Greening the Globe World Society and Environmental Change [Paperback]

Greening the Globe discusses the success of international efforts to implement changes in environmental practices.Globalization has moved us toward becoming a world society with a common culture. Greening the Globe argues that international efforts to address environmental problems are often successful in the long run by setting the political agenda, by empowering environmental groups and citizens, and by changing our cultural perceptions of environmental problems. It also argues that international pro-environmental efforts  such as treaties or United Nations initiatives  have been consequential. This book shows how environmental problems are being addressed by international pro-environmental efforts in a world society.Globalization has moved us toward becoming a world society with a common culture. Greening the Globe argues that international efforts to address environmental problems are often successful in the long run by setting the political agenda, by empowering environmental groups and citizens, and by changing our cultural perceptions of environmental problems. It also argues that international pro-environmental efforts  such as treaties or United Nations initiatives  have been consequential. This book shows how environmental problems are being addressed by international pro-environmental efforts in a world society.Recent decades have seen a rapid expansion of environmental activity in the world, including the signing of a growing number of environmental treaties and the formation of international organizations like the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Greening the Globe employs world society theory (aka world polity theory or sociological institutionalism) to explore the origins and consequences of international efforts to address environmental problems. Existing scholarship seems paradoxical: case studies frequently criticize treaties and regulatory structures as weak and ineffective, yet statistical studies find improvements in environmental