Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes
300 pages, 6 x 9
Paperback
Release Date:17 Apr 2020
ISBN:9781978805583
Hardcover
Release Date:17 Apr 2020
ISBN:9781978805590
Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes
By Ronald C. Kramer; Foreword by Rob White
Rutgers University Press
2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes analyzes the looming threats posed by climate change from a criminological perspective. It advances the field of green criminology through a examination of the criminal nature of catastrophic environmental harms resulting from the release of greenhouse gases. The book describes and explains what corporations in the fossil fuel industry, the U.S. government, and the international political community did, or failed to do, in relation to global warming. Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes integrates research and theory from a wide variety of disciplines, to analyze four specific state-corporate climate crimes: continued extraction of fossil fuels and rising carbon emissions; political omission (failure) related to the mitigation of these emissions; socially organized climate change denial; and climate crimes of empire, which include militaristic forms of adaptation to climate disruption. The final chapter reviews policies that could mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to a warming world, and achieve climate justice.
Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes analyzes the looming threats posed by climate change from a criminological perspective. It advances the field of green criminology through a examination of the criminal nature of catastrophic environmental harms resulting from the release of greenhouse gases. The book describes and explains what corporations in the fossil fuel industry, the U.S. government, and the international political community did, or failed to do, in relation to global warming. Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes integrates research and theory from a wide variety of disciplines, to analyze four specific state-corporate climate crimes: continued extraction of fossil fuels and rising carbon emissions; political omission (failure) related to the mitigation of these emissions; socially organized climate change denial; and climate crimes of empire, which include militaristic forms of adaptation to climate disruption. The final chapter reviews policies that could mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to a warming world, and achieve climate justice.
At the heart of Ron’s argument is the observation that climate disruption does not happen by chance, accident or simply because of human activities in general. Rather, it is corporate-state collusion that is mostly to blame for perpetuating global warming and for delaying action to prevent or forestall further climate change.
This is a book of the very first importance, one that historians (assuming there are some) will refer back to in a century as they struggle to understand the worst thing that ever happened on earth. It's well-proved thesis rests in the title: climate change was not an accident, and not something caused by 'everyone.' It was the work of a handful of greedy men, who were entirely conscious of their crime even as they committed it.
Art Beat,' WMUK interview with Ron Kramer
https://www.wmuk.org/post/art-beat-carbon-criminals-climate-crimes#stream/0
With a laudatory foreword by leading green criminologist and climate change expert Rob White of the University of Tasmania, this is all in all a must read. Essential.
Community Conversations,' WWMT-TV interview with Ron Kramer
https://wwmt.com/news/local/community-conversations-professor-studies-the
Kramer has written a tightly constructed and compelling narrative, providing a historical overview of global warming and climate change, of environmental science, of the development of Green Criminology, of the problems of fossil fuel extraction and rising emissions, of the case for four specific types of crime/criminality, and of environmental movements for social justice.
Carbon Criminals is a fantastic and immensely compelling and readable-yet-thorough account of the ongoing climate crisis from a criminological perspective. And we should make no mistake about it: climate change is not going anywhere. While the covid-19 pandemic might have, for now, eclipsed Australia’s Black Summer, the sure money is on climate change taking back the headlines sooner or later. Green and other critical criminologies will continue apace in a world that is irreparably harmed and wholly configured by climate change, and books like Carbon Criminals will tell us why, how, and by whom.
Kramer's book should motivate widespread actions against climate crimes, both through social movement and the criminal justice system. Multiple strategies are needed to win the war for our families’ health and welfare.
An important contribution to the literature and to the fight for climate justice more generally. Its relevance can hardly be overstated….[This] book encourages us to bring climate change to the centre of criminological curriculum. Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes will be on my students’ reading list this year.
RONALD C. KRAMER is a professor of sociology and former director of the criminal justice program at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. He is the co-author of State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business and Government (Rutgers University Press).
Contents
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
List of Abbreviations
1. “This Was a Crime:” Climate Change as a Criminological Concern
2. “Beyond Catastrophic:” The Climate Crisis, Carbon Criminals, and Fossil Capitalism
3. “When Did They Know”? Climate Crimes of Continued Extraction and Rising Emissions
4. “The Politics of Predatory Delay:” Climate Crimes of Political Omission and Socially Organized Denial
5. “Slowing the Rise of the Oceans”? Obama’s Mixed Legacy and Trump’s Climate Crimes
6. “Blood for Oil,” Pentagon Emissions, and the “Politics of the Armed Lifeboat:” Climate Crimes of Empire
7. The “Climate Swerve:” Hope, Resistance, and Climate Justice
References
Index
List of Tables
Foreword
Preface
List of Abbreviations
1. “This Was a Crime:” Climate Change as a Criminological Concern
2. “Beyond Catastrophic:” The Climate Crisis, Carbon Criminals, and Fossil Capitalism
3. “When Did They Know”? Climate Crimes of Continued Extraction and Rising Emissions
4. “The Politics of Predatory Delay:” Climate Crimes of Political Omission and Socially Organized Denial
5. “Slowing the Rise of the Oceans”? Obama’s Mixed Legacy and Trump’s Climate Crimes
6. “Blood for Oil,” Pentagon Emissions, and the “Politics of the Armed Lifeboat:” Climate Crimes of Empire
7. The “Climate Swerve:” Hope, Resistance, and Climate Justice
References
Index
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