“Through the looking glass” : what the global financial and climate change crises reflect about environmental governance, democracy, and community psychology

Browne, Alison L. (2010) “Through the looking glass” : what the global financial and climate change crises reflect about environmental governance, democracy, and community psychology. Community Psychologist, 43 (2).

Abstract

In the introductory column of ‘Environment and Justice’ in The Community Psychologist, Riemer and Voorhees (2009) highlighted the issues of justice, power, participation, and vulnerability related to the Global Climate Change crisis. They introduced some potential contributions community psychologists can make in the face of environmental degradation. These suggestions focused on the need for people worldwide to adopt practices that mitigate human induced climate change, and address the unequal distribution of climate change effects to, and the need for adaptation of, those communities who are already the most vulnerable due to gender, culture, poverty or geography. In this article, I will introduce some of my own thoughts about the intersections of the Global Financial (GFC) and the Global Climate Change (GCC) crises, and how these dual crises have brought into awareness the way that current forms of democracy address social and environmental issues by creating boundaries and exclusions.