ABSTRACT
This chapter is informed by the authors’ work in the field of green criminology and provides an overview of some of the issues raised by the idea of the ‘Anthropocene’, including how we might understand the relationship between humans and nature. The chapter considers the environment as ‘resource’ and ‘private property’, as conceptualised in dominant contemporary ecophilosophical orientations, and draws attention to the anthropocentric acceleration of the exploitation and appropriation of lands and oceans. The chapter discusses resource scarcity and climate change as criminogenic and what this may mean for the idea of ‘security’. In conclusion, the chapter notes the ongoing, ecocidal impacts of global ‘business as usual’, how these continue despite well-known evidence of consequences and how we manage to accommodate – as individuals and on the international stage – conflicting narratives regarding our simultaneous dependence on and domination of nature and the environment.
