A Theory of Ecological Justice

I have presented some of the ideas in this book at various places in recent years, and have received beneficial comments at all of them. An early version of Chapter 8 was presented to the politics research seminar of Keele University, where Andy Dobson and his students gave me valuable feedback. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of Frank Cass, publishers of Environmental Politics, and the editors of that journal to use a version of my arguments in Chapter 8 which they published in 2000 (vol. 9, pp. 43-64) as 'Ecological justice and justice as impartiality'. The published paper benefited greatly from the comments of John Horton and another, anonymous, reviewer.

A first version of the arguments which are to be found in Chapters 4 to 6 and Chapters 9 and 10 was presented to a meeting of the Interdisciplinary Research Network on Environment and Society (IRNES) in 2001 at the University of Keele, where John Barry and the other participants provided searching responses. Marcel Wissenburg very kindly gave me a detailed set of critical comments on this paper, to which I have done my best to respond.

Chapter 2 started life in 2002 as a paper to the Unit for Social and Environmental Research at the University of Abertay, where the target of many of its criticisms, Mick Smith, provided vigorous but courteous replies to my points. He and I have discussed the matters therein on several occasions and I believe that what I have to say on the issue of social constructivism has become clearer as a result.

A version of Chapters 11 and 12 was presented to the second biennial conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) at Marburg, Germany, in 2003 as part of a panel which I organized on environmental and ecological justice. Conversations with, and the papers of, the other participants on that panel, namely Derek Bell, Simon Hailwood and David Schlosberg, have been of great benefit to my discussion of liberalism and ecological justice in Chapter 7.

Andy Dobson and Tim Hayward very kindly agreed to find time within their busy schedules to read the first draft, giving me valuable critical responses to which I have endeavoured to respond.

None of the above-named people who have been so generous with their time and comments bear any responsibility, of course, for what appears in the following pages.

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