Climate Change and Peacemaking Criminology

• In Event: Criminological Perspectives on Climate Change

Abstract

Some commentators have recently sought to cast climate change as primarily an issue of national security, thereby necessitating a “war on climate change.” In this paper, we argue that the adoption of a war-making approach is problematic in that it proposes solutions that parallel the very human actions that contribute to climate change. We contend that we must approach climate change from a perspective informed by peacemaking rather than war-making. We seek to integrate understandings of the value of peacemaking (e.g., Quinney, Pepinsky) into a position that can more justly address anthropogenic climate change. By acknowledging the harms attendant to “real” and metaphorical wars, we argue that making war is likely to exacerbate and extend the negative impacts of anthropogenic climate change. We propose that peacemaking be integrated into human-environment interaction(s) by calling for the rejection of a war on climate change and we outline what a “peace treaty with the earth” would look like.

Authors

• William McClanahan, Eastern Kentucky University

• Avi Brisman, Eastern Kentucky University