Local Environmental Struggles: Citizen Activism in the Treadmill of Production

by Allan Schnaiberg, Kenneth Alan Gould, Adam S. Weinberg, et al.

Book Overview

In recent years, environmentalism in the United States has increasingly emerged at the community level, focusing on local ecological problems. The authors critique the modern environmental mantra, think globally, act locally, by analyzing the opportunities and constraints on local environmental action posed by economic and political structures at all levels. Three case studies--a wetlands protection project, water pollution of the Great Lakes, and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521555213
• ISBN13: 9780521555210
• Release Date: July 1996
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

a challenge to the "think globally, act locally" model

This work provides three studies which attempt to examine how effectively local citizen groups can challenge the existing production system and its political support. The examples include water pollution, wetlands protection, and postconsumer waste recycling. In each case, the authors directly confront the simplistic assumption that simply "thinking globally" can enhance the effectiveness of local movements. However, they suggest new models for mobilizing local citizens, using a form of "political franchising", involving the interaction between local movements, national and transnational movements, and the aggregation of organized local movements