Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics

Critical, environmental, politics: three words that both individually and taken together hardly seem to require clarifications. That the environment has become a major political issue is uncontested even by most resolute denialists of climate change or its anthropic causes (Jacques et al. 2008; Oreskes and Conway 2010). Moreover, decades of debates and interventions have not produced much, at least if we consider the situation about climate change and other alterations to the processes that, since the inception of the Holocene about 10 000 years ago, have reportedly ensured a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity (Rockström et al. 2009). This alone suggests the need for a thorough critique of environmental politics carried out thus far.