Friends Of The Earth Research Articles

Surviving the 1970s: The Case of Friends of the Earth

Whereas scholars have thoroughly deconstructed the myth that so-called mainstream environmentalism was born of the first Earth Day in April 1970, we have just begun to explore what happened in the decade following. This article provides a much needed intervention into the scholarship on environmental politics in the 1970s by examining the activities of Friends of the Earth (FOE) in its long first decade (1969–1984). Founded in 1969, FOE synthesized concerns with environmental degradation, human welfare, and democracy into an aggressive political agenda. By the mid-1980s, it had replaced its original critique of corporate capitalism and government intransigence with a pragmatic and reformist analysis that held the central form of political action to be a citizen s petitioning of the state. FOE's development during its long first decade demonstrates the deliberate and contentious choices by which mainstream environmentalism emerged as a coherent political practice. While these choices have often been taken as a natural or inevitable response to the Reagan administration s assault on environmental protections, FOE's history demonstrates that these choices were far from inevitable and came at a high cost for mainstream environmentalism's relationship with grassroots political participation.

Green Governmentality, Responsibilization, and Resistance: International ENGOs’ Issue Framings of Future Energy Supply and Climate Change Mitigation

The starting point for this paper is the increasing shift towards green governmentality as a particular mode of governance in the Western world, implying a shift from state-centered regulation to market-based mechanisms. In this paper, we are particularly interested in the role of environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) in this form of governance. The central question concerns how international ENGOs’ approaches to energy supply and climate mitigation can be understood as aligned with or dissenting from green governmentality. To approach this issue, we analyze the major energy reports of three international ENGOs – i.e. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and WWF – focusing on their issue framings of future energy supply and climate change mitigation. We conclude that these ENGOs’ issue framings are aligned with green governmentality to varying degrees, involving the economization of environmental issues and the responsibilization and moralization of economic actions. These ENGOs also to varying degrees express opposition or resistance to this mode of governance, for example, by opening up the discussion of various aspects of responsibility, including both remedy and culpability.

Why women will save the planet: a collection of articles for Friends of the Earth

Why women will save the planet: a collection of articles for Friends of the Earth

Guest Editorial: Climate Displacement in the Pacific – Special Forum

<em>This issue of the QUT Law Review features a collection of papers on the topic of climate displacement in the Pacific. The collection arose out of a symposium held at QUT in May 2014 and co-hosted by the Faculty of Law and Friends of the Earth. The focus of the symposium was on the potential of pre-emptive migration pathways to address the challenges of climate change-related displacement in the Asia-Pacific region. The guest editors wish to thank Wendy Flannery of Friends of the Earth (Brisbane) for her hard work in organising the symposium and her ongoing commitment to this serious issue.</em>

Exemplars and Influences: Transnational Flows in the Environmental Movement

Transnational flows of ideas are examined through consideration of Green parties, Friends of the Earth, and Earth First!, which represent, respectively, the highly institutionalised, the semi‐institutionalised and the resolutely non‐institutionalised dimensions of environmental activism. The focus is upon English‐speaking countries: US, UK and Australia. Particular attention is paid to Australian cases, both as transmitters and recipients of examples. The influence of Australian examples on Europeans has been overstated in the case of Green parties, was negligible in the case of Friends of the Earth, but surprisingly considerable in the case of Earth First!. Non‐violent direct action in Australian rainforests influenced Earth First! in both the US and UK. In each case, the flow of influence was mediated by individuals, and outcomes were shaped by the contexts of the recipients.

Current and Future Friends of the Earth: Assessing Cross-National Theories of Environmental Attitudes

Empirical studies of public opinion on environmental protection have typically been grounded in Inglehart’s post-materialism thesis, proposing that societal affluence encourages materially-sated publics to look beyond their interests and value the environment. These studies are generally conducted within, or at best across, Western, democratic, industrialized countries. Absence of truly cross-cultural research means the theory’s limitations have gone undetected. This article draws on an exceptionally broad dataset—pooling cross-sectional survey data from 80 countries, each sampled at up to three different points over 15 years—to investigate environmental attitudes. We find that post-materialism provides little account of pro-environment attitudes across diverse cultures, and a far from adequate explanation even in the affluent West. We suggest that unique domestic interests, more than broad value systems, are driving emerging global trends in environmental attitudes. The environment’s future champions may be the far from ‘post-material’ citizens of those developing nations most at risk of real material harm from climate change and environmental degradation.

Environmental Law, <em>Clapper v. Amnesty International USA</em>, and the Vagaries of Injury-in-Fact: "Certainly Impending" Harm, "Reasonable Concern," and "Geographic Nexus"

Clapper v. Amnesty International USA further muddies the already confusing doctrine of injury-in-fact in the law of Article III standing. This article examines Clapper and proposes clarification of three problematic aspects of injury-in-fact, which arise in environmental litigation: the concepts of “certainly impending harm;” “reasonable concern;” and “geographic nexus.” Clapper’s broad language suggesting that imminent injury must meet a very strict, “certainly impending” standard should be viewed in light of the case law adjudicating probabilistic harms, which reveals that “certainly impending” does not even approach a preponderance standard. Rather, it encompasses a wide range of environmental and public health risks where the plaintiffs have established a nexus to the challenged action. Clapper should be interpreted as denying standing because of the plaintiffs’ inability to establish a nexus to surveillance activities, akin to the geographic nexus required in environmental cases. Clapper can also be distinguished because of its reliance on the uncertainty associated with subsequent, intervening actions required to consummate the alleged injury. Clapper’s language conflating the “reasonable concern” doctrine from Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc. with the “certainly impending” test must be corrected, and “reasonable concern” should be presumed in future cases where the plaintiffs establish a geographic nexus to violations of environmental law. Finally, the test for geographic nexus in environmental cases should account for indirect and cumulative impacts, and should not depend on proof of nexus to precise acreages.

Roles of brokerage networks in transnational advocacy networks

Transnational advocacy networks (TANs) with similar goals are linked to one another through brokerage networks. Analysis of a network of 10 TANs devoted to environmental issues and economic reform, and consisting of 436 advocacy organisations in 75 countries, revealed the existence of two subnetworks whose members served in several capacities as brokers: 12 advocacy organisations, which belonged to four or more TANs; eight advocacy organisations associated with the federation, Friends of the Earth, which belonged to three or more TANs. The activities of members of these networks included participation in governance of TANs, development of long-term relationships with funders, and production of reports containing information and policy analysis. For less active organisations, members of these subnetworks provided information and, in some cases, access to funding.

Impact of EU Pesticide Reduction Strategy and Implications for Crop Protection in the UK and the Rest of Europe

Around 75% of active ingredients (a.i.) used as plant protection products in Europe before 1993 have been withdrawn from the market since the introduction of Directive 91/414/EEC, concerning the placing on the market of plant protection products. Although a large number of pesticides have been lost, some were replaced by 'better', 'less toxic' or less persistent molecules, because industry did not want to continue to support outdated molecules and spend money on all the extra tests required. However, in reducing the number there should have been a careful assessment of whether any should be retained to allow better resistance management strategies to be maintained. The approval process for agricultural pesticides that can be used in agriculture is a continuous one and we can expect additional important a.i. to be withdrawn, as has been seen with the EC decision in April 2013, to ban three neonicotinoid insecticides (NNIs) for two years. The EU Pesticide Reduction Strategy responds to public concern and medical evidence about the harmful effects of pesticides on human health. While most people would agree that we should try to minimise the use of conventional pesticides in our environment, there is considerable controversy over where the balance should be struck, between risk and benefit. The debate is highly polarised, between those who think the risk of harm from pesticides is already being managed by strict regulation of their use and, those who think that a precautionary approach should be adopted and that potential hazard is a reasonable criterion for removal. The agricultural industry, including most farmers, argue that further pesticide removals will result in significant decreases in European food production and, therefore, higher food prices. Environmental and other campaigning organizations such as Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association and The Pesticide Action Network, believe that the rate of removal of the most 'hazardous' pesticides should be increased and that there should be much less use of 'derogations'.

Nanosilver: Weighing the Risks and Benefits

It takes a special sort of case to spur attorneys into a debate over the drooling habits of toddlers. Yet that’s where lawyers from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Swiss chemicals company HeiQ found themselves in January 2013 as they debated in a federal appeals court the extent to which 1-year-olds and 3-year-olds chew, salivate, and swallow.1 At issue in the NRDC’s suit against the EPA, which is still awaiting ruling, was whether the agency was right in granting a conditional registration in December 2011 to a nanosilver-based antimicrobial fabric treatment manufactured by HeiQ.2 The EPA’s risk assessment was based in part on assumptions about exposure of 3-year-olds by sucking or chewing on nanosilver-laced textiles such as clothing, blankets, and pillowcases. Silver nanoparticles are added to a variety of textiles and home goods as an antimicrobial. Although silver has been used safely for centuries, some question whether the rapid expansion of new exposure sources to nanosilver could have adverse consequences. ... NRDC lawyer Catherine Rahm, however, begged to differ with the agency’s methods. In the January hearing, she argued that the agency record shows infants are more likely than any other subset of children to chew on fabrics that could contain the pesticide, and that if the agency were to recalculate its risk assessment based on the body weight of a 1-year-old, nanosilver concentrations in HeiQ’s product could result in potentially harmful exposures. It’s an obscure but critical distinction as far as risk assessment goes. And given the implications for HeiQ and other companies looking to follow in its footsteps, the case has landed at the center of a prolonged conflict over the regulation of nanosilver and the growing deployment of this antimicrobial ingredient in a variety of commercial and consumer products. Yet regardless of which side prevails in the case, the truth about nanosilver is not black and white. Even the loudest voices joining the NRDC’s call for strict regulation of nanosilver concede that context is key. “I’m not somebody who is for or against nano,” says Ian Illuminato, who directs Friends of the Earth’s U.S. nanotechnology campaign, which has produced a series of reports on the potential dangers of nanosilver and other nanomaterials. “I’m just saying we need to do this in a mature and adult way. That’s not to say this isn’t a helpful technology and it doesn’t have a place in our future, but in the way it’s evolving right now, it’s very risky.” Greg Lowry, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who studies the fate of nanoparticles in the environment, agrees that the use of nanosilver is a matter of balancing risk and reward. “There’s a tremendous potential benefit to the use in some of these products,” he says. “What one has to do is to ask yourself whether the benefits outweigh the risk.”

Positive Youth Action Towards Climate Change

Abstract This study focuses on the experiences of young people who are leaders of change in the environmental field. This study views environmental activism as a personal commitment towards pro-environmental behaviour. The motivations and challenges of such work are viewed as important to learn more not only about volunteering in environmental organisations, but also about pro-environmental behaviour. The main research problem was to explore these individualsí present and past life experiences, in the light of their activism, towards the issue of climate change. Narrative inquiry was chosen as a methodology for this research as it gives importance to experience and facilitates the study of an issue in all of its wholeness and complexity. The research involved in-depth interviews with three participants as well as living alongside the participants in an effort to build a relationship with them and to experience being an environmental activist. The participants were members of a local environmental organisation ñ Friends of the Earth (Malta). The outcomes of this study provide an opportunity for reflection on the factors that affect pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour and their implications on environmental education. This reflection will enable informed efforts to engage more young people in environmental activism. From the narratives produced, it is clear that there is no single factor that is optimal for promoting pro-environmental behaviour and environmental activism. These are, in fact, determined by a combination of interrelated factors.

ONLINE YOUTH CIVIC ATTITUDES AND THE LIMITS OF CIVIC CONSUMERISM

This paper examines young people's civic motivations in conjunction with their expected gratifications from, and evaluations of, civic websites. Fourty-six young people took part in this qualitative study, which included individual written evaluations as well as group reviews of the websites of four civic organisations (Fairtrade Foundation, Soil Association, Friends of the Earth, The Meatrix). The key finding of the study is that young people are willing to engage with civic websites as long as a series of ‘terms and conditions’ are met that would make that engagement meaningful to them, such as a link between the issue and the individual's lifeworld and the benefits of civic action. These conditions constitute a coherent paradigm of civic consumerism, although the evidence strongly suggests that this is due to a sense of civic loneliness and widespread scepticism about the relevance of collective action. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of the emotional dimension of civic engagement, which recurred consistently in these young people's narratives. The implications and limitations of this paradigm of civic consumerism are examined, along with the ensuing challenge to the internet's democratic potential.

The “New” Carbon Economy: What's New?

Introduction We now have what is commonly called a carbon economy. However, it is in fact made up of several, increasingly inter-connected, carbon markets. It takes different forms in different parts of the world, but includes systems of emissions trading (in the EU, some states in the USA and emerging schemes in cities, such as Montreal), and the buying and selling of offsets through United Nations-controlled “compliance” markets, most notably though the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) created by the Kyoto Protocol, as well as through “voluntary” markets. The carbon economy has had a turbulent history: its monetary value was affected by global financial meltdown, which also suppressed levels of demand for carbon credits, and its legitimacy questioned amid claims of climate fraud, “toxic carbon”, and acts of (neo)colonial dispossession (Bachram 2004; Friends of the Earth 2009; Lohmann 2005, 2006). And yet the importance of the carbon economy should not be underestimated. With the CDM, for example, Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) amounting to more than 2.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent are expected to be produced in the first commitment

Engineered Nanoparticles in Consumer Products: Understanding a NewIngredient

In October 2010 the National Organic Standards Board recommended that engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) be prohibited from food products bearing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s coveted Organic label.1 If the department adopts the recommendation, ENMs will find themselves in the same officially taboo category as genetically modified organisms when it comes to organic foods—nanotechnology-enabled innovations like flavor- and texture- enhancing ingredients and shelf life– extending packaging will be off the menu. Prior to issuing its recommendation, the board received thousands of public comments and petition signatures supporting the ban and virtually none opposing it. Although an official decision could take years, supporters are confident the recommendation will be adopted, and it will go down as one of the first lines drawn in the sand when it comes to the reach of this relatively new and potentially transformative technology in the American marketplace. Nanotechnology-enabled products are quietly proliferating on U.S. store shelves, despite nagging questions about the safety of synthetic nanoparticles and the products that contain them. “[I]n our regulation of food and most consumer products, we don’t implement the precautionary principle. Things go to market before we know whether or not they’re really safe for human beings over the long term,” says Alexis Baden-Mayer, a lawyer with the Organic Consumers Association, an advocacy group, who attended the meeting and campaigned for the ban. Baden-Mayer and other observers perceive a distinct lack of public awareness about how common ENMs are becoming in the market-place, and she hopes discussion among consumers of organic products will help change that. “Consumers don’t know much about nanotechnology, and the first time they may hear about it is now when they learn that the organic regulations are going to prohibit [it],” she says. The International Organization for Standardization defines a nanomaterial as a material with any external dimension between 1 and 100 nm.2 (By comparison, a double strand of DNA is about 2 nm thick.) Nanoparticles, which have been the focus of most nanotoxicology studies to date,3 are one subset of nanomaterials. Nanoparticles include structures of various shapes, such as nanotubes, nanowires, quantum dots, and fullerenes. They also occur naturally in substances like air, smoke, and sea spray, and “incidental” nanoparticles are created during processes such as combustion and food milling, churning, freezing, and homogenization. (Naturally occurring and incidental nanoparticles were not included in the National Organic Standards Board’s recommendation to ban ENMs.) Nanotechnology—the deliberate synthesis and manipulation of nanomaterials—began in the 1980s. Today thousands of ENMs are manufactured in a kaleidoscope of substances, shapes, and sizes for use in a wide range of products and industrial processes that take advantage of their novel physical, thermal, optical, and biological properties. These properties may be determined by the ENM’s chemical composition, size or shape, crystal structure, solubility, adhesion (the force that holds the nanoparticle components together), or surface chemistry, charge, or area.3 Industry analysts have been forecasting “game-changing” advances as a result of nanotechnology in renewable energy, computers, communications, pollution cleanup, agriculture, medicine, and more.4 Clothing, sunscreens, cosmetics, sporting equipment, batteries, food packaging, dietary supplements, and electronics are just a few of the types of nanotechnology-enabled goods in use by U.S. consumers. But safety questions arise around the nanoparticles in some of these products. The novel biological and physical properties of some ENMs pose unique challenges to comprehensive safety research, and investigators are working to figure out just how hazardous they might be to people, wildlife, and the environment. Compared with larger particles, nanoparticles’ tiny size means tissues may take them up more readily. It also can give them an unusual ability to travel throughout the body, including into cells and cell nuclei, and across the placenta and the blood–brain barrier, as demonstrated in rodent studies.5,6 No cases of human illness or death have been definitively attributed to ENMs. However, a number of researchers and consumer and environmental advocates have warned that the abundant unknowns make it necessary to proceed with caution lest we repeat the history of asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, the insecticide DDT, and other innovations that seemed valuable when they were introduced, proceeded with little oversight, and ultimately caused major health or environmental problems.

NANOMATERIALS: Examining Nanotech’s Clean Energy Promises

NANOMATERIALS: Examining Nanotech’s Clean Energy Promises

International Cooperation of Environmental NGOs in Europe: Case Study of the Network “Friends of the Earth” and its Members “New Europe”, Aspects of the EU Enlargement

International Cooperation of Environmental NGOs in Europe: Case Study of the Network “Friends of the Earth” and its Members “New Europe”, Aspects of the EU Enlargement

Battles over Biofuels in Europe: NGOs and the Politics of Markets

In this paper, we argue that a consortium of NGOs has played a significant role in shaping the market for, and restricting the use of, biofuels as an alternative to conventional fuels for road transport in Europe. This paper considers why a number of NGOs (Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, RSPB, Friends of the Earth) have chosen to enter the biofuels debate, and how they have variously developed policy, agreed a political campaign, and exercised political influence, in a key area of the world's response to major global climate change: how to reduce the carbon footprint of transport. We found that in many cases the development of NGO policy has been driven more by narrow political opportunities for influence than by broader and more coherent policy responses to global climate change or economic development, or indeed rigorous assessment of the scientific evidence. The research provides evidence of how NGO policies and lobbying significantly affected biofuel policy changes, review processes, target reductions, and sustainability regulation in the UK and in Europe. We consider that politically instituted markets, such as the one for biofuels, are examples of the emergence of new forms of governance of capitalist political economies facing a novel and pressing combination of drivers (climate change, energy security, resource constraints, and sustainable land-use). Politically instituted markets open up possibilities for political intervention from non-governmental or party-political actors, in ways that other markets do not. If political shaping of markets by NGOs becomes more widespread, issues of democratic legitimacy and public scrutiny will become ever more pressing. The paper is based on in-depth interviews with senior scientific directors and policy-makers in five NGOs, and of senior officials in UK government departments and the European Commission (DG Environment and DG Transport and Energy). It forms part of a wider ESRC research project in Brazil, the USA and Europe on the Transition to Sustainable Bioeconomies.

Green Washing

In a United States where climate change legislation, concerns about foreign oil dependence, and mandatory curbside recycling are becoming the “new normal,” companies across a variety of sectors are seeing the benefit of promoting their “greenness” in advertisements. Many lay vague and dubious claims to environmental stewardship. Others are more specific but still raise questions about what their claims really mean. The term for ads and labels that promise more environmental benefit than they deliver is “greenwashing.” Today, some critics are asking whether the impact of greenwashing can go beyond a breach of marketing ethics—can greenwashing actually harm health?

Friends of the earth's response to Defra's vision for sustainable food

Friends of the earth's response to Defra's vision for sustainable food

Leadership succession and the emergence of an organizational identity threat

AbstractLeadership succession, and the associated changes that new leaders make, can have profound impacts on nonprofit organizations. Despite its importance, there is limited research that examines succession from the point of view of employees and considers how their interpretations of organizational identity and proposed change shape their responses to leadership transitions. In this article, we examine the dynamics that ensued when the founder of Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit environmental organization, stepped down. The case shows how the succession process can expose latent disagreement about an organization's identity and give rise to internal conflict. These patterns suggest that leaders must be attentive to different and often conflicting interpretations of an organization's identity.