ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that environmental degradation should be thought of as violence in the same fashion as the more personal and direct forms of violence such as assaults and homicide. Environmental violence can occur through a variety of legal or illegal means and it can involve violent acts against humans and nonhumans, such as poisoning, battery, suffocation, burning alive, starvation, and false imprisonment. Although the leniency around proving guilt for prohibita cases may appear desirable, given that is easier to obtain a guilty verdict from the court, we do not believe this should be the case for environmental violence. The level of violence against nonhuman animals through environmental degradation is immense and can best be illustrated through the concept of the Anthropocene. Politics, unsurprisingly, cannot be left out of the mix of environmental violence and violence against all beings in that environment.
