Green Social Work - From Environmental Crises to Environmental Justice

Social work is the profession that claims to intervene to enhance people's well-being. However, social workers have played a low-key role in environmental issues that increasingly impact on people's well-being, both locally and globally. This compelling new contribution confronts this topic head-on, examining environmental issues from a social work perspective. Lena Dominelli draws attention to the important voice of practitioners working on the ground in the aftermath of environmental disasters, whether these are caused by climate change, industrial accidents or human conflict. The author explores the concept of 'green social work' and its role in using environmental crises to address poverty and other forms of structural inequalities, to obtain more equitable allocations of limited natural resources and to tackle global socio-political forces that have a damaging impact upon the quality of life of poor and marginalized populations at local levels. The resolution of these matters is linked to community initiatives that social workers can engage in to ensure that the quality of life of poor people can be enhanced without costing the Earth. This important book will appeal to those in the fields of social work, social policy, sociology and human geography. It powerfully reveals how environmental issues are an integral part of social work's remit if it is to retain its currency in the modern world and emphasize its relevance to the social issues that societies have to resolve in the twenty-first century.

Lena Dominelli is Professor of Applied Social Sciences in the School of Applied Social Sciences, and Associate Director of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience Research at Durham University.

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. A Professional Crisis within Social and Environmental Calamities 3. Reclaiming Industrialization and Urbanization for People 4. Industrial Pollution, Environmental Degradation and People's Resilience 5. Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Solving Social Problems 6. Environmental Crises, Social Conflict and Mass Migrations 7. Environmental Degradation, Natural Disasters and Marginalization 8. Scarce Natural Resources and Inter-Country Conflict Resolution 9. Interrogating World Views: From Unsustainable to Sustainable Ways of Reframing Peoples' Relationships to Living Environments lusions: Green Social Work Bibliography Author Index Subject Index