ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the theoretical underpinnings of green social work. It presents an example of how it is conducted in practice and examines some recommendations concerning curriculum development and future research agendas. Green social workers ask that alternative models are based on a duty to care for others and the planet to ensure that resources are used wisely, equitably and with a view to sustainability so that the needs of current and future generations can be met. Green social work covers such issues, but it is also concerned about resource usage in the industrialised world, and utilises more contemporary terms such as the global North and global South to depict industrialised and industrialising countries. The debate between climate change deniers/sceptics and the greens who deem it one of the most fundamental contemporary social issues is predominantly about the extent to which the climatic changes that are being observed can be attributed to human activity or the earth’s ‘normal’ evolutionary processes.
