Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes

301 Pages·2020·3.393 MB·English

by  Ronald C. Kramer

Carbon Criminals,
Climate Crimes
Critical Issues in Crime and Society
Raymond J. Michalowski and Luis A. Fernandez, Series Editors
Critical Issues in Crime and Society is oriented t oward critical analy sis of con­
temporary prob lems in crime and justice. The series is open to a broad range of topics
including specific types of crime, wrongful be hav ior by eco nom ically or po liti cally
power ful actors, controversies over justice system practices, and issues related to the
intersection of identity, crime, and justice. It is committed to offering thoughtful
works that will be accessible to scholars and professional criminologists, general read­
ers, and students.
For a list of titles in the series, see the last page of the book.
Carbon Criminals,
Climate Crimes
Ronald C. Kramer
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging­in­Publication Data
Names: Kramer, Ronald C., author.
Title: Carbon criminals, climate crimes / Ronald C. Kramer.
Description: New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2020] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019025770 | ISBN 9781978805590 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781978805583 (paperback) | ISBN 9781978805606 (epub) |
ISBN 9781978807631 (mobi) | ISBN 9781978807648 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Offenses against the environment. |
Criminology—Environmental aspects. | Climatic changes—Moral and ethical
aspects. | Global warming—Moral and ethical aspects. | Climatic changes—
Government policy. | Global warming—Government policy. | Corporations—
Corrupt practices. | Environmental justice.
Classification: LCC HV6401 .K73 2020 | DDC 364.1/45—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019025770
A British Cataloging­ in­ Publication rec ord for this book is available
from the British Library.
Copyright © 2020 by Ronald C. Kramer
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106
Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition
is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48­1992.
www. rutgersuniversitypress . org
Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca
For my grand sons, Truman, Malcolm, and Calvin

Contents
Foreword by Rob White ix
1 “This Was a Crime”: Climate Change
as a Criminological Concern 1
2 “Beyond Catastrophic”: The Climate Crisis,
Carbon Criminals, and Fossil Capitalism 27
3 “When Did They Know?”: Climate Crimes of
Continued Extraction and Rising Emissions 58
4 “The Politics of Predatory Delay”: Climate Crimes
of Po liti cal Omission and Socially Or ga nized Denial 84
5 “Slowing the Rise of the Oceans?”: Obama’s Mixed
Legacy and Trump’s Climate Crimes 125
6 “Blood for Oil,” Pentagon Emissions, and
the “Politics of the Armed Lifeboat”:
Climate Crimes of Empire 154
7 The “Climate Swerve”: Hope, Re sis tance,
and Climate Justice 189
Acknowle dgments 231
References 235
Index 273
vii

Foreword
Our leaders have gone mad, and they have taken the world with them.
This is most evident in the way in which global warming is distorting what
used to be the familiar or ordinary patterns of weather. Extreme weather is
increasingly becoming the new “norm” and is evident in extreme tempera­
tures, intense precipitation, cyclones, storms and hurricanes, droughts, and
forest fires.
More and more things are out of kilter today as the climate is changing
and unusual weather events are proliferating worldwide. This is climate dis-
ruption, one of the key outcomes of global warming and overall changes in
climatic conditions.
Rises in global average temperatures do not translate into uniform
warming. Rather, they trigger a whole series of changes in existing weather
patterns, for example, bringing into the equation excessive precipitation in
some parts of the world, extreme drought in o thers. The point is that climate
change disrupts normal weather patterns in vari ous and unexpected ways.
The number of climate­ related natu ral catastrophes has been rising
steeply since the 1980s, and the most damaging are often the result of com­
binations of variables— a phenomenon called compound extremes. These
include geophysical events such as landslides through to weather phenom­
ena like storms. Lives both human and nonhuman are being lost; lands are
being devastated and waters polluted. The earth and its inhabitants are
suffering.
So where does criminology fit into this picture?
The answer is simple. The harms associated with climate disruption are and
always have been preventable. Ideas about the “green house gas effect” have
been around for well over a century and certainly widely known since the
United Nations Rio Summit in 1992. The prob lem and its consequences
have been known for de cades.
The systematic destruction and degradation of environments at the plan­
etary level and the continued pumping of green house gases into the atmo­
sphere constitute ecocide. It is harmful, and it is wrong, and it is the most
significant crime of the twenty­ first century.
ix