Joan Martinez Alier reviews the movements for environmental justice in a book
“Land, Water, Air and Freedom. The Making of World Movements for Environmental Justice” is the title of the new book written by ICTA-UAB ecological economist Joan Martínez Alier, which makes visible the global countermovement for environmental justice, combining ecological economics and political ecology.
In this groundbreaking book, Joan Martínez-Alier, winner of the Balzan Prize in 2020 and the Holberg Prize in 2023, uses 500 in-depth empirical analyses from his Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJATlas) to analyse the commonalities shared by environmental defenders and offenders respectively.
Each narrative highlights the diverse vocabularies, iconographies and valuation languages of poor and indigenous activists, without losing sight of the global scale of climate action and biodiversity loss. The book exposes the circularity gap at the heart of the industrial economy, focusing on the frontiers of resource extraction and waste management. As well as exploring protagonists and geographies of resistance, chapters address corporate irresponsibility, unequal trade and feminist neo-Malthusianism. Although grassroots movements for socio-economic sustainability are highly diverse, there are global patterns of action and empowerment.
Published as Open Access by Elgaronline, the book is free to read, download and share here.
The publication will be essential reading for students and scholars of environmental social sciences and humanities such as anthropology, geography, international relations and ecology. It will also help activists involved in environmental justice movements.