the notions ofraceinherent in decisions that
make dumping in some sites – rural reserva-
tions, poor urban areas, immigrant communi-
ties – more ‘logical’ than dumping in upper-
class white communities. Finally, still rare but
growing trends in the definitions of environ-
mental racism are both attention toenviron-
mental justicebeyond the USA and attention
to the ways in which racism is culturally formed
or reproduced through the efforts and exclu-
sions of theenvironmental movementitself
(Gelobter et al., 2005). jk
Suggested reading
LaDuke (1999); Pulido (1996); Romm (2002).
environmental refugees A term that
became used in environmental debates, start-
ing in the 1980s, to refer to people displaced as
a result of immediate environmental change,
but also including those forced to move as a
result of floods and the other indirect effects of
global change. The category carries the rhet-
orical force of the word ‘refugee’, but not the
international legal status of a person forced to
cross a state boundary. ‘Ecological refugee’ is a
synonym, but has also been used in the nar-
rower sense of people displaced by the expan-
sion of commercial farmingandforestry
operations to feed the expanding metropolitan
economy of India and elsewhere. sd
Suggested reading
Gadgil and Guha (1995); Jacobsen (1988).
environmental security As thecold war
ended in the late 1980s, policy-makers and
scholars argued that environmental change
was now a major threat to internationalsecur-
ity: advocates of this ‘environmental security’
perspective argued that it required top priority
fromstatesbecause of the potential for ser-
ious disruptions caused by environmental
refugees and likely futureresource wars.
Policy advocacy on these themes was part of
the rationale for holding the Rio de Janeiro
Earth Summit in 1992.
Sceptical scholars were unconvinced that the
causal mechanisms between environmental
change, disruption and conflict were proven,
however frequently they were asserted as fact.
Some suggested that, given the broad general-
ity of both terms, scholarly research should be
focused more narrowly on acute conflict and
resources. In the 1990s, scholarly research
established that there were some plausible pos-
sible links between environmental scarcities
andconflict, but suggested that simple causal
mechanisms were lacking (Homer-Dixon,
1999). It was also concluded that the likelihood
of wars between states as a result of environ-
mental change was small, despite numerous
public pronouncements thatwaterwars in
particular were an imminent danger in many
parts of the world. More generally, the litera-
ture on the causes ofwaralso suggests that
environment has rarely been a direct cause of
inter-state conflict – and, indeed, might present
considerable opportunities for cross-border
co-operation and peace-building.
Subsequent critical work has pointed out that
many of the more alarmist public discussions
lack necessary analyses of either the history of
resourceappropriations in rural areas, or of the
disruptions caused by the processes ofdevelop-
ment, and fail to adequately take these import-
ant contextual factors into account (Dalby,
2002). Critics have alsoargued that linking mili-
taryunderstandingsofsecuritytoenvironmental
matters isconfusing, both becausemilitarysolu-
tions are not the appropriate measures to deal
withenvironmentaldifficultiesandbecausemili-
tary activities are themselves especially dam-
aging to environments.
Geographical scholarship has recently con-
nected insecurity withhazardvulnerability
assessments and the literature onpolitical
ecologyhas engaged the discussion linking
the global economy directly to social change.
This shows that insecurity, environment and
their interconnections are much more com-
plex social phenonema than was initially
assumed in the 1980s (Peluso and Watts,
2001). Despite these conceptual ambiguities,
and the difficulties of establishing links
between environmental change and conflict,
the discussion of environmental security con-
tinues apace in policy and academic circles
(Dodds and Pippard, 2005). sdSuggested reading
Dalby (2002); Dodds and Pippard (2005).environmentalism The ways in which the
relationships between people and their sur-
roundings are understood and acted upon.
These have varied greatly through time and
within and across cultures. One, undoubtedly
Western, typology for understanding some of
these shifts is provided by Glacken (1967).
Three environmentalisms are developed from
an exhaustive history of understandings of
human–environment relations. First, there is
the notion that the Earth exists by design,
one fitted in particular for human purposes.
Such an environmentalism is evident inGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_E Final Proof page 204 1.4.2009 3:17pmENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES