Selling the Planet to Save It: The Failures of Green Neoliberalism

Abstract

Neoliberalism is a nebulous concept and one that is often hard to define. It has been the ruling political and economic ideology of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In this note, I will define neoliberalism, examine neoliberal environmental management, and a newer wrinkle to neoliberalism — “green” neoliberalism. I will then examine the effects, mostly negative, that neoliberal environmental management and green neoliberalism has had on workers, property rights of natural resources, and combating environmental degradation and catastrophic climate change through multiple case studies.