The Meaning of Environmental Security

Ecological Politics and Policy in the New Security Era

Jon Barnett

At least two things are certain about world politics today: environmental problems are important, and discourses on security remain powerful. Environment and security have been progressively linked in theory, and environmental security is now manifest in policy. But the meaning of environmental security is ambiguous and open to appropriation, and an examination of its various interpretations and applications reveals much about the state of global environmental politics.

This book offers a comprehensive critical discussion of environmental security. It discusses the origins and implications of a wide variety of approaches to the subject. Barnett argues that ultimately environmental security is driven more by the power of security-makers than by the need to address environmental problems. By systematically uncovering the deficiencies of existing discourses on environmental security, Barnett goes beyond critique and develops an alternative approach with practical implications.

Reviews

'Environmental security is one of these poisonous concepts which cloud the mind. Jon Barnett has now dissected the concept, revealing its baleful impact on our thinking.' - Wolfgang Sachs

'Environmental security is a key issue in the contemporary world, but for too long it has been just another way of arguing for traditional types of national security. Jon Barnett - clearly utterly in control of his material - offers an alternative view in which peace and justice are not regarded as add-on extras to environmental security but central to it. Barnett distinguishes provocatively between environmental and ecological security, and he writes persuasively about the kinds of institutions required to bring them about.' - Professor Andrew Dobson, Keele University

'Jonathan Barnett's examination and critique of the 'meaning of environmental security' is one of the most detailed, far-reaching and perspicacious so far published. It should be required reading not only for those interested in peace and justice but also anyone who has or intends to conduct research in the field.' - Ronnie Lipschutz, Associate Professor of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz

'Barnett marches straight into the lion's den of national security policy, and walks out with a tame security policy firmly linked to a guarding of the environment in all its ecological complexity -- and complete with human need as a key feature of that complexity... An adventurous book for adventurous peacemakers.' - Elise Boulding, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Dartmouth College and former secretary general of the International Peace Research Association.

'By putting the practical lived experiences of peoples, rather than the military prerogatives of powerful states, at the heart of a reformulated environmental security, Jon Barnett offers a constructive alternative that moves the policy debate ahead.' - Simon Dalby, Associate Professor, Carleton University, and Coeditor of Environment and Security

1. Locating Environmental Security
2. Environmental Insecurity: Ecological Exacerbations of Underdevelopment
3. Security: From What and For Whom? 4. New Security Issues: The Old Guard Looks for new Targets
5. Environmental Degradation and Conflict: Conscripting the Voice of Dissent
6. Policies for Pollution and The Pollution of Policy
7. The Biggest of Institutional Challenges: The Military
8. Ecological Security: An Alternative Security Strategy
9. Environmental Security for People
10. The Practice of Environmental Security

About the Author:

Dr Jon Barnett is a Post-doctoral Fellow at the MacMillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury.

The Meaning of Environmental Security

Ecological Politics and Policy in the New Security Era

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