Immunity to Environmental Crime,Harm and Violence: An Ongoing Pandemic and a Possible Narrative Vaccine

Abstract

As of June 2020, there have been at least 2,540 mass shootings since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, CT, on December 14, 2012. Some have suggested that the repeated trauma of these massacres has created a collective “emotional numbness,” lessening our empathy. This article asks whether a similar phenomenon is occurring with respect to environmental crime and harm. It considers whether we have developed “compassion fatigue” regarding environmental violence and contemplates a “workout regimen” for empathy for Gaia’s suffering. In so doing, it seeks to engage with emerging work in the penumbra of narrative criminology and green cultural criminology.

Keywords

climate change compassion fatigue empathy environmental crime environmental harm green cultural criminology green criminology narratives/stories pandemic vaccine

Introduction

This article begins with a number of propositions or statements, which I put forth in order to set up a comparison between so-called “violent crimes” (and homicides, in particular) and “environmental crimes.”

First, “many people never will be directly affected by crime” and most people are never the (direct) victim of a mass shooting (Schildkraut et al., 2018, pp. 224, 223).¹ In contrast, many more people are direct victims of environmental harms (see Lynch, 2013). To be sure, all of us are, in some way, victims, as well as offenders, in the crime of climate change. Indeed, “the impacts of climate change have and will (or, at least, pose the potential to) ‘penetrate all aspects of environment, society and economy’ (Schipper & Pelling, 2006, pp. 27–28)” (Brisman, 2015, p. 182).

Second, “individual beliefs and perceptions of crime typically are shaped by the media (Chermak, 1994; Graber, 1980; Maguire et al., 1999; Mayr & Machin, 2012; Pollak & Kubrin, 2007; Robinson, 2011; Surette, 1992; Warr, 2000). Studies have shown that the mass media are the primary source of information about crime for nearly 95% of the general population (Graber, 1980; Surette, 1992)” (Schildkraut et al., 2018, p. 224). Moreover, Schildkraut et al. (2018, p. 223) stress that the way in which mass shootings are understood is shaped almost solely by the mass media. Unfortunately, as Ozymy et al. (2020, p. 150) point out, “it is still the case that the general public is unaware of the presence of most green crimes unless there is widespread media attention and mass victimization (Jarrell, 2009).” In fact, “people who experience personally the consequences of environmental problems are more likely to express concern (see Running et al., 2017)” than those who do not (Brisman, 2018, p. 471). But, as Renkl (2019) reminds us, “just because we can’t see something”—and, we might add, just because we do not experience something personally—“doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”² Indeed, in earlier work (Brisman, 2014), I considered whether we might suffer from micropsia, myopia or some other ophthalmological ailment with respect to climate change. In that piece, I referred to climate change as an “invisible crime” on the grounds that while we may intellectually grasp the idea of climate change and have some experience of climate change—or some experience that we attribute to climate change—we do not see climate change or feel it the way we might other discrete environmental “events,” and thus the lag time between emissions and their effects on climate makes it especially difficult to mobilize political will to address the problem.³ Likewise, Per Espen Stoknes, a Norwegian psychologist who is serving a term in the Parliament of Norway, points to the “distancing barrier” that obstructs people’s focus on climate change and its solutions. As Stoknes explains, “[w]hen we speak about climate, it’s far out into the future, usually in 2050 or beyond. CO2 is invisible, climate issues are happening somewhere else, and somebody else is responsible. I’m sure if climate change were a bad-smelling, brownish haze that some tyrant, lunatic, or crook was releasing into the world, we’d join together and shoot him out of existence. But climate change is invisible, slow-moving, and doesn’t smell; and if there’s an enemy, it’s us” (quoted in Suttie, 2018).

Third, research tends to indicate that news coverage is skewed toward stories about crime (Schildkraut et al., 2018, pp. 223–224 (citing Chermak, 1995; Graber, 1980; Maguire et al, 1999; Surette, 1992)). Violent crimes—and homicides, in particular—often are “the most newsworthy because they have the ability to capture and keep the audience’s attention, even though property offenses are considerably more common (Chermak, 1995; Gruenewald et al., 2009; Meyers, 1997; Paulsen, 2003; Pritchard, 1985)” (Schildkraut et al., 2018, p. 24). In contrast, while there is news coverage devoted to weather and weather events, there is comparatively little attention devoted to environmental crime and harm, such that Ozymy et al. (2020, p. 151) point out that “[m]ost cases actually receive very little to no media attention (Jarrell, 2007; see generally Krugman, 2017).” And, as Di Ronco et al. (2019, p. 144) have noted recently, “[m]edia representations can contribute to the construction—and concealment—of green harms and crimes. . . . Media representations are highly selective: by reporting only on what is considered ‘newsworthy’, the media tend to cover only certain green stories (and frame them in certain ways), while under-reporting, misrepresenting or misinterpreting others….”

All this lends support for why the study of environmental harm through a green criminological lens is (so) important. But this still raises the question: why do stories about violent crime, in general, and homicide, in particular, and mass shootings, even more so, receive disparate coverage? Reasons vary, but here are two. First, as Schildkraut et al. (2018, p. 224) note, “crime news essentially is a product that the media want to sell to its consumers because it is what will keep an audience hooked (Buckler & Travis, 2005; Chermak, 1995; Johnstone et al., 1994; Leavy & Maloney, 2009; Pritchard & Hughes, 1997; Robinson, 2011; Shoemaker, 2006; Surette, 1992). As such, the news media have been reduced to ‘what is commercially viable, popular, easily digestible, mainly unchallenging, and uncritical’ (Mayr & Machin, 2012, 12).” Because stories about crime tend to be both inexpensive and easy to cover, they account for a large proportion of coverage (Schildkraut et al., 2018, p. 225). Second, as Gladwell (2008, p. 6) puts it, “we learn more from extreme circumstances than anything else; disasters tell us something about the way we think and behave that we can’t learn from ordinary life. . . .[I]t’s those [circumstances that] lie outside ordinary experiences [that] have the most to teach us”—or, at least, those that seem to be “outliers” that most interest us.⁴

For the green criminologist, these assertions and findings present a number of challenges (and opportunities). First, the green criminologist interested in green newsmaking criminology (Brisman & South, 2014) might explore: the differences between “accidents,” “disasters” and “events”; where and when they share commonalities; why some phenomena are presented as one rather than the other; and the meaning and significance thereof. As Parks et al. (2018, p. 279) argue, “disasters” need to be conceptualized not as “single-point-in-time events, but as processes of social disruption that play out over time (Quarantelli & Dynes, 1977).” This idea of disasters as “social processes linked to long-term antecedents and long-term consequences” (Parks et al., 2018, p. 287) is especially true in the case of many—if not most—environmental crimes and harms (such as climate change brought about by global capitalism’s perpetual thirst for growth). One option, then—and given both the way the news media operates and Gladwell’s (2008) argument above—might be to try to frame more environmental harms as discrete environmental events—as “extreme circumstances” or “outliers”—rather than as catastrophes stemming from fundamentally social processes (despite the need for shifts and transformations in the very ongoing behaviors, customs and practices that result in time-specific degradation, ruin, tragedy and loss of life).⁵

Second, if we, the public, tend to be more captivated by the unusual, then perhaps green criminologists should try to identify that which is out of the ordinary with respect to environmental crime and harm? Conversely, if news coverage is particularly skewed toward stories about crime—perhaps lending the impression that crime is more rampant than it is—then perhaps green criminologists should consider following the lead of Lynch (2013) and undertake the opposite type of endeavor—accentuate the real rate and extent of violent environmental harm victimizations?⁶

In short, the answer to all of these propositions is “YES.” But such musings about the relationship of violent crime to environmental crime has prompted a different sort of inquiry—one that I take up here.

Immunity to Violence: A New Pandemic

Dr. Elaine Cox (2018), Chief Medical Officer of Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health writes:

THE HUMAN BODY HAS AN amazing capacity to adapt to maximize survival. For example, over time, exposure to certain germs will result in immunity. In general, this is a very good thing and has resulted in eradication of certain illnesses that caused epidemics in not so distant history. The human mind has the same capacity to resist negative stimuli. But is that really a good evolutionary result?

As Schildkraut et al. (2018, p. 223) contend, “[t]he 20 April 1999 rampage at Columbine High School has been categorized as a watershed event (Larkin, 2009; Muschert, 2002) and, for many news consumers nationwide, helped propel mass shootings as a phenomenon into the national discourse.” Indeed, the mass shooting in Columbine dominated the news cycle and headlines—and occupied everyone’s minds and emotions—for weeks on end. But since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, CT, in December 2012—2013 years after Columbine—there have been at least 2,540 mass shootings (see n. 1).

According to Cox (2018):

When confronted with such trauma repeatedly, in an effort to control the negative stimuli, we begin to adapt with an emotional numbness. In an effort to not be incapacitated by fear and helplessness, we begin to withdraw and cultivate the numbness. And while we still feel compassion, we get better at keeping it at a distance in an amazing feat of self-preservation. There is evidence to suggest there are actually chemical changes in the brain that are impacted by post-traumatic stress. The anterior cingulate cortex in the frontal lobe has been mapped to be the area of the brain that moderates empathy. With repeated exposure, the cortex will actually decrease the stimulus to feel empathy.

As Cox (2018) goes on to explain,

When these events [mass shootings] occur and the mass media covers them, we see an indirect effect after a bit. Initially, we’re engrossed—but with prolonged or repeated coverage of these events, as the violence increases, our empathy lessens. It’s very similar to violence in inner city settings. After so many shootings, people shrug and say it’s inevitable and are thankful it wasn’t them or their loved ones.

And thus Cox (2018)—like others who work in the health care field (see Brody, 2018; Esposito, 2016; Gabbert, 2018)—worries about the “scourge of emotional numbness”—the “compassion fatigue” that the brain is trying to mitigate.

It is worthwhile, here, to take a moment to flesh out what is meant by “compassion fatigue.” Psychologist Charles R. Figley, the Paul Henry Kurzweg, MD Chair in Disaster Mental Health at Tulane University, defines “compassion fatigue” as “a state of exhaustion and dysfunction, biologically, physiologically and emotionally, as a result of prolonged exposure to compassion stress” (quoted in Gabbert, 2018).⁷ As Rosa-Aquino (2019) explains, “[c]ompassion fatigue is a phenomenon wherein people withdraw after long periods of taking others’ emotional burdens. As a person becomes exposed to bad news, they [sic] can become more indifferent toward that type of suffering.” Similarly, Beck (2017) describes “compassion fatigue” as a “phenomenon where, after being exposed to a lot of suffering or calls for help, people experience reduced empathy and interest in that suffering.”

With this in mind, if we return to the opening exercise, then, Cox’s concern about our responses to mass shootings—our lessening of empathy—raises the question of whether we have developed “compassion fatigue” or “creeping psychic exhaustion” (Gabbert, 2018) regarding environmental crime, harm and violence (despite the differences in the ways that violent crimes and environmental crimes are reported). This may be a debatable issue. On a broad level, Rosin (2019) writes, “Americans these days seem to be losing their appetite for empathy, especially the walk-a-mile-in-someone’s shoes . . . kind.” And, to be sure, lack of—or diminishing empathy—is a concern in a number of arenas (Brooks, 2019; Kristof, 2018a; Lambert, 2019; Lopez, 2017; Nazario, 2020; Robinson, 2018; see generally Damour, 2019; Giardinelli, 2020; Herrera, 2019; Morelli et al., 2017). Rosin (2019) notes that while empathy might be “a natural human impulse,” it is “actually really hard to . . . empathize with people who are different than you are, much less people you don’t like” (see also Han, 2018; Manning-Schaffel, 2018). With respect to the environment, then, there are certainly some who exhibit no empathy whatsoever regarding the life and value of nonhuman animals, their habitats and ecosystems, and the global biosphere (see, e.g., Casey, 2018; Swenson, 2018; cf. Dixon, 2018; Herzog, 2015; Kohn, 2015; Kristof, 2018b; Levin et al., 2017). There may be other occasions—or trends, even—where our (capacity for) empathy has waned. And there may be still other instances where “the opposite effect—heightened climate anxiety—can be just as paralyzing” as “compassion fatigue” (Rosa-Aquino, 2019; see generally Buckley, 2019; Corn, 2019; Lambert, 2019).

If our empathic abilities or skills have abated—or if they are in need of readjustment—then the question becomes: what can we do?

For Brown (2012, p. 384), the practice of empathy is “always a work in progress.” Similarly, Dr. Helen Riess, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, contends that “‘[e]mpathy is a mutable trait, it can be taught’” (quoted in Brody, 2018), while Baron-Cohen (2011, p. 184), a British clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychology at the University of Cambridge, maintains that “components of empathy . . . can be learned” (footnotes omitted). In contrast, Dr. John Eric Baugher, an end-of-life caregiver, is a little more restrained, suggesting that “although empathy cannot be directly taught, our empathetic imagination, a creative and fundamentally playful sensibility, can be fed and given space to flourish” (2019, p. 10 (emphasis added)). If we take the more conservative approach—that of Baugher—let us assume that “[e]mpathy is not a discrete skill, such as how to take vital signs or how to dress a wound, but rather a moral capacity intrinsic to what makes us human” (2019, p. 10). The question then becomes, how do we, in Baugher’s (2019, p. 1) words, “preserve the innate human capacity to imagine the suffering of another”? How do we excite or stimulate our “empathetic imagination”? How might we treat our “empathy deficiency disorder” (Brody, 2018)? How might we address—how might we change—our numbness to the damage and destruction being wrought on Gaia?⁸ After all, if the specific environmental problem of climate change is about change, might it entail not just change to the climate, but change to ourselves? Changes that could produce more empathic selves?

Cox (2018) suggests a “workout regimen for empathy,” which could include “paying attention, listening actively for those suffering, emotional management, building positive relationships and better decision making in conflict.” Brody (2018), focusing on the ways in which parents can instill empathy in children, urges adults to show respect and caring for others; acknowledging rather than dismissing a child’s distress; recognizing concerns and feelings and children’s need for security; and validating fears and other difficult emotions rather than being judgmental or negating them. Hurley (2017), like Brody (2018), centers on the practice of empathy by adults, encouraging the following steps to cultivate greater empathy in one’s children: (1) discuss emotions (talking about feelings on a daily basis helps kids to verbalize and discuss their feelings, which enable them to learn to tune into to the emotions of those around them (e.g., body language, facial cues, voice tone)); (2) model good listening skills (by avoiding “distracted listening” by making eye contact, repeating back what one has heard, asking follow-up questions for clarification); (3) encourage young kids to be a (or the) helper (rather than (just) looking for helpers when times are tough); (4) reflect on acts (that one witnesses in the community and in books, movies, television shows); (5) practice daily reflections (talking about how family members reached out to others during the day); (6) “watch your words” (by asking kids about the connections they make (their friendships), rather than about the grades/marks they have earned, which can helps young people to privilege caring over achievement); and (7) “help together” (getting involved in local projects to benefit others). Suttie (2016), drawing on Borba (2016), also puts forth seven suggestions for encouraging children to develop empathy and generosity towards others: (1) help kids develop a moral identity, not just praise them for good deeds (so that kids see themselves as people who care and value others’ feelings and thoughts); (2) give kids “do overs,” rather than simply punishing them for acting or speaking insensitively; (3) encourage empathy through stories; (4) support empathy education in school; (5) “examine your values”—which resonates with Hurley’s (2017) “watch your words” and entails valuing and praising compassion and kindness, rather than (academic) achievement); (6) be mindful of social media use (in order to ensure a balance between time spent online and in-person, face-to-face encounters, where empathy is born); and (7) help children to find their “inner hero” (by setting a good example ourselves of standing up for others, by teaching kids how to diffuse bullying situations, and by making them aware of how peers can support each other).

To be fair, none of these somewhat overlapping suggesting is particularly controversial. And while we may not have a “do over” with respect to the Earth (Suttie’s second recommendation), we do have an opportunity to “do better.” That said, I want to focus on Suttie’s (2016) suggestion that we “encourage empathy through stories.”

A Possible Narrative Vaccine

According to Suttie (2016), adults can “help kids build their empathy muscles through play-acting, reading books that let them get inside characters’ minds, and watching inspiring movies. Activities that allow careful reflection on how others are feeling in a given situation help build the skills needed for moral action.” As Suttie (2016, quoting Borba (2016)) explains, “‘The right book can stir a child’s empathy better than any lesson or lecture ever could . . . . And the right book matched with the right child can be the gateway to opening his heart to humanity.’” To be sure, reading books can transform individuals’ capacity for empathy (see Worthen, 2020; see generally Ulrich, 2018)—in part, because many stories “have plots involving actors making moral choices and [undergoing or otherwise experiencing] the transformation of moral relationships (Booker, 2004)” (Adshead, 2013, p. 1). Although I leave for another day the question of whether empathy is the basis for moral action,⁹ there is little question that books and stories serve a pedagogical role. Frank (2010, p. 665) observes that “[s]tories teach which actions are good and which are bad; without stories, there would be no sense of action as ethical,” while Doucleff (2019) reports that Inuit parents, for example, “traditionally discipline through storytelling . . . turn[ing] discipline into fantasy and theater.” Likewise, Maruna (2015, p. viii) reminds us that

Religions—the traditional realm of sin and punishment (and redemption)—explicitly explain right and wrong through parables and other stories. Indeed, all cultures appear to rely on mythologies and legends to teach morality. There may be no other way to teach it. Good and bad, crime and justice, deviance and punishment: These are not concepts that belong naturally to the realms of science, quantification, calculus, or accounting. They are, at heart, narrative concepts, belonging only and always to the field of stories and storytelling; they can appear ridiculous and hollow outside of this light. [emphasis added]

But where I think Suttie and Borba are a bit short-sighted—and Brody, Hurley and Doucleff too, for that matter— is that they assume that it is the adults who need to teach the children. To be fair, Doucleff’s focus is on “stories to get kids to listen to adults.” And in previous work (e.g., Brisman, 2013, 2017, 2019a, 2019b), I analyzed and assessed the messages of children’s stories to children.

To be clear, I have no intention of abandoning that type of research and scholarship or eschewing storytelling as a parenting tool or abdicating my responsibility to continue to encourage reading—and empathy—in my children. But I will confess that it has been only more recently that I have come to realize that the assumption that it is the adults who need to teach the children is rather parochial. Maybe Greta Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swedish environmental activist is correct: adults are “not mature enough to tell it like it is” (2018, 2019a, 2019b).

Consider, then, Goodbye, Earth, written by 9-year-old Zayne Cowie, which excoriates adults for their—or should I say our—failure to address climate change, leaving the consequences of our inaction to younger/future generations. Cowie begins by listing places that he hopes to visit: “Pacific islands, northern lights,/Himalayas, desert nights.” Unfortunately, Cowie laments, he and his peers have lived through some of the hottest years on record. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the Earth’s average temperature has risen steadily. As Cowie reminds us, human activities have already warmed the Earth’s average temperature by 1°C, and with more warming sure to occur due to past and future carbon emissions, ice sheets will liquify and New York and Miami will be inundated. Cowie continues:

Whose fault is all this climate mess?

You the grown-ups must confess.

While cities burned, and temperatures soared.

You upped and left the Paris accord!

According to Cowie, because of adults’ preference for “big cars, fast food, and coal”—because of adults’ fondness for fossil fuels—we have stolen his future, forcing him to say farewell to coral reefs and polar bears, and question whether to have children of his own.

Just as readers might be inclined to dismiss Cowie and his “generation of pint-sized ‘eco-worriers’” (to use Odell’s (2019) phrasing), Cowie issues a preemptive strike: “You think this is a fun rhyme book?/With your inaction, the Earth will cook!” Cowie then decries our “empty vows,” our plastic bags and “farting cows,” before taking a subtle jab at the “American Polluter in Chief” (as Sutter (2020) refers to him):

You made this gorgeous country too

the runner up in CO2.

You say you’d make our country great,

But the planet holds our fate.

Later in the story, Cowie denounces politicians for fixating on “spending bills and budget fears” and “re-election each two years,” but he directs most of rage to adults in general, demanding to know why “[w]ith storms and droughts, and mass migration, [we’re] still just stuck in conversation?” and “[w]hy not start out with one ambition: to cut down our carbon emission?”

Cowie acknowledges that kids do not vote, pay taxes, or contribute to political action committees (PACs), but he does attempt to shame adults. And while his anger is paramount (“We may be kids, but We are pissed./We’re fighting now just to exist!”), his suggestions for action are salient and prudent: “No more pipelines, no more fracking!” Instead, “[i]nvest in renewable energy” and “[d]eclare a national emergency.” Impressively, these are macro-level recommendations; Cowie thus avoids the neoliberal logic so prevalent in children’s stories about the environment—a logic that it is the duty and responsibility of individuals, not corporations or nation-states, to preserve, protect and repair (once damaged) nature, our planet and its ecosystems (Brisman, 2019b; see also Brisman, 2013, 2017, 2019a; Brisman & South, 2017).¹⁰

While it might be tempting to repudiate Goodbye, Earth as little more than poetic “pester power” intended to “leverage pro-environmental awareness in parents,” as Odell (2019) reports, such “eco-pestering” is actually a form of “‘reverse socialisation’, whereby children educate their parents on what’s happening in the world” (emphasis added). As Odell (2019) adds, not only are “‘[c]hildren . . . the key to changing society’s long term attitudes to the environment’” (quoting David Miliband, the British public policy analyst who served as the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007 to 2010 and as a Member of Parliament from 2001 to 2013), but “‘[they] are more powerful in getting these ideas across than either politicians or the media’” (quoting Andrew Sutter of Eco-Schools in the United Kingdom (emphasis added)). Or, to put it in the words of Arieff (2010 (citing the activist/writer/public speaker, Adora Svitak, then age twelve)), “we [adults] need ‘childish’ thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and, especially, optimism.” While empathy is hardly “childish thinking”—it is both “psychological tendency” and “neurological wiring”—and one’s capacity is “likely a question of both nature and nurture” (Manning-Schaffel, 2018)—”young people are inherently attuned to their environment and understand the importance of protecting it” (Arieff, 2010). We adults our off-key and are in need of a retuning. Or to echo Stoknes (in Suttie, 2018)—we need better storytelling—we need more stories like Cowie’s and we adults need to start listening to them!

Conclusion

In a recent piece in The New York Times, Friedman (2020) submitted that “[p]andemics are no longer just biological—they are now geopolitical, financial and atmospheric, too. And we will suffer increasing consequences unless we start behaving differently and treating Mother Earth Differently.” While addressing climate change (and other environmental problems) will still require substantial economic and political reorganization (Lynch & Stretesky, 2003), it will also necessitate moral recalibration and a “workout regimen for empathy”—or an “empathy training program” (Manning-Schaffel, 2018)—a rebalancing of our empathic capacity. To be sure, empathy, by itself, has no direct impact on the world around us. Indeed, just as “[w]orry is not action, and knowledge, while important, is not action either” (Beck, 2017), empathy, alone, will not cure Gaia, improve our relationship with the Earth, or address anthropogenic climate change (see generally Casey, 2018). Empathy may not be “‘the medicine that will save the world’” (Manning-Schaffel, 2018 (quoting Dr. Judith Orloff, author of The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People (2017))). But given that President Donald J. Trump continues to exhibit a perverse lack of empathy in everything from his response to COVID-19 to the murder of George Floyd by officers in the Minneapolis Police Department Baker and Bruni, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c; Collins & Stephens, 2020a, 2020b; Cottle, 2020; Dowd, 2020; Haberman, 2020; Nichols, 2020; Senior, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c; see generally Friedman, 2020; cf. Worthen, 2020)—a deficiency so profound that some have wondered whether he should be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and/or antisocial personality disorder (see, e.g., Conway, 2019)—we should embrace efforts to strengthen our empathetic muscles.¹¹ After all, as Dr. Brian C. Rosenberg, former president of Macalester College, reminds us, “[a] society without a ground in ethics, self-reflection, empathy and beauty is one that has lost its way” (quoted in Bruni, 2020d).

Whether it is “the empathy void that put a knee to [George] Floyd’s neck” or the empathic chasm that has brought Gaia to her knees, we must address our “empathy deficit” (Bruni, 2020d). This is no small task and, as I have attempted to suggest in this article, stories can help. But we must be cognizant of the fact that while our children may benefit from the stories that we (adults) tell them, adults need to heed children’s lessons to us, as expressed in Goodbye, Earth. As Cowie (2019) pleads, “The Earth’s in trouble, hear her call.” We adults need to act with the kind of empathy, caring and respect that we purportedly want of and from kids. Otherwise, we might really have to say, “Goodbye, Earth.”

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Embryonic versions of this article were presented as papers at the 46th Annual Conference of the Western Society of Criminology in Honolulu, HI, USA, in February 2019, and at the “Critical Directions in Green Criminology” conference hosted by the Institute for Social, Policy and Enterprise Research at the University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK, in April 2019. The later paper was given as an International Visiting Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex (Colchester, Essex, UK). I thank both the University of Essex and the University of Plymouth for their generous support, and audience members at both events for their comments and questions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Avi Brisman

Notes

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