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\"As global environmental changes become increasingly evident and efforts to respond to these changes fall short of expectations, questions about the circumstances that generate environmental reforms become more pressing. Defensive Environmentalists and the Dynamics of Global Reform answers these questions through a historical analysis of two processes that have contributed to environmental reforms, one in which people become defensive environmentalists concerned about environmental problems close to home and another in which people become altruistic environmentalists intent on alleviating global problems after experiencing catastrophic events such as hurricanes, droughts and fires. These focusing events make reform more urgent and convince people to become altruistic environmentalists. Bolstered by defensive environmentalists, the altruists gain strength in environmental politics and reforms occur\"-- Provided by publisher.

This overview of recent research on how institutions matter in tackling environmental problems reports the findings and policy implications of a decade-long international research project.

\"This new study shows how environmental issues represent a deep problem in conceptualising the relationship between human beings and nature. This key relationship grounds the implicit ethical and political concerns of International Relations and our understandings of environmental politics. It demonstrates that the core theoretical orientations of the study of International Relations are not only incapable of understanding and responding to contemporary problems, but are profoundly complicit in creating the ecological problems in the first place. This major book develops a sense of these realities based on the thinking of Martin Heidegger. It forwards new ways of rethinking the environmental questions and addresses crucial issues such as sovereignty, the International Law of The Sea, the Kyoto Protocol, Northern Alaskan oil exploration and exploitation and the impact of the United Nations Convention on the Law of The Sea III. This is essential specialist reading for readers concerned with the environment.\"

\"Recent decades have seen a rapid expansion of environmental activity in the world, including the signing of a growing number of environmental treaties and the formation of international organizations like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Greening the Globe employs world society theory (aka world polity theory or sociological institutionalism) to explore the origins and consequences of international efforts to address environmental problems. Existing scholarship seems paradoxical: case studies frequently criticize treaties and regulatory structures as weak and ineffective, yet statistical studies find improvements in environmental conditions. This book addresses this paradox by articulating a bee-swarm model of social change. International institutions rarely command the power or resources to directly impose social change. Nevertheless, they have recourse via indirect mechanisms: setting agendas, creating workspaces where problems can be addressed, empowering various pro-environmental agents, and propagating new cultural meanings and norms. As a result, world society generates social change even if formal institutional mechanisms and sanctions are weak\"-- Provided by publisher.

Abstract : This article proposes a reflection on the challenges of global environmental policy in the Anthropocene. Firstly, the inconsistency between the institutions of international environmental policy and the progressive degradation of the planetary boundaries is highlighted. Secondly, it is stated that, since the transition to Anthropocene requires the conscious construction of a new space of safe operation for humanity, it is necessary to radically modify the institutional structure of cooperation, based on international regimes: the transition from environmental politics to global governance. The fundamental milestone of this path is the overcoming of the international system of conservative hegemony, that is, the abandonment of the sovereignist tendencies - egotistical and short-term - on the part of its actors, particularly the great powers. Finally, a series of premises for the governance of the Anthropocene is proposed from the point of view of International Relations, with the post-sovereign transition as the main pillar. Resumo Esse artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre os desafios da política ambiental global no Antropoceno. Primeiro, destaca-se a inconsistência entre as instituições da política ambiental internacional e a progressiva degradação das fronteiras planetárias. Em segundo lugar, argumenta-se que, uma vez que a transição para o Antropoceno exige a construção consciente de um novo espaço de operação segura para a humanidade, é necessário mudar radicalmente a estrutura institucional da cooperação, baseada em regimes internacionais: a transição da política ambiental para a governança global. O marco fundamental deste caminho é a superação do sistema internacional de hegemonia conservadora, isto é, o abandono de tendências soberanistas - egoístas e de curto prazo - por parte de seus atores, particularmente as grandes potências. Finalmente, é proposta uma série de premissas para a governança do Antropoceno da perspectiva das Relações Internacionais, tendo como substrato a transição pós-soberana. Resumen Este artículo propone una reflexión sobre los desafíos de la política ambiental global en el Antropoceno. Primeramente, se destaca la inconsistencia entre las instituciones de la política ambiental internacional y la degradación progresiva de las fronteras planetarias. En segundo lugar, se afirma que, dado que la transición hacia el Antropoceno demanda la construcción consciente un nuevo espacio de operación segura para la humanidad, es necesario modificar radicalmente la estructura institucional de la cooperación, basada en regímenes internacionales: la transición de la política ambiental hacia la gobernanza global. El hito fundamental de este camino es la superación del sistema internacional de hegemonía conservadora, es decir, el abandono de las tendencias soberanistas - egoístas y de corto plazo - por parte de sus actores, particularmente las grandes potencias. Finalmente, se proponen una serie de premisas para la gobernanza del Antropoceno desde la óptica de las Relaciones Internacionales, teniendo como substrato la transición post-soberana.

\"That anthropogenic climate change is one of the foremost twenty-first century global security challenges is a view now firmly, if rather superficially, ensconced within Western liberal public and policy discourse. National security strategies have depicted it as 'an urgent and growing threat' and possibly 'the greatest challenge' there is to global stability, potentially presaging a 'breakdown of the rules-based international system' and a 're-emergence of major inter-state conflict.' Foreign ministers have labelled it 'perhaps the twenty-first century's biggest foreign policy challenge,' and 'the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction,' and claimed that 'the threat that a changing climate presents to ... international peace and security cannot be underestimated.' Climate change ministers have argued that 'we need to be ready for a world where climate instability drives political instability,' and that a 'world where climate change goes unchallenged will be a Hobbesian world, where life for far more people is \"nasty, brutish, and short\".' The United States (US) Congress and Pentagon have both described climate change as a threat to US national security. Successive United Nations (UN) Secretary Generals have called climate change 'the defining threat of our time' and 'the pre-eminent geopolitical and economic issue of the twenty-first century'. Activist movements from Extinction Rebellion (XR) to Greenpeace have characterised it as 'an unprecedented global emergency' that puts us 'in a life or death situation of our own making', and as 'the world's biggest threat ... ranked close to weapons of mass destruction in terms of potential impact' (indeed, one of the co-founders of XR has claimed that climate change is already 'turning whole regions of the world into death zones' and that a climate change-induced 'global holocaust ... is already underway'). And figures from Barack Obama to Russell Brand, among many others, have suggested that climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism\"-- Provided by publisher.

Corporate capitalism has ravaged the planet the same way HIV ravages the human body, triggering a critical mass of cascading environmental, economic, social, and political crises. Economic and climate instability, collapsing ecosystems, peak fossil fuels, devastating resource wars-if the Earth were a patient, her condition would be critical.Life Rulesoffers a comprehensive analysis of our present circumstances, combined with a holistic treatment protocol for restoring health to vulnerable human and natural communities. Predicting that Life will last, but if we don't make some fundamental changes, life as we know it-and a lot of us-won't,Life Rulesidentifies natural laws that have allowed non-human communities to thrive and prosper for several billion years, including: Local self-reliance Mutual interdependence Reliance on non-fossil sources of energy Resource conservation, sharing, and recycling Radically democratic self-organization and governance This sobering yet essentially optimistic manifesto is required reading for anyone concerned about our ability to live within Earth's means. A powerful tool for community transition and cultural transformation,Life Rulesoffers a solution to our global challenges that is at once authentically hopeful, deeply inspiring, and profoundly liberating. Ellen LaConteis acting director of the EarthWalk Alliance, a contributing editor toGreen Horizon MagazineandThe Ecozoic, a frequent talk show guest, and publisher of the Starting Point online newsletter. She has written two books about Helen and Scott Nearing, homesteaders and best-selling authors ofLiving the Good Life, and she is the author of the upcoming environmental novelAfton.

\"This book argues for a targeted human rights approach, assigning enhanced priority to a bundle of rights, strategically important for counteracting ecologically unsustainable, economically predatory market practices that threaten our ability to maintain a livable planet. Specifically, it calls for enhanced protection for dual-purpose human rights. They not only secure the very basic elements of well-being that ground many of those rights. They perform their normative function, in significant part, by imposing duties on states to protect the ecological conditions that sustain human life and make possible the satisfaction of basic needs and by giving individual right-holders more control over their ecological futures. High-priority, dual-purpose rights include rights of subsistence, food, water, and rights that protect against serious environmental health risks and ecological degradation. Climate disruption is perhaps the most obvious example of the rapidly unfolding ecological destruction unleashed by the scale, pace, and character of human impact on the rest of nature. However, humanity faces a more encompassing ecological predicament, consisting of a cluster of concurrent, mutually reinforcing crises. The cluster also includes land-system change resulting in deforestation and soil degradation, loss of biodiversity and biosphere integrity, alteration of biogeochemical cycles, and decreased freshwater availability. Individually and in combination, they pose civilizational threats of such magnitude and complexity that they challenge the ability of individuals to comprehend them and the capacities of institutions to respond\"-- Provided by publisher.

The articles in this volume examine how the world-economy and related non-economic forms of global structuring have impacted the natural environment and the living conditions of human populations across the globe, in areas as diverse as Ancient Egypt and the modern Amazon.