The Criminology of Climate Change

Life on planet earth is rapidly being transformed in ways that are profound and for many of us unimaginable. This is because of global warming that is causing massive shifts in climate worldwide. Until very recently (see White 2009; Stretesky and Lynch 2009; Lynch and Stretesky 2010), few criminologists have participated in analysis of climate change, criminology and criminal justice. This is starting to change and undoubtedly more criminological research and scholarship will be undertaken in this area in the coming years.

As a contribution to needed work in this area, this book stands as the first of its kind to explicitly and specifically deal with climate change from a criminological perspective. Each chapter deals with a substantive issue relating to crime and climate change, and together they forge a disturbing picture of what is happening and what will happen as a consequence of the huge climate-related changes now apparent around the globe. Before outlining the specific contribution of the various chapters, a few preliminary comments help to frame the issues in general posed by climate change and the dilemmas that many of us will face sooner than later in the next few years.