Environmental Victims and Climate Change Activists

Abstract

This chapter explores the intersection of environmental activism and victimisation. Broadly based on radical victimology and climate change criminology, the authors examine different actors involved in the struggle against green crimes and environmental harms, using the student movements for climate justice as a case study of the evolvement from victims-to-be to activists in the here-and-now. From an activist-student movement perspective, bottom-up strategies built upon the involvement of those living and working at the grassroots appear as the best way to tackle top-down harms. On the one hand, victims’ voices are powerful and integral to social change movements. On the other hand, their involvement might also represent a useful way to channel their own anger and grief into meaningful outlets that hold out the promise of change. The students’ movement also exposes existing obstacles within environmental activism. Their experience shows that in order to sustain the movement and enhance its impact, building up social environmental movements and engaging in spectrum politics might be desirable further steps to confront backlashes. From an academic perspective, the movement encourages us to follow up different case studies to learn ‘what works’, ‘what does not work’ and ‘what sometimes works’ in different circumstances, while to also study corporate and state responses to activism—learn what most disturbs, annoys and unsettles the powers that be.