Brian Tokar

University of Vermont, Environmental Studies, Faculty Member

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Brian Tokar is an activist and author, director of the Institute for Social Ecology, (social-ecology.org) and a lecturer in Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. He is the author of The Green Alternative, Earth for Sale, and Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change, which was reissued in an expanded and revised edition by the New Compass Press in 2014. He is an editor of Agriculture and Food in Crisis (with Fred Magdoff) and also edited two collections on biotechnology and GMOs: Redesigning Life? and Gene Traders. Tokar is a board member of 350Vermont, and a contributor to the Routledge Handbook of the Climate Change Movement, A Line in the Tar Sands, and other recent books. His articles on environmental issues and popular movements appear in Z Magazine and Green Social Thought, and on websites such as Counterpunch, ZNet, CommonDreams, New Compass, and Toward Freedom. He has lectured across the US and internationally on social ecology and the links between environmental and social movements.

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The GMO Threat to Food Sovereignty: Science, Resistance, and Transformation

Rapidly increasing demand for palm oil for biodiesel production is causing massive defor- estation and displacing millions of indigenous peoples in the South-East Asian region, in- cluding Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, India. Destruction of the region's extraordi- narily rich biological ...

Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change

The call for Climate Justice promises a renewed grassroots response to the climate crisis. This e... more The call for Climate Justice promises a renewed grassroots response to the climate crisis. This emerging movement is rooted in land-based and urban communities around the world that have experienced the most severe impacts of global climate changes. Climate Justice highlights the social justice and human rights dimensions of the crisis, using creative direct action to press for real, systemic changes. Toward Climate Justice explains the case for Climate Justice, challenges the myths underlying carbon markets and other false solutions, and looks behind the events that have obstructed the advance of climate policies at the UN and in the US Congress. This fully revised edition includes numerous updates on current climate science and politics worldwide. Drawing on more than three decades of political engagement with energy and climate issues, author Brian Tokar shows how the perspective of social ecology can point the way toward an ecological reconstruction of society.

On social ecology and the movement for climate justice

Climate Justice and the Economy, 2018

The theory and praxis of social ecology have guided social movements seeking a radical, counter-s... more The theory and praxis of social ecology have guided social movements seeking a radical, counter-systemic ecological outlook since the 1960s, advancing goals of transforming society&#39;s relationship to non-human nature and reharmonizing human communities&#39; ties to the natural world. This chapter reviews the philosophy and political outlook of social ecology, its multifaceted contributions to social movements past and present, and its emerging contributions to addressing current climate policy challenges. These include the viability of proposed transition strategies toward a fossil-free future, the potentialities and limitations of localist, community-centered responses to climate change, the problems inherent in current market-driven models of renewable energy development, and the potential contributions of reconstructive, neo-utopian outlooks to contemporary climate politics. We conclude that, despite the ever-present threat of climate catastrophe, a genuinely transformative climate justice movement needs to advance a forward-looking view of an improved quality of life for most people in a future freed from fossil fuel dependence.

Learning to Undermine a Pipeline: A Multi-logue on Encounters with Vermont’s Addison Natural Gas Project

In 2013, Vermont Gas Systems (VGS) received a certificate of public good for their proposed 41-mi... more In 2013, Vermont Gas Systems (VGS) received a certificate of public good for their proposed 41-mile pipeline extension called the Addison Natural Gas Project (ANGP) for transporting fracked gas from Alberta, Canada via the TransCanada Mainline. The ANGP is the largest expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure in Vermont in decades. Activists, those working and studying in higher education, local residents, and others have resisted the ANGP with diverse strategies. An investigation launched in 2017 regarding the pipeline’s ongoing safety and construction problems remains open. In co-writing this chapter, we offer brief autobiographical comments, followed by a “multi-logue” consisting of a facilitated and recorded discussion, which we transcribed and circulated among ourselves for revision and reflection. Our “multi-logue” writing experiment highlights our multiple perspectives on the ANGP and on broader pipeline pedagogies and entanglements. We reflect on our experiences learning to undermine the ANGP through two themes: (1) strengthening human and more-than-human relationships with places threatened by pipeline expansion, and (2) practicing pipeline pedagogies amidst Higher Education Institution (HEI) politics.

Democracy, Localism, and The Future of The Climate Movement

World Futures, 2015

The accelerating disruption of the Earth's climate systems is the defining issue of our time.... more The accelerating disruption of the Earth's climate systems is the defining issue of our time. The persistent failure of international climate diplomacy has encouraged local, regional, and some national-level solutions and spurred an emerging global movement for climate justice, mainly rooted in communities that bear disproportionate impacts from climate change. This article discusses the ways in which movements from below, seeking economic and energy democracy, are shaping our responses to the crisis. How can the imperative for immediate climate action and the ethical agenda of climate justice be furthered by movements seeking democratic alternatives and a more genuinely ecological future?

Movements for Climate Justice in the Us And Worldwide

Routledge Handbook of the Climate Change Movement, 2012

From the Routledge Handbook of the Climate Change Movement (2014)

Social Ecology, Deep Ecology and the Future of Green Political Thought

Ecologist, 1988

EJ386154 - Social Ecology, Deep Ecology and the Future of Green Political Thought. ... Identifier... more

On the evolution and continuing development of the climate justice movement

Routledge Handbook of Climate Justice, 2018

The concept of climate justice has emerged over several decades as a research agenda, an ethical ... more The concept of climate justice has emerged over several decades as a research agenda, an ethical and legal framework and most uniquely as the basis for an engaged grassroots response to the unfolding global climate crisis. Climate justice highlights the disproportionate impacts of climate changes on the most vulnerable and marginalised human populations, as well as the limitations of conventional political responses to rising climate instability. As a distinct thread in the evolving global civil society responses to climate change, climate justice networks have brought together representatives of indigenous and other land-based people’s movements, environmental justice advocates who have confronted inequities in exposure to toxic pollution, and elements of the global justice/alter-globalisation movements that have long challenged international financial institutions and other elite networks. This constellation of social movement actors has articulated a distinct countercurrent to traditional climate diplomacy, challenged both technological and market-oriented “false solutions” to the climate crisis and organised public expressions of opposition to the incomplete and largely inadequate policy measures developed under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This chapter will outline many of the distinct contributions climate justice activists have brought to the wider global movement for climate action, especially through their organising methods, overarching ethical framework, intersectional politics and egalitarian, community-centred visions of a carbon-free future. It will also address some of the persistent challenges to this perspective, especially in an era of increasingly visible global climate impacts, coupled with rising political uncertainties and declining restraints on corporate political influence in several key countries.

Learning to Undermine a Pipeline: A Multi-logue on Encounters with Vermont’s Addison Natural Gas Project

Pipeline Pedagogy: Teaching About Energy and Environmental Justice Contestations, 2021

Agriculture and Food in Crisis.: An Overview

Monthly Review, 2009

Ecological and Social Impacts of Fast Growing Timber Plantations and Genetically Engineered Trees

Plantations, as distinct from forests, are uniform agroecosystems that substitute for natural eco... more Plantations, as distinct from forests, are uniform agroecosystems that substitute for natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. As such, plantations are frequently associated with negative environmental and social impacts: decrease in water availability, modifications in the structure and composition of soils, depletion of biological diversity, encroachment on indigenous peoples' communities, agricultural lands and forests, and eviction of peasants and indigenous peoples from their lands with loss of livelihoods. Introducing genetically engineered trees into monoculture plantations will exacerbate these negative impacts. In addition, the traits for which trees are being engineered— reduced lignin, faster growth, insect resistance and sterility—will have other serious and irreversible consequences for the world’s native forests and forest dwelling peoples. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s March 2006 statement on genetically engineered trees urges careful examination o...

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Climate Justice and the Challenge of Local Solutions 1

Globalism and Localization, 2019

Monsanto: Una historia en entredicho

Monsanto is the main enterprise in transgenic research in staple foods. lts history is full of no... more Monsanto is the main enterprise in transgenic research in staple foods. lts history is full of non ethicintentions since 1 920. PCB's (polichlorinated bipheniles) are one of the first Monsanto's chemical compounds with hughe problems of bioconcentration. The content of dioxines in several of its chemical products is very important, not only among users, also in Monsanto's workers. This problem was analyzed after the exposition to Orange Agent in Vietnam's vets. Transgenic soy is not sent to the market to solution world's lamine, in stead of forcing farmers to use the herbicide (Round up) associated with transgenic soy. Similar are the exeriencies with rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), used to enhance milk production in cows, with many health problems to the livestock. Due to the growing concern of public opinion against transgenic industry, monsanto has launched a "Greenwash" policy , treating to associate "green" and "ecological&...

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Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change

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Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal

triangle, 2010

Brian Tokar outline the problems facing our current global food system through a critical, politi... more Brian Tokar outline the problems facing our current global food system through a critical, political economic lens. Over the last few months, in many ways mirroring the 2007-2008 global food crisis, food prices have risen to their highest levels recorded by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and prices are predicted to continue increasing over the next decade. 2 As a

format_quoteFood prices have reached record highs, predicted to rise further, reflecting system-wide failures similar to past crises.format_quote

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Climate Justice and Community Renewal

The green alternative : creating an ecological future

Agriculture and Food in Crisis.: An Overview

Monthly Review, 2009

Deva State D lanDS, DiSplaceD peopleS agrofuel costs in indonesia, malaysia, papua n ew Guinea Rapidly increasing demand for palm oil for biodiesel production is causing massive defor- estation and displacing millions of indigenous peoples in the South-East Asian region, in- cluding Indonesia, Ma...

Horrific impacts from the agrofuels push are nowhere more evident than in Southeast Asia's pa... more Horrific impacts from the agrofuels push are nowhere more evident than in Southeast Asia's palm oil sector, where deforestation and peatland degradation are so severe they make a mockery of the whole concept of growing plant biomass to mitigate climate change. Indonesia and Malaysia are the world' s largest palm oil producers, supplying about 85% of the world market. Historically, palm oil has been used for food and other consumer products and is now the world' s s largest palm oil ex - porter, responsible for about 45% of global produc - tion, had established over 4 million hectares of palm plantation, and is expanding rapidly into Sabah and Sarawak (the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo). Indonesia, in 2004 had about 6.5 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Sumatra and Kalimantan, with potential for significant growth. 1 The country plans a staggering 43-fold expansion in the area dedicated to oil palm, an additional 20 million hectares of plan -

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