Green Crime

A popular BBC presenter and podcaster looks at six world-changing environmental crimes and takes readers inside the minds of the people responsible.

Our planet is a crime scene. People are murdered, ecosystems are destroyed, and corruption is rampant. In Green Crime, criminal psychologist Dr. Julia Shaw takes us inside six world-changing environmental crimes and reveals how the perpetrators think, why their crimes are so deadly, and how we can stop them from damaging our planet and our future. 

Julia Shaw attempts to make sense of some of the worst environmental crimes of our recent past by considering them through the lens of criminal psychology: these are not just natural disasters or random acts of destruction, these are illegal acts which follow familiar criminal behavior patterns. With that understanding, we are able to make sense of these ecocides and strategize ways to prevent them.  

As a criminal psychologist, Dr. Shaw explores “six pillars” of criminal behavior, which can be applied in the case studies presented. These are: Ease, Impunity, Greed, Rationalization, Conformity, and Desperation. 

Using these pillars as guidelines, along with in-depth research and interviews with involved parties, Dr. Shaw takes us through six recent examples of large-scale environmental destruction caused by human criminal behavior. Part history book, part true crime thriller, her writing weaves in the complex backgrounds and criminal choices that make conditions ripe for these kinds of crimes to occur, in an attempt to understand what we can do to prevent them in the future.

Crimes covered are:

• “Dieselgate” the Volkswagen emissions scandal 

• The murder of Brazilian rainforest activists Zé Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria 

• Illegal poaching for ivory by the Shuidong Syndicate 

• The world’s longest ship chase, tracking down illegal fishing ship Thunder 

• Operation Vala Umgodi (‘Close the Hole’) fighting illegal mining in South Africa 

• The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico