Literature Review

Romanian environmental activists have been subjected to violent attacks for protecting their forests from illegal logging. This article traces the drivers of this conflict, revealing complex relationships between corrupted institutions, economic dependence, and cultural beliefs entrenched in Romania’s religion and recent history. Examining the drivers of environmental conflict in new democracies and new EU members – like Romania – may help reveal weaknesses and opportunities in EU structures in the context of nature conservation and environmental protection.

Grassroots activism can challenge consolidated power structures in relation to the production and transformation of urban spaces, that is, their direct social actions build social alternatives that can reshape the way we live in our cities. In this chapter, using the recent literature on emotions and protest, first, I show the role of emotions and values in the mobilization and strategy processes and in their practices. Secondly, using the prefigurative politics framework, I explore how everyday life activism and resistance are drawing an alternative future in the present. In conclusion, the framework that I propose can allow us to overcome the structural emphasis of both contentious politics and critical political economy approaches in urban social movements studies. I use the latest research findings about urban environmental activism, urban food activism and mutual aid activism during the Covid-19 pandemic in Latin America.

In the last couple of years, we have seen more frequent extreme weather phenomena haunt the globe. When extreme heat, wildfires, extreme rainfall, and hailstorms are repeated in the news, the warnings of climate change to come, quickly shift to a catastrophe that is already here. Håkan Thörn’s and Carl Cassegård’s book Post-Apocalyptic Environmentalism is a timely contribution to the understanding of how the environmental movement(s) have developed along with the development of the environmental issues, why they have failed, and how contemporary post-apocalyptic narratives still provide space for action despite living the catastrophe.

A key finding of recent scholarship on political violence is that environmentalists rarely, if ever, use lethal violence. Many scholars have argued that “ecoterrorism” is a misnomer for what is more accurately termed “ecotage.” Large-n studies of environmental activism have identified only one apparent example of an environmentally motivated terrorist: the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. The Unabomber case is therefore a “crucial case” for evaluating the Peaceful Environmentalist Thesis—the generalization that environmentalists do not use lethal violence. Pioneering a forensic method of ideology analysis, this article uses previously unexamined archival material to assess the Unabomber’s affinities with three environmental ideologies: radical environmentalism, green anarchism, and right-wing ecologism. It shows that the Unabomber’s ideology is not environmentalist in intellectual origins or in conceptual structure, and that his motivations were anti-technological rather than pro-ecological. The Unabomber case demonstrates how ideology analysis can complement and strengthen research on political violence.

Few writers have chronicled the age of climate crisis as closely as Bill McKibben over the past 35 years, and even fewer have done so while also kickstarting multiple environmental groups and advocacy campaigns for climate action. He has kept the pulse of the crisis, and the movement to address it, since first covering the climate debate—as it was then—for the New York Review of Books in 1988.

This study investigates the role of marginalized women of the Jogi and Bagri communities in environmental activism. Amid environmental challenges, this study tries to comprehend the contributions and effects of marginalized women belonging to the Jogi and Bagri communities that are frequently overlooked in dominant environmental discourses in Sindh. The study tries to understand the narratives and opinions of marginalized women from the Jogi and Bagri communities by comprehending environmental action through qualitative research methodologies that include in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation. This research venture is an interdisciplinary work. The work focuses on political science, environmental sociology, and community development fields of studies. The study aims to highlight the issue of environmental injustices and relevant aspects that inspire underprivileged women of backward communities to engage in environmental activism. The findings of this research venture provide a comprehensive analysis of contemporary information regarding the environmental activism led by women of the downtrodden class in the district of Khairpur, Sindh. The paper concludes that women from marginalized communities, such as the Jogi and Bagri communities in district Khairpur, Sindh, are involved in the promotion of sustainable and just environmental policies.

Climate change is widely recognized as the global concern of our time, with far-reaching implications on the environment, physical well-being, and mental health of all living species. This concept paper investigates how environmental involvement may provide people a sense of purpose, empowerment, and community; thus promoting psychological resilience. It emphasizes on establishing ways to boost resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of the psychological challenges provided by climate change. The findings of this study can help in shaping the development of interventions and strategies, thus contributing to the emerging field of research on climate change and mental health.

This paper analyzes the differences between mutual funds that declare ESG commitment and those that do not. Additionally, we explore their behavior in terms of voting on resolutions related to climate change and the environment. Our analysis reveals that activist funds generally exhibit a behavior that is consistent with their sustainable focus and have a lower proportion of greenwashers, contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions. Importantly, this sustainability orientation does not negatively impact their financial performance, as they attract significant flows and do not show worse performance compared to their traditional counterparts.

Guided by the three-domain framework of sustainable development, sustainability is an essential idea behind the effective public administration, policy-formulation and governance. The ecological domain occurs at an intersection between the social and biological ambits of biosphere and emphases on the vital aspect of human engagement with and within nature.This paper probes into the multidimensional thought of ecological sustainability, covering its concept, principles, as well as the diverse domains linked with realizing it. The objective of this work is to explore how the initiatives of government and non-governmental organizations in Himachal Pradesh represent a step toward a sustainable era. The sustainable initiatives of government and non-government bodies and accomplishments made by them have been exemplified in this paper with respect to land resource management, management of disasters, mineral resources, water resources, biodiversity and wildlife management, farming and allied sectors, environmental pollution, solid waste management and energy sector.The study involved collection of both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected using a pre-designed questionnaire administered on the respondents by personally visiting the important institutions involved in environmental management. The secondary data was obtained from relevant published or unpublished literature. The data was edited, categorized, tabulated and analysed for making recommendations. In conclusion, this paper encapsulates the key points and accentuates the need for ecological sustainability in a wider sense.

This article examines the intersection of environmental activism and community engagement through a case study of the "Save Our Mangroves" campaign in Mumbai, India. It explores how local communities and environmental activists collaborated to protect the city's vital mangrove ecosystems from the threat of urban development projects. Analyzing the campaign's strategies, successes, and limitations, the article highlights the crucial role of community involvement in amplifying environmental voices and achieving local-level conservation outcomes. By drawing upon theoretical frameworks and empirical data, this study sheds light on the dynamics of environmental activism within marginalized communities, ultimately arguing for a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between activism, advocacy, and social justice in environmental struggles.

Since the economic reforms of 1978, local governments have pursued their economic development projects with little or no regard for environmental protection. The central government has struggled to enforce environmental laws at the local level. The severity of the environmental pollution problems has caused the Chinese leadership concern about the political costs, which threaten social stability, in addition to the economic costs. In the 1990s, with mounting environmental problems, the Chinese state began encouraging citizens to help complement the state’s efforts in environmental protection in the form of non-governmental organising for environmental activism. Over ten years, beginning in 1994, Chinese environmental NGOs, which tend to be led by social elites, proliferated and led China’s environmental and conservation movements. These NGOs leveraged the central government’s authority to pressure local governments and thus enjoyed state patronage. In the twenty-first century, environmental activism has diversified and sometimes become politically controversial and contentious as it challenges state policies. New environmental topics, including hydropower dams and chemical factories, have attracted national and international attention and generated public debate. The availability of communicative technology, such as the internet and mobile phones, has made it possible for Chinese environmental NGOs to collaborate with other civil society actors, domestically and transnationally, and for a large number of Chinese citizens to instantaneously engage in mass protests against incinerators and chemical plants. Since the 2010s, environmental activism has also taken place in court in the form of Environmental Public Interest Litigation (EPIL). Legal professions, including lawyers, judges, and prosecutors, have become new enforcers of environmental laws. The activism of environmental NGOs in this new arena lies in filing lawsuits as plaintiffs, initiating EPILs on behalf of the public. Since the mid-1990s, China’s environmental and conservation movements have provided its citizens with a relatively safe venue for engaging in activism within China’s political contexts. Yet, the diversification of NGO-led environmental activism as well as citizen-led environmental mass mobilisation have raised the party-state’s concerns. These concerns have resulted in major state repressions against civil society in the Xi Jinping era.

In times of growing concerns about climate change, environmental activism is increasing. Whereas several studies have examined associations between environmental activism and the Big Five personality characteristics, the potential “dark side” of environmental activists' personality has been neglected. Accordingly, this study examined associations between environmental activism, the dark triadtraits (i.e., Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism) and left-wing authoritarianism (i.e., antihierarchical aggression, anticonventionalism, top-down censorship). Data came from 839 employed individuals in Germany. Results showed positive associations between environmental activism and Machiavellianism, narcissism, antihierarchical aggression, and anticonventionalism. Most of these associations remained significant after controlling for Big Five characteristics, demographic characteristics, political orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism. These findings suggest that environmental activism, in addition to its potential positive outcomes, may also have a dark side in terms of activists' personality.