The tide is turning against environmentalism as the political right, industry and governments fight back. Green Backlash is a controversial expose of the anti-environmental movement. Tracing the rise of the backlash from the Wise Use movement in the USA, the author reveals its rapid spread worldwide: the anti-roads movement in the UK, forestry debates in Canada and Australia, marine resource issues in Europe, South-East Asia, and controversies such as the Brent Spar. The backlash is set to get worse as the resource wars intensify. This book offers a greater understanding of the challenges and threats facing global environmentalism, concluding that the environmental movement now has a chance to re-evaluate and change for the better to beat the backlash - a chance that must not be missed.
A reign of violence and intimidation, including arson, bombings, rape, assault and even murder has been unleashed against environmental activists and government employees by proponents of the so-called "Wise Use" movement. The War Against the Greens rips the veneer of legitimacy off this right-wing backlash that stretches from armed Militias to the halls of Congress, exposing the public lands corporations, political operatives and fringe groups who have set out to destroy America's environmental protections by any means necessary. In this updated edition, Helvarg revealed how the petroleum-heavy George W. Bush administration helped expand the backlash, bringing the same individuals and industries into alliance with big oil and the Republican Party, ending an era of bipartisan progress. This is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the history behind the science denial, corruption, and public lands debacles that mark the Trump era.
Traces the history of the environmental movement from its beginnings as private clubs, to the activism of the 1960s and 1970s, to the corporate sellout of the 1990s. Unveils the stories behind American environmentalism's undeniable triumphs and its quite unnecessary failures.
"One of the most serious challenges to environmentalism that has emerged in the 1990s is the so-called Wise Use movement. While operating under the guise of an independent movement of small landowners, it is in reality a backlash against environmental protection measures, funded and organized by corporations with a vested interest in preventing further environmental gains. Let the People Judge collects the writings of a wide range of thinkers on the Wise Use movement and the controversies that fuel the Wise Use debate.
A simple investigation into environmental policy in the Sierra Nevadas turned out to be a far bigger story: Bush's environmental policy is being driven by biblical fundamentalists who believe exhausting natural resources will hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Undue Influence author Ron Arnold--America's premiere investigative critic of organized environmentalism--follows the money and takes you with him. In this astonishing book he explains how the environmental movement is not just the green groups we are accustomed to thinking of, but is instead an extraordinarily incestuous "iron triangle" of: wealthy foundations; grant-driven green groups, and; zealous bureaucrats; that control your future--without your knowledge or permission. Big foundations and big government give billions in grants to elitist green groups whose every effort hurts your economic future. Book jacket.
Since becoming president, George W. Bush has walked away from the Kyoto Protocol, pushed for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, undermined protections for endangered species and wilderness, and retreated from his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide. But the president’s agenda reaches deeper than these well-known policies. In Bush Versus the Environment, Robert Devine shows how the White House is quietly undermining the entire system of environmental safeguards that has developed over the past thirty years. The administration's tactics include: -Encouraging lawsuits against the federal government that challenge existing environmental laws, and then feebly defending the cases in court. -Ignoring science that doesn’t support the president's goals, and pressuring government scientists to produce the results the administration wants. -Using fuzzy math to overestimate the costs and underestimate the benefits of regulations that protect human health and the environment, which can lead to the elimination of much-needed rules. These are just a few of the administration’s strategies, which are being pursued beneath the radar of a public that overwhelmingly supports environmental protections. Bush Versus the Environment is a compelling and important look at one of the most important issues facing America today, one that will have consequences that last long after Bush has left office.
This is a wonderful book rich in empirical detail, full of theoretical insights, offering hope in a bleak world, altogether inspiring. . . a tremendous achievement of having helped to create the disciplines of ecological economics and political ecology, bringing them alive in this book, and making their insights available to the developing worldwide movement for environmental justice. Pat Devine, Environmental Values Any book by the ecological economist Joan Martinez-Alier is a Big Publishing Event. . . this is a book by a writer who loves his subject, knows it well, respects its history, and is driven by the desire to do justice. These are qualities enough to send you to the bookshop or the library in search of The Environmentalism of the Poor. Andrew Dobson, Environment Politics The book is a worthy and in-depth contribution to debates about political ecology and ecological economics. It should be read by all environmental and ecological economists who wish to make their analysis more relevant. Tim Forsyth, Progress in Development Studies A marvellous combination of insight, research and activism. . . A must-read for policymakers, practitioners and academics alike, and for anyone concerned with sustainable development, environmentalism or poverty alleviation. Human Ecology Journal . . . one of the most important environmental books to have been published recently. Martinez-Alier integrates two of the most significant areas of environmental theory political ecology and ecological economics. Eurig Scandrett, Friends of the Earth Scotland The book has three main strengths: its bibliography, which is extensive; the global perspective on the environmental movement and the relationship with poverty; and the general theme of this interdisciplinary work, which is not so much to provide new information, but to consider the existing information in a new light. Martinez-Alier is to be commended for taking such a step in the literature . . . the writing style is extremely approachable . . . Recommended. B.J. Peterson, Choice [Joan] Martinez-Alier combines the honest discipline of a scholar with the passionate energy of an activist. The result, The Environmentalism of the Poor, is highly recommended! Herman E. Daly, University of Maryland, College Park, US The Environmentalism of the Poor has the explicit intention of helping to establish two emerging fields of study political ecology and ecological economics whilst also investigating the relations between them. The book analyses several manifestations of the growing environmental justice movement , and also of popular environmentalism and the environmentalism of the poor , which will be seen in the coming decades as driving forces in the process to achieve an ecologically sustainable society. The author studies, in detail, many ecological distribution conflicts in history and at present, in urban and rural settings, showing how poor people often favour resource conservation. The environment is thus not so much a luxury of the rich as a necessity of the poor. It concludes with the fundamental questions: who has the right to impose a language of valuation and who has the power to simplify complexity? Joan Martinez-Alier combines the study of ecological conflicts and the study of environmental valuation in a totally original approach that will appeal to a wide cross-section of academics, ecologists and environmentalists.
