About the Author

Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., is Teaching Professor and Co-Director of Environmental Studies at Georgetown University. His books include Peace Ecology (Routledge, 2015), Anarchism Today (Praeger, 2012), Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB, 2008), and the co-edited volume Exploring the Power of Nonviolence: Peace, Politics, and Practice (Syracuse University Press, 2013). He was previously Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association (2008-16) and Editor-in-Chief of the Contemporary Justice Review. He has written for media outlets including Common Dreams, Truthout, HuffPost, and the New York Journal of Books. MORE INFO | Facebook | Twitter

SELECTED WRITINGS ON RELATED THEMES

Essays

Empty Kilobytes? The Promise and Peril of Digital Food” (Common Home, 7/30/24)

Regrowth as a Radical Response to Rapid (Un)raveling” (Georgetown Global Dialogues, 3/13/24)

Ontological Enchantment: Rekindling Rootedness in a Ravaged World” (Peace Chronicle, spring ’23)

Resilience and Its Discontents” (Peace Chronicle, winter ’23)

Climate Decade” (Chaosmology, 1/15/23)

Back to the Garden” (Real Ground, 6/15/20)

Beyond the Anthropocene” (The Ecologist, 2/3/20)

The Gift of Perspective” (Common Dreams, 12/25/19)

Dear Fossil Fuels: It’s Over” (Common Dreams, 11/4/19)

Flowers in the Arctic” (Core Pathways Initiative on Climate Change, 3/1/19)

Review: Thus Spoke the Plant” (New York Journal of Books, 11/12/18)

Pathways of Possibility” (Core Pathways Initiative on Climate Change, 9/18/17)

Floods and Fires: The New Normal of Destabilization” (Common Dreams, 9/4/17)

Climate Justice & Nonviolence: Inseparable Aims” (Nonviolence Magazine, 5/24/17)

Climate Contributions and Responsibilities” (Global Futures Initiative, 11/10/16)

Saving Our Oceans, Saving Ourselves” (Global Futures Initiative, Georgetown University 9/29/16)

Climate Change as a Function of Social Change” (Global Futures Initiative, 9/12/16)

Confronting Conflict and Climate Change Through Common Purpose” (Common Dreams, 12/7/15)

Pump Fiction” (HuffPost, 3/11/13)

Saving Sacred Spaces” (Truthout, 8/29/11) (Chaosmology, 1/4/24 – with note in memoriam)

Garden Helps Community Grow, Flower” (Truthout, 6/10/11)

‘I Want to Be a Farmer’: Food Justice, Out of the Mouths of Babes” (Common Dreams, 6/3/11)

New Clear Energy” (HuffPost, 5/25/11)

Black Gold, the Lifeblood of War” (HuffPost, 7/1/10)

Silent Spring Has Sprung” (HuffPost, 5/21/10)

Review: Toward Climate Justice” (Z Magazine, 5/4/11)

The Day the Earth Stood Up” (HuffPost, 12/17/09) (Chaosmology, 9/12/23 – with update note)

Saving Ourselves: Consuming Within Recharge Rates” (Common Dreams, 6/26/09)

Water, Water Everywhere: Sustaining Scarce Resources in the Desert” (AlterNet, 3/9/09)

Emission Accomplished?” (HuffPost, 1/29/09)

Articles

Reinhabiting Ecotopia: Weaving the Threads of People, Place, and Possibilities” Environment, Space, Place 15.1 (2023): 66-87

Integrating Individual Well-Being with Environmental Systems” Stanford Social Innovation Review, R. Amster & L.B. Grdina, December (2021)

Review: Water, Crime, and Security in the 21st Century” Contemporary Justice Review 23.1 (2019): 122-123

Killing Time: Environmental Crimes and the Restoration of the Future” Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis 1.1 (2019): 131-150

Engaging Narratives: Environmental Essentialism and Intersectional JusticeUndergraduate Journal of Global Citizenship, R. Amster & Y. Kato (2018)

Resource Wars” and “Water SecurityThe SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives, P. Joseph (ed.) (2016)

Hope … in a Hopeless World?Journal of Sustainability Education, November 21 (2015)

‘Every Journey Begins with a Single Step’: Building Localized Movements for Global Peace and SustainabilityWorld Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research 71.1 (2015): 114-123

Teaching to the Test: Climate Change, Perpetual War, and the Pedagogy of HopefulnessJournal of Peace Education 11.3 (2014): 267-278

Toward a Climate of PeacePeace Review 25.4 (2013): 473-479

A Sustainable Peace: From Militarized Borders to Transnational Resource CollaborationJournal of Sustainability Education (2012)

Environmental PeacemakingGreen Culture: An A-to-Z Guide, K. Wehr (ed.) (2011)

Chapters

“Beyond the Anthropocene, Toward the Anarchocene? Notes on the Emergence of the Next Epoch” in Undoing Human Supremacy, S. Springer et al. (eds.), Rowman & Littlefield (2021)

“Border Walls and Bridging Work: Cultivating Resilience in Spaces of Control” in From Environmental Loss to Resistance, M. Loadenthal & L. Rekow (eds.), University of Massachusetts Press (2020)

“Living La Vida Local: Small Steps Toward Global Change” in Globalism and Localization in the Context of the Ecological and Social Crisis, J. Canty (ed.), Routledge (2019)

“Blockadia” in An Ecotopian Lexicon, M. Schneider-Mayerson and B.R. Bellamy (eds.), University of Minnesota Press (2019)

“Environment, Climate Change, and Peace” in Routledge Handbook of Environmental Conflict and Peacebuilding, A. Swain and J. Öjendal (eds.), Routledge (2018)

“Peace Ecology” in Current Debates in Peace and Conflict Studies, H. Wood (ed.), Oxford University Press (2017)

From the Headwaters to the Grassroots: Cooperative Resource Management as a Paradigm of Nonviolence” in Exploring the Power of Nonviolence, R. Amster and E. Ndura (eds.), Syracuse University Press (2013)

“Pax Gaia: The Ecology of War, Peace, and How to Get from Here to There” in Building Cultures of Peace, E. Ndura-Ouédraogo and R. Amster (eds.), Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2009)

Literature

Pieces of Another TomorrowThe Peace Chronicle (Summer 2023) (story)

The Call” The Peace Chronicle (Summer 2023) (poem) 

Rebirth” The Peace Chronicle (Winter 2023) (poem)

Remembering the Terrapods” Whole Terrain: A Journal of Reflective Environmental Practice (2022) (story)