War Ecology and Society in the Anthropocene

Friday, 11 July 2025: 13:00-14:45
Location: SJES023 (Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences (JES))
RC24 Environment and Society (host committee)
RC01 Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution

Language: English and French

This session welcomes papers exploring the interaction between war and ecology in the context of the Anthropocene. Research on the environmental dimensions of war tends to focus on causality between armed conflicts and disasters (e.g., James Lee 2009, Tobias Ide 2023). But research is also needed to understand how the war-environment nexus is complicated by the resurgence of authoritarianism and aggressive imperialism, for the Anthropocene does not deter war-mongering regimes from reconsidering their territorial priorities. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a cruel reminder of how authoritarianism and imperialism add fuel to the fire of global warming (Charbonnier et al 2022). This war highlights the dependance of European societies on Russian fossil fuels and it threatens African countries from wheat shortage. This war has also revived the ghosts of Chernobyl’s nuclear disaster, while the threat of another nuclear disaster keeps pending at the nuclear plant of Zaporizhia. Moreover, the destruction by the Russian army of a large dam in Kakhovka was described as an environmental war crime. In the meantime, vast areas of Siberia are destroyed by summer hot waves but Russian firefighters are lacking. The nonsense of this situation is just one example of the multiplication of different levels entangling war, ecology and geopolitics. How can societies address the twin challenges of the climate emergency and ensure the protection of their national sovereignty? This issue is too important to be left to the sole experts of international relations and geopolitics. Environmental sociologists have their say on it.
Session Organizer:
Paul JOBIN, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Oral Presentations
The Ghosts of “Internal Colonisation”: Anthropogenic Impacts of Russian Imperial Ambitions in Ukraine
Olga OLEINIKOVA, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Refugees for a Cause: Russian Environmentalists in Exile Confronting War and Ecological Harm
Maria TYSIACHNIOUK, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Blurring the Lines: Hybrid Security Responses to the War-Environmental Crime Nexus
Ayfer GENC YILMAZ, Turkey
Defending the Sacrificial Frontier: The Military’s Conception As an Environmental Steward in Turkey
Sertac SEN, USA
Shadows of the Deep Transition. a Political Ecology of War Beyond the Anthropocene Narrative
Luca MASTROSIMONE, IUSS Pavia - University of Torino, Italy; Dario PADOVAN, University of Turin, Italy
Be Prepared! Taiwan Social Responses to War and Natural Disasters
Paul JOBIN, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
The Weaponization of the Environment in Warfare: The Changing Landscape of Iraq and Gaza
Zeinab SHUKER, Sam Houston State University, USA
Distributed Papers
They Think They Own the Sky: A Critical-Theoretical Examination of Weaponized Weather, Solar Geoengineering, and Chemtrail Conspiracies
Lukas SZROT, Bemidji State University, USA
See more of: RC24 Environment and Society
See more of: RC01 Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution
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