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date: 13 February 2025

Climate Changelocked

Climate Changelocked

  • Rob WhiteRob WhiteSchool of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Australia

Summary

Climate change is the defining problem of the 21st century. Global warming is transforming the biophysical landscape in unprecedented ways, with far-reaching negative consequences for all life on the planet. Extreme weather events, prolonged droughts, rising sea levels, and melting glaciers have enormous ramifications for humans and nonhuman species across the globe. Climate change criminology focuses on the crimes and harms associated with climate change. It examines the dynamics of criminality from the point of view of the causes of climate change, as well as the social consequences of climate change. Criminologically, strain theory provides one lens by which to understand climate-related criminal behavior, while the concepts of ecocide and state-corporate crime provide a nexus between crimes of the powerful and global warming to explore. The notion of differential victimization describes how some suffer the effects of climate change to a greater extent than others and includes reference to nonhuman victims such as animals, rivers, and trees. For criminology, climate change demands much greater attention than hitherto has been the case—for it constitutes a profound existential crisis affecting all.

Subjects

  • Criminological Theory
  • Critical Criminology

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