ship ‘Rainbow Warrior’ to prevent its anti-nuclear campaigning activities.
‘Hazardous waste and organised crime’, such as when Mafia-esque organised crime outfits help corporations side-step strict laws about pollution and disposal of hazardous waste by accepting money to take such waste away – no questions asked.
Rainbow Warrior 1985…
The rainbow warrior -
In an attempt to “neutralise” the rainbow warrior, before it protests to prevent nukes. Where it played a pivotal role in leading a small convoy to the protest site. The French government who at the time supported the nuclear movement planted a spy on the ship. The spy had diving gear and two bombs in plastic bags on his person. He later wrapped one around the propellor and another attached to the wall of the ship.
After one bomb exploded the ship was thankfully quickly docked. However when the coast looked clear the photographer ran on board to get his equipment and unfortunately died in the second blast and the sinking ship.
Two individuals were imprisoned for murder but this was a state sanctioned act.
Green crime and discrimination?…
Wolf states that it is those in the developing world, the poor and ethnic minorities that are most likely to face the effects of environmental crime. This is due to their inability to move away from areas where these crimes take place. For example, the people of Bhopal in India who were the victims of the Union Carbide gas leak in December 1984. Over 2,000 died immediately due to the leak but it is estimated that over 8,000 have died since of Gas related illnesses, as many of the local people were unable to move away from Bhopal after the incident.
Companies and us…
Wolf also states that corporations and businesses may be responsible for the majority of the air, water and land pollution due to illegal dumping and health and safety breaches, but they are not the only perpetrators of environmental crime.
As individuals, we also need to take responsibility for the cumulative effect we have on the environment by littering and fly tipping.
Military…
Santana (2002) points out that the military are the biggest institutional polluters due to the amount of unexploded ordinance and shrapnel that is left behind in war zones. These can have lasting effects due to the toxicity of these items. He uses the example that farmers in Northern France and Belgium are still finding ordinance and shrapnel left over from World War I and some fields are still unusable for agriculture.
Late/postmodern theorists…
Beck explains green crime/environmental damage as part ‘the risk society’, whereby modern industrial societies create many new risks – largely manufactured through modern technologies – that were unknown in earlier days.
New technologies are generating risks that are of a quite different order from those found throughout earlier human history.
The most obvious type of ‘new risky technology’ is that of nuclear power, which generates small, but hugely toxic (radioactive) forms of waste which stay radioactive for thousands of years.
Beck vs Marx…
Ulrich Beck’s (1986) argument is that environmental problems are truly global – he argues that ‘Smog is democratic’, which suggests that traditional social divisions — class, ethnicity and gender — may be relatively unimportant when considering the impact of many environmental problems.
Marxists offer an alternative analysis of the consequences of Green Crime to that of Ulrich Beck. Marxists argue that current social divisions are actually reinforced in the face of environmental harms, with poor people bearing the brunt of harms.
Marxism…
According to Marxists, the single biggest cause of Environmental Crimes according to Marxists (and most of the Green Movement) is Industrial Capitalism.
Main goals are - achieving economic growth, this is done through producing and consuming stuff, Marxists would not expect any significant global agreement safeguarding the environment until Capitalism is either eradicated or severely controlled. Companies are given the green light by governments to extract and pollute.
Who the victims of green crime are, and the victims of pollution tend to be the poorest in society. Consider Bhopal Tragedy and the many victims in the developing world of Corporate extraction, but another interesting line of analysis here is that of ‘eco-racism’.
