How can crime entertain and educate when combined with the triple crisis of biodiversity loss, global pollution and the climate crisis? You might ask yourself that with regard to Julia Shaw’s “Green Crime”. The doctor of legal psychology provides the answer on every page of her accessible book about environmental criminals, how you can stop them, deal with the crimes and learn for the future.
In the crisp foreword, Shaw briefly explains the term green crime, which – coming from the social sciences – is more or less synonymous with environmental crime. This expression is preferred by lawyers and is clearly defined by the European Parliament, among others. This is followed by six entertaining and intense chapters, some of which read like a thriller, coupled with facts and figures about environmental history and environmental destruction. In each chapter, Shaw works with her six-pillar model of environmental crime: convenience, impunity, greed, rationalization, conformity, and desperation. These factors can be applied to each of the acts and perpetrators mentioned: to Dieselgate, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and the murder of environmentalists and indigenous people, to gangs of poachers and traders in ivory and animals, to pirate fishermen in the Antarctic, to those who promote and operate illegal mining in South Africa or those responsible for the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The journey that Julia Shaw takes us on is, on the one hand, frightening and brutal, for example when it comes to organized crime that sells ivory or illegal gold to customers who are hardly aware of the damage they are causing. Corruption and looking the other way, as well as the idea that we are helping the exploited workers, make many things possible. The question of guilt and the meaning of punishment is asked again and again without providing populist answers. On the other hand, there are bright spots and the book motivates you not to fall into hopelessness or apathy. Because without those who are committed and unwavering in pointing out grievances, exerting pressure and using some gray areas in the fight for green space, little would move.
In her book, Julia Shaw clearly shows how much perception and psychology in combination with environmental narratives play a role for states and consumers. In any case, your green crime narrative is captivating. Alexander Schramm
Julia Shaw:
Green Crime
Ullstein Publishing. 320 pages, €24.99