 | |
| Author | Joan Martinez Alier |
|---|---|
| Subject | Environmentalism of the poor |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Edward Elgar Publishing |
Publication date | 2002 |
| ISBN | 978-1-84064-909-3 |
The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation is a 2002 non-fiction book by Joan Martinez Alier about the environmentalism of the poor.
The Environmentalism of the Poor was written by Joan Martinez Alier, an ecological economist [1] and a professor emeritus of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. [2] The 328-page book was published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2002. [3] [1]
The book documents advocacy and efforts of environmental justice and organized labour efforts in Latin America and Asia. [1] Examples cover the 19th-century onwards. [1] In the book, Martinez Alier links environmental harm to industrialisation and economic growth. [2] He notes how the harm impacts populations inequitably. [2]
Varun Nayar writing for Himal Southasian described the book as an "influential framework". [4] Pat Devine, writing in Environmental Values described the book as "wonderful" noting it to be "rich inn empirical details, full of theoretical insights, offering hope in a bleak world, altogether inspiring". [5]
Natalie Oswin from the University of British Columbia, writing in Antipode journal, criticised the author's for a lack of critique of neo-Malthusianism and for "homogenised notion of the 'poor.'" [1]
Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena.
In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either consumer or producer market transactions. Air pollution from motor vehicles is one example. The cost of air pollution to society is not paid by either the producers or users of motorized transport to the rest of society. Water pollution from mills and factories is another example. All consumers are made worse off by pollution but are not compensated by the market for this damage. A positive externality is when an individual's consumption in a market increases the well-being of others, but the individual does not charge the third party for the benefit. The third party is essentially getting a free product. An example of this might be the apartment above a bakery receiving the benefit of enjoyment from smelling fresh pastries every morning. The people who live in the apartment do not compensate the bakery for this benefit.
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Herman Edward Daly was an American ecological and Georgist economist and professor at the School of Public Policy of University of Maryland, College Park in the United States, best known for his time as a senior economist at the World Bank from 1988 to 1994. In 1996, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "defining a path of ecological economics that integrates the key elements of ethics, quality of life, environment and community."
Environmental justice or eco-justice, is a social movement to address environmental injustice, which occurs when poor and marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harm is inequitably distributed.
The environmental humanities is an interdisciplinary area of research, drawing on the many environmental sub-disciplines that have emerged in the humanities over the past several decades, in particular environmental literature, environmental philosophy, environmental history, science and technology studies, environmental anthropology, and environmental communication. Environmental humanities employs humanistic questions about meaning, culture, values, ethics, and responsibilities to address pressing environmental problems. The environmental humanities aim to help bridge traditional divides between the sciences and the humanities, as well as between Western, Eastern, and Indigenous ways of relating to the natural world and the place of humans within it. The field also resists the traditional divide between "nature" and "culture," showing how many "environmental" issues have always been entangled in human questions of justice, labor, and politics. Environmental humanities is also a way of synthesizing methods from different fields to create new ways of thinking through environmental problems.
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Roelof (Roefie) Hueting was a Dutch economist, former Head of the Department for Environmental Statistics of Statistics Netherlands, pianist and leader of the Down Town Jazz Band, and known for the development of the concept of Sustainable National Income (SNI).
Marie Huot was a French poet, writer, feminist, animal rights and vegetarianism activist.
Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recover in the present situation, and catastrophic if the ecosystem is projected to certainly collapse.
Nru-siṃha-nāth is a small village,3 KM from Paikmal nearest town is Paikmal temple and tourist spot located in Bargarh District of Western Odisha.
Joan Martinez Alier is a Catalan economist, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Economic History and researcher at ICTA at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He has made important contributions in ecological economics and political ecology, which he synthesised in his work on environmentalism of the poor.
The Mesoamerican Society for Ecological Economics (SMEE) is a regional chapter of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE). After its foundation in 2008 at Guatemala City, the organization has already celebrated its first International Conference in 2010 at Mexico City and will carry out the second International Conference, EcoEco Alternatives, between March 4 and 8 2014 at the main campus of the University of Costa Rica.
Clive L. Spash is an ecological economist. He currently holds the Chair of Public Policy and Governance at Vienna University of Economics and Business, appointed in 2010. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Environmental Values.
Giorgos Kallis is an ecological economist from Greece. He is an ICREA Research Professor at ICTA - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where he teaches political ecology. He is one of the principal advocates of the theory of degrowth.
Environmental defenders or environmental human rights defenders are individuals or collectives who protect the environment from harms resulting from resource extraction, hazardous waste disposal, infrastructure projects, land appropriation, or other dangers. In 2019, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously recognised their importance to environmental protection. The term environmental defender is broadly applied to a diverse range of environmental groups and leaders from different cultures that all employ different tactics and hold different agendas. Use of the term is contested, as it homogenizes such a wide range of groups and campaigns, many of whom do not self-identify with the term and may not have explicit aims to protect the environment.
Environmental conflicts or ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) are social conflicts caused by environmental degradation or by unequal distribution of environmental resources. The Environmental Justice Atlas documented 3,100 environmental conflicts worldwide as of April 2020 and emphasised that many more conflicts remained undocumented. Parties involved in these conflicts include locally affected communities, states, companies and investors, and social or environmental movements; typically environmental defenders are protecting their homelands from resource extraction or hazardous waste disposal. Resource extraction and hazardous waste activities often create resource scarcities, pollute the environment, and degrade the living space for humans and nature, resulting in conflict. A particular case of environmental conflicts are forestry conflicts, or forest conflicts which "are broadly viewed as struggles of varying intensity between interest groups, over values and issues related to forest policy and the use of forest resources". In the last decades, a growing number of these have been identified globally.
Environmentalism of the poor is a set of social movements that arise from environmental conflicts when impoverished people struggle against powerful state or private interests that threaten their livelihood, health, sovereignty, and culture. Part of the global environmental justice movement, it differs from mainstream environmentalism by emphasizing social justice issues instead of emphasizing conservation and eco-efficiency. It is becoming an increasingly important force for global sustainability.
Blockadia is a global anti-extractivism movement; and a roving, transnational conflict zone where everyday people obstruct development of extractive projects, especially in the fossil fuel industry. Blockadia resistance movements differ from mainstream environmentalism by use of confrontational tactics such as civil disobedience, mass arrests, lockdowns, and blockades to contest perceived threats arising from extractivist projects’ contributions to global climate change and local environmental injustice. Some researchers have concluded that Blockadia contributes to a transition toward a more just society.
The Environmental Justice Atlas, sometimes known as EJAtlas is a website that documents environmental conflict.