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From an eco-spy to a human rights lawyer and even a sea captain; meet the capable guardians fighting green crime. Criminal psychologist Dr. Julia Shaw joins Climate Curious co-hosts Ben Hurst and Maryam Pasha to reveal how the heroes behind environmental protection do it – and how you can too – through stories of advocacy, perseverance, and smarts. Tune in to explore criminological frameworks like routine activity theory, the six pillars of green crime, and why the greatest threat to environmental protection isn’t greed: it’s corruption.
Learn more in Julia’s new book, ‘Green Crime’, https://linktr.ee/drjuliashaw
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Introduction
01:33 Defining green crime
02:06 Julia Shaw’s background and motivation
03:45 Exploring environmental crimes
13:26 The role of capable guardians
19:25 Six pillars of green crime
22:31 Understanding the perpetrators of environmental crime
23:27 Dehumanization and its impact on justice
23:53 The role of organized crime in environmental destruction
28:47 The fight against illegal fishing
36:43 The importance of psychology in environmental protection
39:55 The impact of corruption on environmental crime
43:27 Personal reflections and the power of hope
45:31 Conclusion
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:00:00] Maryam Pasha: Hello, Ben. Hey girl. Hey girl. We haven’t been in the studio
[00:00:07] Maryam Pasha: together for like, for a long time. For a long time. Last time. I feel like we did something live like this. A cat slapped [00:00:15] slept on your lap for a while.
[00:00:16] Ben Hurst: Oh, in Oxford. In Oxford. Oh, what a gorgeous cat. What? I don’t like cats. I know. That was like a, yeah, that was a, that’s actually, this episode is
[00:00:24] Maryam Pasha: not about cats, but that was the last time we were together and.
[00:00:27] Maryam Pasha: Um, we’re very excited because [00:00:30] we are gonna be doing something we haven’t done really before. I know it’s a little four part miniseries. Excited. It’s
[00:00:36] Ben Hurst: exci. It is exciting, isn’t it? I feel like it’s exciting. I feel like it’s exciting. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:00:41] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. Um, and it’s also exciting because we’re doing it with [00:00:45] one of our recurring fave Oh, telex London.
[00:00:49] Maryam Pasha: Speakers. Julia Shaw, Dr. Julia Shaw. The doctor’s important because we are gonna be talking about green crime.
[00:00:57] Ben Hurst: Oh, very interesting. Very interesting. Very interesting. [00:01:00] It’s based
[00:01:00] Maryam Pasha: on her new book, green Crime.
[00:01:02] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:02] Maryam Pasha: And we’re gonna talk about more about that in a bit. Um, but. Before we get into that, first of all, welcome Julia.
[00:01:08] Maryam Pasha: For those of you who don’t know who Julia is, first of all, just go watch all her TED talks ’cause they’re really, really good. [00:01:15] But also, she’s a criminal psychologist at University College London. She’s a regular podcast and TV host, as I’ve said. She’s been a Ted and Tedex London speaker. Mm-hmm. And she’s author of this new book, green Crime, inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet and How to Stop them.
[00:01:29] Maryam Pasha: [00:01:30] And before we get into the real stuff.
[00:01:33] Defining green crime
[00:01:33] Maryam Pasha: Can you just tell us what is a green crime?
[00:01:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: Green crime is another term for environmental crime, and it is when you extract or take something out of nature or pollute. So put something into nature that you’re not supposed [00:01:45] to, and it’s breaking a law. So it’s not just the earth but bad.
[00:01:48] Dr. Julia Shaw: It’s not just sort of general. Mm-hmm. Fad behavior. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s also not,
[00:01:52] Ben Hurst: not crime on the planet. Yeah. Right. It’s also not, it’s all things people do,
[00:01:55] Dr. Julia Shaw: like the bad things people do, which I think people. Sometimes assume this book is gonna be about just like everything bad in [00:02:00] general. Yeah. And it’s like, no, I am in fact focusing on things that are crimes.
[00:02:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. Yeah. Not just things that we wish we
[00:02:05] Maryam Pasha: stopped. Bad vibes. Yeah.
[00:02:06] Julia Shaw’s background and motivation
[00:02:06] Maryam Pasha: And I read like a little bit about your bio, but will you tell our listeners a little bit about. Your background that brought you to this topic and like kind of what you’ve [00:02:15] worked on before?
[00:02:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: So I’m a criminal psychologist and I study why people do bad things and I’m actually an expert in terms of being an expert witness for courtrooms as well.
[00:02:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. Where I talk about memory. So that’s a. That’s my niche, my particular niche. And so I’m [00:02:30] always interested in how people construct realities, and that’s something that you’ll see throughout this book as well, is that the different ways in which the narratives are controlled around who is at fault for the climate crisis and how we tell these stories about these crimes, both in terms of the [00:02:45] perpetrators, but also in terms of.
[00:02:46] Dr. Julia Shaw: What we should do about them. Mm-hmm. And so narratives is something that I’m always interested in, in memory and storytelling. And on the other hand, I’m interested in why are people engaging in these things that we all know at this point? No one’s like what [00:03:00] the things might be changing and we should be careful with Colu.
[00:03:02] Dr. Julia Shaw: Everybody knows. Yeah. Everyone knows. Even if you’re like, no matter where you’re on the political spectrum, there’s some version of that. Mm-hmm. Even if it’s just like saving your local park, um, you have some interest probably. In a clean environment, at least where you live. Mm-hmm.
[00:03:14] Maryam Pasha: What, [00:03:15] but for you personally, I guess, why climate or why green environment?
[00:03:19] Maryam Pasha: What brought you to this point? Why do you care? Why do I care? Why? I guess you could talk about, you could have written about a lot of different things. Yes. There’s a lot of bad things people are doing in the world right now. A [00:03:30] lot. Um, and there’s a lot of psychology behind, like, why do AI people wanna take, like, destroy our pla?
[00:03:35] Maryam Pasha: You know, you could have read about a lot of stuff. Why climate, why environment?
[00:03:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: Because I, uh. I’ve always been interested in environmentalism. Mm-hmm. [00:03:45]
[00:03:45] Exploring environmental crimes
[00:03:45] Dr. Julia Shaw: And I was faced with this black hole of, I don’t know, my feed was just, uh, back to back stories of devastation and everyone doing it wrong. And this, the, the overwhelming message I think you get, or at least that I was getting, is no one’s doing anything
[00:04:01] Maryam Pasha: right.
[00:04:02] Dr. Julia Shaw: And I was like, well, if no one’s doing anything, first of all, why are people still committing these crimes? Yes. It’s like, again, most people now think about, I mean
[00:04:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: mm-hmm.
[00:04:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: Research has shown that most people think about the climate, uh, emergency at least, [00:04:15] at least every week.
[00:04:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:04:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Most people think about it, and lots of people think about it every day.
[00:04:18] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so this isn’t like this niche topic anymore. And yet you still have people who are like, I’m just gonna burn down the rainforest. Right, right. And put some, put some cattle here. And so for me it’s like, that is such a mind flip where [00:04:30] you’re going. This is also like the criminals who are strained planet it, you know?
[00:04:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: And still, well, it’s burning down your own home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they live here too. This
[00:04:38] Ben Hurst: is not, it’s not good for you and bad for us. It’s bad for everyone. It’s bad for everybody. Yeah.
[00:04:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so I, that there’s, that, that was drawing me [00:04:45] to it. And frankly, I felt surely there. There’s some social science here that can help us to understand what’s going on, but I didn’t know it.
[00:04:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so I wanted to figure out what it is and whether we can use criminal psychology to help us to fight this.
[00:04:58] Ben Hurst: And is it the, is it scalable? Is [00:05:00] it the same like on the small level to the large level? Like, ’cause when we, that point you just made about like their, it’s their own home and it’s like they’re doing stuff that’s harming them as well, like.
[00:05:11] Ben Hurst: If I don’t recycle properly, is that, [00:05:15] is there some link there between those two extremes of like maybe like an, an organized crime ring and a person at home eating the wrong foods or using too much bath water or, ’cause you know, like sometimes you don’t see the impact directly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. [00:05:30] Um, are those two things linked or is it a completely different.
[00:05:32] Ben Hurst: That kind of way that people’s brains are working?
[00:05:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yes and no. Okay. So yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yes, in that it is. For example, what you’re saying with not recycling properly, that’s [00:05:45] often either because you feel overwhelmed and you’re not sure. Like, I mean, the amount of times that I stand in front of bins and I’m like, yeah,
[00:05:50] Maryam Pasha: which one does this?
[00:05:51] Maryam Pasha: There’s too many bin. Yeah. Also like
[00:05:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: things are made of multiple things. Yeah. Like the thing I’m holding in my hand is people with food in it. Yeah, exactly. Isn’t just one thing and so where does it [00:06:00] go? And so that also leads to what’s called wish cycling. Have you heard this term? No, this is a good term.
[00:06:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: What’s wish? Cycling. Try
[00:06:06] Dr. Julia Shaw: cycling? Yeah.
[00:06:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: Wish cycling is when you, um, put something in a recycling bin hoping that it’s recyclable. Oh my god. Recyclable. I do a lot of, I do a [00:06:15] lot of wish cycling. We also a lot of wish recycling and so contaminating the bins and which means that ultimately a lot of the stuff that we also think can be recycled can’t, and it just ends up being burned.
[00:06:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm. Um, and there’s a whole subplot to that of how we. Have always known that plastic was never [00:06:30] gonna be properly recyclable, and yet we were sold this whole like, gimme a second life as like a plastic bottle. Yeah. Which is mostly nonsense. But anyway, um, the yes is there is a relationship between that and say waste crime mm-hmm.
[00:06:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: At scale. Mm-hmm. And part of that is also [00:06:45] ease that it’s easier to just throw things in the general bin. Right. Or to dispose of things improperly than to do it properly. Mm-hmm. And that is the same whether you’re. At home or you are an organized crime network and you are disposing of corporate waste in just like by [00:07:00] tossing it into some dump somewhere that is illegal and it just sort of seeping toxic, toxic waste into the, into the water.
[00:07:06] Dr. Julia Shaw: But the no, in terms of why it’s not the same and why, why I think it’s really important not to equate it, is that just like, yes, there is a line [00:07:15] somewhere between like passive aggression mm-hmm. And. Serial killing. No one would say they are the same. They’re
[00:07:20] Ben Hurst: the same thing. Right. And I think
[00:07:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: with environmentalism, we often pretend they are
[00:07:24] Ben Hurst: right
[00:07:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: and they’re not.
[00:07:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: And this book is about the serial killers of the planet.
[00:07:27] Ben Hurst: Okay.
[00:07:27] Dr. Julia Shaw: This is not about someone who’s kind of like [00:07:30]
[00:07:30] Maryam Pasha: Yeah.
[00:07:30] Dr. Julia Shaw: Doing it a bit wrong by accent. Exactly. Yeah. This is people doing it at scale on purpose, and they’re causing massive distraction. Yeah.
[00:07:36] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. So three years of research has gone into this book.
[00:07:40] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm. Which is significant. It’s like a degree. Yes, it is like a degree. [00:07:45] Um, and you did do some courses? I did. I always do. I love university. I love a course. Um, and you know, we’ve, we have in this series talked to you about three of the cases in the book. Um, there are more.
[00:07:57] Dr. Julia Shaw: There’s six, six big cases
[00:07:59] Maryam Pasha: in the [00:08:00] book.
[00:08:00] Maryam Pasha: Can you talk us through some of the most memorable people you spoke to?
[00:08:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. One of the most memorable people I spoke with was Sirius Chem, who is an A campaigner for the Environmental Investigation Agency, the EIA, which they’re like the [00:08:15] spies undercover agents of the environmental world, and it’s actually an NGO, but they end up, which is, which is just amazing, isn’t it?
[00:08:22] Dr. Julia Shaw: That’s
[00:08:22] Ben Hurst: crazy. James Bond works. For basically a charity. Charity. That nuts. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, but yeah, no shout, shout [00:08:30] to them.
[00:08:31] Dr. Julia Shaw: And they infiltrate organized crime networks. They expose lots and lots of different kinds of environmental crimes. And, uh, she was really interesting because she also is using her, her job as a psychiatrist.
[00:08:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: So she, her background is in psychiatry [00:08:45] to elicit behavior change at scale. So she specifically targets messaging around especially wildlife crime and other kinds of crimes to. Taste makers. Mm. So she’ll approach a politician in X country or X place where there’s a known issue with certain kind of [00:09:00] wildlife crime, and she’ll say, what do you need from us?
[00:09:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: And basically, what do you want?
[00:09:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm. And
[00:09:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: they’ll be, they’ll say things like, I wanna get reelected. I want it. Right. The things that politicians want. And there, there may have nothing to do with the planet, but she goes, how do I tailor the [00:09:15] messaging that we want you to share so that you get kudos from your.
[00:09:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: Your group. Yeah. It’s smart to basically leverage it for what you want. And so she does that.
[00:09:25] Ben Hurst: It’s strategic, strategic messaging, which is important,
[00:09:27] Dr. Julia Shaw: which is so important. And she taught me also that [00:09:30] obviously it’s not just facts that people need, they need, you know, how do you tell, sell the story? How do you embed it within local community?
[00:09:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: How do you make sure that you’re using the right words? If it’s for business, if it’s for individuals, if it’s for, you know, it just, it always depends. And so a lot of this book as [00:09:45] well, I kept finding that. The tailoring of the messaging is so important. Mm-hmm. We think, you know, why don’t people just change their minds really quickly, but changing your mind is really hard.
[00:09:54] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. And it often is slow. Otherwise we’d all do it. Otherwise, we all do the whole time. It goes back to what you
[00:09:58] Maryam Pasha: were saying before. If everyone knows, everyone thinks [00:10:00] about this once a week, knowing is not enough. Mm-hmm. Awareness is not enough here.
[00:10:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. You need to understand and also you need to see the way out.
[00:10:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. And that’s what I keep. Doing in this book is, I speak with people like Sircam and, uh, Julian Newman, who’s the campaigns director at the EIA, and they’re these [00:10:15] heroes, basically mm-hmm. Who are doing this on behalf of the planet at, at scale internationally. Mm-hmm. And without them, we just wouldn’t be, we wouldn’t know nearly as much.
[00:10:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. And actually, in terms of the EIA, if anyone’s interested in. Like learning [00:10:30] about these various issues, whether it’s waste crime or animal animal issues, issues with overfishing, whatever it is you’re interested in environmentally, they have reports on everything. Wood. They’re an incredible resource.
[00:10:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: I’m
[00:10:40] Maryam Pasha: like really going to go and search wood on my website, [00:10:45] make sure I don’t have any illegal wood in my house. Or at least you know, what kinds of wood are most likely to be. Exactly. Exactly. Just ’cause I feel like there’s something about. Accidentally doing something like this that is really painful to me, uncomfortable, you know, it makes [00:11:00] me feel like.
[00:11:01] Maryam Pasha: It’s, um, it’s ignorance, you know? It’s like, it’s like the information is there. We know the thing is happening. I just wanna make sure I’m not complicit.
[00:11:09] Dr. Julia Shaw: I disagree.
[00:11:10] Maryam Pasha: Okay.
[00:11:11] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, I, I don’t think it’s ignorance. I think that the architects [00:11:15] of our environments. Are have, there’s a, we talked about this, this a hostile architects of choice.
[00:11:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yes. And I think if you aren’t being given that information and or somehow illegal activities being snuck in, like laundered in like wood into legal things, so you’re just going to a shop. Yeah. You assume there’s some [00:11:30] sort of safeguarding to make sure they’re not selling illegal stuff. Like if you just suck cocaine on the shelf, you’d also be like, wait a minute.
[00:11:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: It’s true. It is true. But I think it’s more that
[00:11:37] Ben Hurst: just, well, I’m allowed to get that in.
[00:11:38] Maryam Pasha: I think it’s put it in a shop. I can buy, it’s like D different levels. I always think it’s like different levels of responsibility. I [00:11:45] think that, mm. You can’t automatically know, but now that you know, you can’t unknow.
[00:11:48] Maryam Pasha: No, no. Like now that we’ve had this conversation, I now know this and if I really care about this thing, I have to like actually I have, I want to align my actions [00:12:00] and my beliefs.
[00:12:00] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yes. So I agree with that, that you should try and align your actions and beliefs and knowing can help you to fight some of this stuff as well.
[00:12:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: I mean, for fish crime, the easiest thing you can do is just don’t eat salmon and tuna. Like don’t eat the big fish often. Mm-hmm. In the sense that. We’re also [00:12:15] overfishing the ones that are the most popular. Mm-hmm. You can look at, there’s publications on what fish are currently overpopulated, that if you eat them, you’re actually culling the population a good way in the oceans potentially.
[00:12:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: I know obviously there’s different views on whether we should eat fish at all, but if you are eating fish, then [00:12:30] there’s, there’s ethical, more ethical ways of doing it. Sure. But. I would never, and I think this has been the mass con of our decade, is that it’s the consumer’s fault. Yeah. Individual responsibility is a lie.
[00:12:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: It’s a lie. We, we can’t [00:12:45] possibly know all of the things that go into basically. Anything we consume. Mm-hmm. Because everything is made up of so many different things, but that’s why regulation’s important. That’s why it has to be top down. That’s why the, like the, the safety has to be in place before it gets to you.
[00:12:57] Dr. Julia Shaw: When you’re making and you’re making hundreds of decisions a day, like there’s no [00:13:00] way you’re sitting in a supermarket going No. Every single piece and, and like the packaging insight. Right. There’s not even decisions
[00:13:05] Ben Hurst: though, isn’t there? Like people actually do, do that. Not me. There
[00:13:08] Dr. Julia Shaw: are, there are some people, could
[00:13:09] Ben Hurst: it be me?
[00:13:10] Ben Hurst: But, but
[00:13:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: you know, you talk about, but they shouldn’t have to. Yeah.
[00:13:12] Ben Hurst: Right.
[00:13:12] Dr. Julia Shaw: And that’s the problem is like by even talking about [00:13:15] it on an individual basis, we are shifting the blame onto the wrong person. Yeah. Perpetuating that idea in a way that is, is not going to be scalable. Yeah. And we are basically letting the people who are creating this get way
[00:13:25] Maryam Pasha: with it.
[00:13:25] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. So
[00:13:26] The role of capable guardians
[00:13:26] Maryam Pasha: this is something you have in the book, this idea though, ’cause you, we were just saying about [00:13:30] regulation. Mm-hmm. And one of the people we get to talk about with you is a regulator,
[00:13:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: Alberto Ayella.
[00:13:35] Maryam Pasha: Exactly, and we talk about him as being like this hero, this like unsung hero. The the regulator. Yeah.
[00:13:40] Maryam Pasha: But throughout the book you have individuals that you’ve termed as capable [00:13:45] guardians, and I love this term. Tell us a bit more about that. That you No,
[00:13:50] Maryam Pasha: no, of course. That you get it. That wasn’t me.
[00:13:53] Maryam Pasha: Was there an end? Okay. Tell us a bit more about capable guardians.
[00:13:57] Dr. Julia Shaw: So, capable guardian is a term from something called [00:14:00] routine activity theory, which is a criminological theory,
[00:14:02] Maryam Pasha: routine activity theory.
[00:14:04] Maryam Pasha: All right, take us through it. There’s too many words secretly.
[00:14:06] Ben Hurst: Take my coffee. Go. Capable. Capable guardians is an idea that comes from
[00:14:11] Dr. Julia Shaw: routine activity theory.
[00:14:12] Ben Hurst: Routine activity. You can call it rat. Okay. [00:14:15] Rat from rat. Yeah, from rat to toy.
[00:14:17] Dr. Julia Shaw: Uh, from Zui and Routine Activity Theory says that there are three things that you need for a crime to be committed.
[00:14:23] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. One is a possible victim. Mm-hmm. One is a motivated offender. Mm-hmm. And three is a lack of a [00:14:30] capable guardian, and you need. All of them. And so if you change, if there’s no victims or potential victims, then no crime. If there’s no people who want to commit crimes, there’s no crime. If there’s a capable guardian in place, there’s no crime.
[00:14:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:14:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: And by capable, I don’t just mean like someone [00:14:45] standing there watching you. I mean that can be a capable guardian. Sure. So we know, obviously police presence in in communities, there’s lots of important conversations going on around like what policing means and who it’s for. But it is true that you’re less likely to commit a crime right in front of a police [00:15:00] officer.
[00:15:00] Dr. Julia Shaw: Then if that police officer isn’t there,
[00:15:01] Ben Hurst: unless you’re hard.
[00:15:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: Unless, unless
[00:15:04] Ben Hurst: you’re an absolute hard nut, come on. Yeah. No.
[00:15:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right. So you’re correct. Yeah.
[00:15:10] Ben Hurst: Continue.
[00:15:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: Because, and especially if you think that that police officer can’t be bribed. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the [00:15:15] idea is there will be consequences now. And so a capable guardian is really important for environmental crimes as well, because we have these wide open natural spaces where.
[00:15:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: There is often a question of like, is anyone even watching? Is it even, are [00:15:30] people even able to see what’s going on here? Right. And that’s where things like satellite imaging comes in. That’s where, uh, I mean there’s all kinds of tech solutions, but also just rangers on the ground. Yeah. And police officers actually being there.
[00:15:39] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:39] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um.
[00:15:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so having a capable guardian who’s both able to detect the [00:15:45] crimes but also then does something about them. Mm-hmm. And there is some consequence that makes it less likely for people to commit it, like the police officer standing in front of someone. Right. Um, that is important. And so capable
[00:15:55] Ben Hurst: guardians can be, it sounds like we’re on a spectrum of police to.
[00:15:59] Ben Hurst: [00:16:00] Researchers, maybe I don’t, is there between, I guess anyone could a capable
[00:16:03] Maryam Pasha: guardian, right? I, or do they have to be viewed as one by a potential perpetrator? Yeah. So they have to be seen
[00:16:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: as guardians by a potential perpetrator. So yes, we can all, we can all be [00:16:15] capable guardians, but in theory, we aren’t all capable guardians.
[00:16:17] Ben Hurst: You have to putal.
[00:16:20] Maryam Pasha: Yes. Front the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like no one’s looking at Bruce Wynn and thinking, I need to do a bad thing in front of you. Can’t, I can’t steal this lady’s necklace.
[00:16:27] Ben Hurst: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or,
[00:16:28] Maryam Pasha: or this, this burn down this forest. [00:16:30]
[00:16:30] Ben Hurst: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:31] Maryam Pasha: The first thing in the rat theory, which is that there needs the rat theory, which is, um, that.
[00:16:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: To
[00:16:37] Maryam Pasha: drive you what it was. Uh, a potential victim. Yeah. So the first thing in this theory, the, the rat theory. Yeah. That there needs to be a potential victim. I [00:16:45] know this is a tangent, but I have to ask it. Is this why like, dehumanizing people or making something just like, like an animal, for example, objectifying,
[00:16:56] Ben Hurst: not.
[00:16:58] Maryam Pasha: Valuable Is [00:17:00] that, why is that part of this theory? Like if you, if you don’t view them as a victim, you then cannot commit a crime.
[00:17:06] Dr. Julia Shaw: So because it’s a criminological theory, it doesn’t really go into the psychological stuff. Okay. Um, what you’re talking about with dehumanization and uh, sort of how we [00:17:15] think about it with animals as well, that they’re not really creatures of Yeah.
[00:17:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: Even forest.
[00:17:19] Maryam Pasha: You know? Yeah, yeah. Commodifying, like if you think about something that if something cannot be a victim, then you cannot commit a crime against it. But
[00:17:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: that’s different. So that’s not a likely victim. That is a complete conceptual shift of [00:17:30] this isn’t a victim and this is and, and you. That’s where you move into issues of ownership.
[00:17:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right. And this is mine. This is ours. And that can be, this is mine. This is ours. You could even, I mean, if you. Go back in time a bit. Yeah, I agree to the 16 hundreds. Yeah. Um, you’ve got the Portuguese basically being like, God gave [00:17:45] us this and so it’s ours to do this as we want, right? Yes. Yeah. Um, and then they weaponize that also against indigenous peoples more like, yeah.
[00:17:51] Dr. Julia Shaw: But like, we’re here now, so it’s ours now. Yeah. And so like you see those sort of hybrid of maybe there is like a hint of reli religiosity that’s driving some of [00:18:00] that entitlement. Mm-hmm. Um, but then again, I also meant, uh, people. Like Susan Smith. Yeah. Who is an environmental lawyer in the United States, and she was talking about how her faith specifically pushed her into law and [00:18:15] environmental law because she wanted to protect the resources that God gave us.
[00:18:18] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. So that entitlement versus guardianship, that can go both ways for lots of reasons, but the most important thing that we have is psychological ownership over a place and a [00:18:30] resource. And it’s that if we are going to think of things as owned, that at least we feel like it’s something that is home.
[00:18:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: That it’s ours. That it’s ours to protect.
[00:18:38] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:18:39] Dr. Julia Shaw: Even better, you would argue, and a lot of indigenous peoples would argue, is that it’s not yours to own. [00:18:45] You live. You are part of nature, you’re part of this. It shouldn’t be that kind of transactional interaction.
[00:18:49] Maryam Pasha: I do think this idea of psychological ownership, e even though I do agree with you, that that’s a better place to get to, is a really interesting concept for me.
[00:18:56] Maryam Pasha: I think it’s one of the things that stands out from our conversations. ’cause it feels like [00:19:00] a, a stepping stone. Mm. It stands like a stepping stone for me as someone in a city to be able to get to that feeling of being part of, not apart from nature. Yeah. Is this idea of like, how do I, you are, you’re not in nature.
[00:19:11] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. So how do I like create psychological ownership as [00:19:15] a way to feeling part of nature. Anyway, again, tangent. But fascinating in the conversation we had, and it’s been like wrestling around my brain. Something else in the book.
[00:19:25] Six pillars of green crime
[00:19:25] Maryam Pasha: Um, are six pillars and we, throughout the last three episodes, we’ve kind of hinted at these six pillars of green crime.
[00:19:32] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm. Can, can you tell us what they are?
[00:19:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yes. So the six pillars of green crime I came up with because I was going through all of these environmental crimes and I kept thinking. What’s the pattern? Mm. And maybe that’s just me [00:19:45] trying to force things into, into something, but I just, we like
[00:19:48] Maryam Pasha: boxes. Yeah, we like
[00:19:49] Ben Hurst: patterns.
[00:19:49] Ben Hurst: I like pattern certain patterns. We like certain patterns. And it was feeling, so sorry. Did you create the, the term green crime? No. Was that already exists? That already existed? So
[00:19:57] Dr. Julia Shaw: green crime is a term from criminology.
[00:19:59] Ben Hurst: [00:20:00] Okay.
[00:20:00] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, and social scientists in general. Use it sometimes. Mm-hmm. Lawyers prefer the term environmental crime.
[00:20:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. Um, but I like green crime. ’cause it also, it sounds like true crime. Mm. Yeah. And that is very much what this book is trying to be
[00:20:10] Ben Hurst: politically. It’s closed that Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It’s true crime, but maybe green. But this is pillars you did make up. You, you [00:20:15] did come up with. Yes. So this
[00:20:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: exactly the six pillars I came up with, and they were also actually based off of a criminological theory.
[00:20:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: Okay. Um, which was looking at the antecedents. Of crime. And so it’s like the idea of, you know, why do crimes happen? Mm. And much like with routine activity theory, which we [00:20:30] were just talking about, right? Where you need a, a potential victim, a capable guardian, uh, or lack of capable guardian and a motivated offender.
[00:20:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. Um, criminology also talks about how there’s these factors that make it more likely that a crime will be committed like that. There’s just [00:20:45] stuff like, like the, the examples often used of like, you’re walking past a car. Mm. And like something’s just like readily available. And it’s sort of like tempting you and like temptations need to be there.
[00:20:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: There needs to be a lack of, again, a capable guardian. There’s system failures, there’s impunity. And so I took that and I turned it [00:21:00] into the psychological version of that. ’cause criminologists work with systems. Mm. Whereas typically and psychologists work with individuals. Mm-hmm. And so this book as well sort of goes between the two.
[00:21:09] Dr. Julia Shaw: But I always bring it back to individuals. ’cause ultimately. You know, it’s not systems who are destroying the planet, it’s [00:21:15] people. And we, I think we need to understand the people because otherwise it gets into this nebulous thing of what is who or what is a system. Yeah. And so I’m like, well, they’re people.
[00:21:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. And so the six pillars of green crime are ease, [00:21:30] impunity, which is either actual impunity, you’re getting away with things or perceived impunity.
[00:21:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:21:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: There’s greed, which is the one that everyone jumps to. Mm-hmm. There’s, uh, rationalization, which is. Oh, I’m not really that bad. Or you know, some sort of [00:21:45] excuse that you make for yourself often that you might believe.
[00:21:47] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:47] Dr. Julia Shaw: Then there’s conformity, which is everyone else is doing it too, and so it doesn’t really matter. And then there’s the last one, which is desperation. So to me, those are the six pillars, and I call them pillars because I don’t think of them as hierarchical. Mm-hmm. [00:22:00] I think they’re all sort of present.
[00:22:01] Dr. Julia Shaw: And if you tumble any of them, a lot of these systems, and now we’re back to systems. Um. Of green crime will not be possible. Okay. So if you have, if you don’t have impunity, if you don’t have desperation, if you don’t [00:22:15] have vulnerable people, you can exploit If you don’t have any one of them, and you could typically take down the whole thing.
[00:22:20] Maryam Pasha: What’s interesting is that none of them are being evil.
[00:22:22] Ben Hurst: Yeah, yeah. None of them are being an asshole. Like none
[00:22:24] Maryam Pasha: of them is like, I am a bad person and therefore I just do these things. No, but I’m, I’m very anti the term evil, [00:22:30] even though I wrote a book called Making Evil.
[00:22:31] Understanding the perpetrators of environmental crime
[00:22:31] Maryam Pasha: But I do think like there’s, there’s a feeling.
[00:22:35] Maryam Pasha: Do you know, and this, I guess, is not limited to green crime, but I’m sure you come across it a lot, which is this thing of like, when we hear about these horrible things being done, [00:22:45] um, we’re so affected by them. We’re so disgusted by them that we just think, well, those people are just evil. Those people are just bad.
[00:22:54] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm. Like, you know, and I, I’ve always felt like I understand that gut. [00:23:00] Like I also will see things in the world and just think. These people are bad
[00:23:03] Ben Hurst: people, you know, how
[00:23:04] Maryam Pasha: could they
[00:23:05] Ben Hurst: do this? Oil executives are bad people in my mind. You know, in your mind. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:09] Maryam Pasha: Like, I think I would, I would venture to say that there are heads [00:23:15] of state who I feel this way about, but I, I also know that that is not helpful.
[00:23:21] Maryam Pasha: No. ’cause it does not allow us to ever really understand or prevent, or, you know, like.
[00:23:27] Dehumanization and its impact on justice
[00:23:27] Maryam Pasha: So is part of these six pillars to help us move away from this. Just like these people are bad people, they’re doing bad things, kind of thing, and it’s always
[00:23:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: disagreed.
[00:23:35] Maryam Pasha: Yes. So the
[00:23:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: subtitle, ’cause it is
[00:23:37] Maryam Pasha: there, but it’s not the only pillar and it’s not hierarchical.
[00:23:40] Maryam Pasha: Right? Yeah.
[00:23:41] Dr. Julia Shaw: Well in green crime. It is now called subtitled inside the [00:23:45] minds of the people destroying the planet and how to stop them. But my alt subtitle was, it’s not just greed, green crime. It’s not just greed. Yeah.
[00:23:53] The role of organized crime in environmental destruction
[00:23:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, and there is that caricature of the environmental criminal, which often we think of as the heads of like CEOs or heads of certain companies actually, rather than organized crime bosses.
[00:24:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: And, you know, the, all the kinds of perpetrators I’m talking about in the book and. I wrote the book partly because this is something I was seeing is as someone who’s written a book on evil, which [00:24:15] was deconstructing things that we often term evil. The whole point of the book was to say, we need to stop dehumanizing the perpetrators of crime.
[00:24:22] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:24:23] Dr. Julia Shaw: And instead understand why they’re actually doing this. Because it’s really easy to say this serial killer, this uh, [00:24:30] sexual offender, this whatever is evil. And that’s the end of the conversation. Because what you’re saying is this person is so different from me that I don’t need to bother to understand them.
[00:24:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: ’cause I never will. Yeah. Instead of going, why did this person actually commit the crimes going on? We can prevent it. Yeah. And the same dis true environment, there’s discomfort [00:24:45] in an environmental crime, you have exactly the same. Yeah. Where there, there’s a really quick, possibly even more so I think because we have less true crime about environmental crime, there’s something immediate dehumanizing that
[00:24:54] Ben Hurst: fills.
[00:24:55] Ben Hurst: That, that kind of position of understanding [00:25:00] does something to impede justice.
[00:25:03] Maryam Pasha: Mm.
[00:25:03] Ben Hurst: Do you know what I mean? Like for me there’s a feeling of like, I don’t care why you did it. Yeah. I just want punishment. Like I just, and I, and I know there’s also another part of me that knows well, kind of fills that that’s [00:25:15] not correct, but is that.
[00:25:17] Ben Hurst: Like some kind of weird psychological phenomenon that happens in the mind of, of an onlooker to some kind of crime that’s happening where you think I don’t like, or Yeah. I dunno. Is [00:25:30] understanding, uh, does it let people off the hook, you know,
[00:25:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: uh, to, to not call them evil? Hmm. I, I think it’s, uh. I can understand where you’re coming from also, because the sort of tough on crime view also often stems from this, right?
[00:25:44] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. [00:25:45] Of like, you need to punish them. You need to, yeah. Also send a message to society that we don’t stand for this. This kind of behavior. Exactly. This isn’t okay, and you wanna dish out this term and be like, no, this isn’t just bad, this is evil. This is beyond bad. So I can understand why. [00:26:00] This conversation happens a lot of, you know, don’t we need these words?
[00:26:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: Hmm. But I, I mean, as someone who is also quite skeptical of prisons, because they don’t have the intended effects that I think we should have, which is making society safer. [00:26:15] Of course. Yeah. Basically ever, even the idea that we, like put people in prisons and go, well, we’ve tackled violence. It’s like, no, you’ve just put it into a house.
[00:26:22] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. You just, and now the violence is just all there. And then they come out and there’s more of like, what? You haven’t solved anything. You’ve just sort of. Paused it for us. Pause it. [00:26:30] Yeah, pause it for yourself. Kind of, yeah. Increased
[00:26:32] Ben Hurst: it because yes, all of the people who are perpetrating violence are now experiencing more violence.
[00:26:37] Ben Hurst: Right, yeah. Which
[00:26:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: makes them mor and most people will be released from prison at some point. Yeah. Which makes ’em, again, Aris to you. So like it’s, it’s a really bad system I think most of the time. Not to say [00:26:45] that anyway, it punishment, it’s a whole episode. Yeah, the whole episode. But for me, I, I care more about what motivates people and to have the conversation around.
[00:26:55] Dr. Julia Shaw: How did they get here? Because I also think every single one of us is capable of engaging in crimes [00:27:00] and that includes environmental crimes. And I think if you don’t try to empathize with and understand and reconstruct the steps that someone took psychologically and and otherwise and practically yeah, to get to the position they’re in, in terms of committing an environmental crime, then you are [00:27:15] not going to notice when you are going down that same path.
[00:27:17] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah,
[00:27:17] Maryam Pasha: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what I care
[00:27:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: about is. Saving the planet. Yeah, I like this. Whatever justice means. That’s sort of this hazy thing anyway. Yeah, and I, I don’t really care about it really. It’s
[00:27:27] Ben Hurst: not a finger point in activity. No. I just care about
[00:27:29] Maryam Pasha: stopping
[00:27:29] Dr. Julia Shaw: it.
[00:27:29] Maryam Pasha: [00:27:30] When we first started, when we first started this podcast, that you always like, I just wanna point the figure and Yeah.
[00:27:35] Maryam Pasha: I just need to
[00:27:35] Ben Hurst: know who the person is. Like the person, the let’s hate them. Yeah, but you get that in my book. You do
[00:27:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: get people you can point at. Okay, good.
[00:27:43] Ben Hurst: Well, I’ll read it. There are [00:27:45] specific individuals.
[00:27:46] Maryam Pasha: I don’t call them evil though, notably I’ll do that. So what’s interesting is you do. You talk about organized crime in the book and corporate, like, like take us through some of the.
[00:27:54] Maryam Pasha: Take us through some of the, the, I guess, categories maybe of, of who we’re looking at here. [00:28:00] ’cause if it’s not just all the heads of fossil fuel companies, which I’m devastated by actually, that the whole book is not just about them.
[00:28:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: Is there any head of a, there is one head of a fossil fuel company there,
[00:28:10] Maryam Pasha: is there eye checks, but.[00:28:15]
[00:28:15] Maryam Pasha: Oh, oh. Like will you take us through some of the, the people you found who were committing these crimes?
[00:28:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. I think as well, I wanted to not just write a book about white collar crime. Right. Which ends up being, again, where the conversation often takes us. Yes. In terms of environmental crime and what I found [00:28:30] surprising.
[00:28:30] Dr. Julia Shaw: Is that there is, there are these organized crime groups that are involved and it’s sometimes, it is in fact the same people who do drug smuggling and people smuggling and weapon smuggling. They also engage in like wildlife crime.
[00:28:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:28:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, and smuggling of various kinds of [00:28:45] endangered wood or animals. Um.
[00:28:47] The fight against illegal fishing
[00:28:47] Dr. Julia Shaw: But it’s also that, so in addition to this sort of gang like element and you get people with AK 40, you get like fights between rangers, Rangers on the front lines are, are getting killed. They’re also killing people who are trying to poach the [00:29:00] animals. I mean, it’s this real, some would say war. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um. And then you’ve got, uh, illegal fishermen. You’ve got people on the high seas who are basically pirates who are just draining the ocean of, of fish. Mm-hmm. And I spoke with Peter hammered, [00:29:15] captain Peter hammered, who is, this is a good name. Captain Peter. Captain, like he, his whole life, he.
[00:29:21] Ben Hurst: Captain. Yeah.
[00:29:22] Ben Hurst: Named him. He is, his parents named him to be a
[00:29:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: captain.
[00:29:25] Ben Hurst: One of the few people who’s arrived at to the rescue.
[00:29:29] Dr. Julia Shaw: But he [00:29:30] is very much one of the heroes in this book. I mean it’s, it’s obviously a big word, but one of the capable guardians. Yes. Who is the captain of this ship. And there he’s part of an organization called Sea Shepherd,
[00:29:41] Dr. Julia Shaw: which.
[00:29:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: Founded by the co-founder of Greenpeace [00:29:45] and the idea was to get eyes on the oceans. Right. And initially, quite a lot of what they were tackling was wailing, illegal. Wailing, which you very much associate right? With like early days of Greenpeace. Yeah, I do anyway. Yes, yes, yes. Um, and
[00:29:56] Ben Hurst: oh, I thought you were gonna say with um, Moby Dick.
[00:29:58] Maryam Pasha: Well, that too, but Yeah. [00:30:00] Yeah. Like wha Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:01] Ben Hurst: Whaling, fighting.
[00:30:02] Maryam Pasha: Whaling. Exactly. But I do, I think Greenpeace has a few things that it’s iconic for, and fighting whaling is definitely one of them. Yeah. It’s one of them.
[00:30:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: Exactly. And so Sea Shepherd was also a, originally mostly involved in that, but also other, uh, other fish crimes.[00:30:15]
[00:30:15] Dr. Julia Shaw: They’re called Fish crimes. Fish,
[00:30:17] Ben Hurst: which is a serious matter. It is for anybody listening at home. But yeah, it does make me think of a little fish
[00:30:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: holding a gun. Yeah. Yeah. I also, every time I hear it. Saying, no, no, no, no. Fish cry. Fish cry. [00:30:30] Anyway, that is a whole show, man. Uh,
[00:30:33] Maryam Pasha: and you heard it here first. Yes.
[00:30:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: But Sea Shepherd and Captain Hammer said have this ship called the Bob Barker, which is named after a talk show host of, uh, the prices right in the states. The
[00:30:43] Ben Hurst: Barker,
[00:30:44] Dr. Julia Shaw: the Bob, [00:30:45] Bob Barker, Barker,
[00:30:45] Ben Hurst: Bob Barker Rack. Come
[00:30:46] Dr. Julia Shaw: on. The price is right, the price is right. Come on down. And he, he bought the ship. For the organization.
[00:30:51] Dr. Julia Shaw: No, that’s why I’m saying that. That’s
[00:30:52] Maryam Pasha: so sweet. There’s another reason to like Bob
[00:30:55] Dr. Julia Shaw: and on the Bob Barker cat and Peter Hammered, chased a notorious [00:31:00] fishing vessel called The Thunder. Oh.
[00:31:01] Dr. Julia Shaw: And they had
[00:31:02] Dr. Julia Shaw: Interpol who was helping them. And I spoke with the Interpol agent who was helping on the case. I spoke with the cat captain and Peter Hammer said, who was doing this chase through the Antarctic waters for 110 days.
[00:31:12] Dr. Julia Shaw: Whoa. Until the. Illegal [00:31:15] fishermen ultimately sank on purpose, their own ship, and
[00:31:19] Ben Hurst: to get rid of the evidence.
[00:31:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: To get rid of the evidence. And a couple of the crew went on board the, the ship that was already sinking to get the evidence. And so they’d, and they had to take [00:31:30] on the crew. So they’d been following this enemy, enemy ship, if you will, for 110 days.
[00:31:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: They sink their own boat. What happens when you’re in the middle of the ocean and your boat starts to sink? You put out a mayday call. It’s maritime law that you have to respond to a mayday call as [00:31:45] the closest vessel and. Who’s the closest vessel? Yeah. Chasing, chasing Bob. Bark One. The one chasing him.
[00:31:49] Dr. Julia Shaw: Chasing. So they had to take on this crew of like 40 people and they had to, they were like cutting off like the really different ladders. I wish those of you who were
[00:31:57] Maryam Pasha: listening to this podcast and not watching it could [00:32:00] see Ben’s face. Sorry. They were,
[00:32:02] Dr. Julia Shaw: they were cutting off the ladders so they couldn’t like climb between the different decks.
[00:32:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: They, they brought in their sister ship to like, make sure they, they created a floating citadel is what they said. Wow.
[00:32:10] Ben Hurst: Where they had to like
[00:32:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: contain this huge crew. On of
[00:32:13] Ben Hurst: criminals.
[00:32:14] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah, yeah. Power [00:32:15] or people they were chasing at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On their ship. And then bring them and bring them to shore.
[00:32:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: And meanwhile, crew from their ship was climbing onto this sinking ship. Like, this is a huge ship that’s sinking. You don’t
[00:32:25] Maryam Pasha: wanna be caught in it.
[00:32:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: You don’t wanna be caught in it. And they’re, they’re just like grabbing all the SB [00:32:30] stakes and grabbing, and they. Take like a frozen fish, a Patagonian tooth fish, which is what these guys were fishing, uh, also known as Chilean sea bass, which you might have eaten, and they’re taking out this frozen fish, which then heavily Chile.
[00:32:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: I know I don’t eat
[00:32:44] Maryam Pasha: [00:32:45] seafood, but I’ve
[00:32:45] Dr. Julia Shaw: seen it on the menu. And this, this fish ends up going to brayman in Germany. And they have to, they can’t break the chain of custody for this fish. ’cause like with police evidence, you can’t like let it out of police custody. Right. ’cause then it could be [00:33:00] tampered with or contaminated.
[00:33:01] Dr. Julia Shaw: Get lost. And so this fish is being held by the German police force and the interplay has to fly to Germany to pick up this fish. Mm-hmm. And they’re basically traveling with all eyes on the fish at all times.
[00:33:14] Ben Hurst: Was the fish, [00:33:15] was the fish frozen the whole time?
[00:33:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: But I’m just, I think it’s, it’s such a. Funny like image of having this Interpol agent who normally deals with other kinds of severe organized crime as well.
[00:33:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: Like, like making sure that he’s in custody of this fish at all. This is
[00:33:29] Ben Hurst: [00:33:30] crazy. This sounds like a comic book that I read. This is like, yeah, pirates and Fishes and, I mean its, this is nuts.
[00:33:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: It is. It’s, it’s mad. But Captain Peter Hammer said, and Sea Shepherd really made sure that these guys were held accountable and that they stopped.
[00:33:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: Pulling these fish out of the seas. Wow. And using these [00:33:45] incredibly destructive fishing beasts.
[00:33:46] Ben Hurst: Imagine being a pirate and getting caught by a shit bark. I know what as well. It has a, a shark,
[00:33:51] Maryam Pasha: shark
[00:33:51] Dr. Julia Shaw: face
[00:33:52] Maryam Pasha: paint as well. But you know what’s cool about this book? I think, um, about the stories you tell, and, and I’m sure you’ve done this on purpose, but I just wanna name it, is that [00:34:00] the crimes are all like, you’re just kinda like, ugh.
[00:34:03] Maryam Pasha: But they’re, they’re success. Like they are stories where. We both can learn from them. Mm. But also things have been in, in some cases things have been stopped
[00:34:13] Dr. Julia Shaw: in all of them.
[00:34:14] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. I mean, I [00:34:15] guess I’m thinking of oil spill still happen, but like, you know, with the exception, but, but still, like they are successful, I would classify them as wins.
[00:34:23] Maryam Pasha: I would classify them as things that help us understand. It’s not inevitable that these things just [00:34:30] happen and there’s nothing we can do about it.
[00:34:31] Dr. Julia Shaw: In every single one of these six cases, they, there are remarkable twists and turns, I think. Yeah. Well,
[00:34:37] Maryam Pasha: we, as we have discovered and, and we don’t even talk about the fish case in our episodes.
[00:34:42] Ben Hurst: Oh my gosh, why didn’t we talk about that one? [00:34:45]
[00:34:45] Maryam Pasha: You gotta read the book guys. What are the stories? You gotta read the book. You gotta read the
[00:34:48] Dr. Julia Shaw: book. And, uh, and in addition to that, you learn about these worlds of the people who are fighting for the planet in very different ways, in very different contexts.
[00:34:56] Dr. Julia Shaw: And you’re right, that the, the categories of crimes in [00:35:00] all of these, I mean, the reason I chose these six cases also, that they represent different kinds of. Environmental crimes. Mm-hmm. So we’ve got the emissions crime chapter. We’ve so air and air pollution. Then you’ve got, uh, deforestation and biodiversity loss and, and the murder of environmental defenders.
[00:35:13] Dr. Julia Shaw: Then you’ve got [00:35:15] overfishing. You’ve got the chapter on mining and illegal gold mining. You’ve got the chapter on oil, oil and gas. And oil spills. You’ve got the chapter on wildlife crimes of animals. Mm-hmm. And so the idea was, I’m taking you through these different kinds of nature as well, and you [00:35:30] also meet these different kinds of capable guardians throughout who work in jobs that you maybe didn’t realize existed.
[00:35:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: I didn’t know existed.
[00:35:37] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm. And there were a lot more, right. You could have included, oh, there’s so many there. Like you were just like, oh, there’s only six crimes ever.
[00:35:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: No, but what I liked about these is that they, they needed to be quite [00:35:45] meaty. ’cause they, they’re big chapters, like they’re, they’re meaty chapters.
[00:35:48] Dr. Julia Shaw: And I can get into some of the legal stuff and the history of the ideas of how do we think about protecting the environment now, why do we think that some things are okay to destroy and others are not. Mm-hmm. How do we get to laws that protect the environment? [00:36:00] And some of the backgrounds of those are really weird.
[00:36:02] Dr. Julia Shaw: So like, I didn’t know that we got to like the, the way we talk about endangered species via. Birds. Mm. Like the, the earliest environmental protection laws were around birds, basically. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, and so [00:36:15] I, I liked piecing that together, but all of them are success stories and that the specific case, people are held accountable.
[00:36:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: They all have court cases, which also meant that I could more reliably tell these stories. Right. Yeah.
[00:36:26] Maryam Pasha: Because that’s something to say is that like all of this research you’ve done everything, [00:36:30] it’s. It’s like credible. It’s like based on It’s real. It’s real. Yeah. It’s not stuff that you’ve had to guess at everything
[00:36:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: is, yeah.
[00:36:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: Everything is established in a court, or I’m speaking to the experts who are the ones who are taking,
[00:36:41] Maryam Pasha: holding them
[00:36:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: accountable.
[00:36:43] The importance of psychology in environmental protection
[00:36:43] Maryam Pasha: Let me ask you, as a [00:36:45] criminal psychologist, w. Having written now and researched this piece, what role do you think psychology or, or plays in helping fight the climate crisis?
[00:36:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: I think we have a huge role.
[00:36:54] Dr. Julia Shaw: ’cause ultimately what you need to change is the minds of people who are in these positions where they are [00:37:00] making a decision as to whether or not they want to harm or not the planet. And certainly in corporations, if we go back to that, you have people who are like there. There will be moments where someone has in front of them a spreadsheet.
[00:37:13] Dr. Julia Shaw: And they now need to [00:37:15] decide, yeah. Do we do the right thing or do we not? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:37:17] Maryam Pasha: Yeah.
[00:37:18] Dr. Julia Shaw: And the question is how do we make sure in the mind of that person, they are now going to make the right decision?
[00:37:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: And that is a question of psychology. It’s also a question of finances and other things like [00:37:30] external factors.
[00:37:30] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right? But the thing that as a psychologist I’m interested in is how do we get that person to do the right thing? And so. That’s one point of intervention that is happening. And there are psychologists who are dealing with this, and I talk about some of them in the book. Mm-hmm. And there’s quite a [00:37:45] lot of research also in terms of not just me mm-hmm.
[00:37:47] Dr. Julia Shaw: Learning about these cases, but also researchers. So scientific research on things like biospheric values, like how do we get people to value the planet more? Mm-hmm. How do we, uh, change behavior? How do we. Think about [00:38:00] choice architecture and like how the world around us is constructed and how do we make sure that we make better choices?
[00:38:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: How do we change our mind?
[00:38:06] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: Specifically related to environmental issues. Mm-hmm. And so that, those, those are all psychological pieces. What I found shocking [00:38:15] is that basically everybody I spoke with and I spoke with people at the UN doing this research. I spoke with, uh, criminologists so that you veer into social science for sure.
[00:38:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right. Um, but I also spoke with, uh, lawyers, environmental lawyers. I spoke with. Regulators [00:38:30] and people on the front lines, and most of them had never spoken to a psychologist.
[00:38:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:38:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: And I was like, that’s a problem. We need to be talking to each other. We need to be sharing what we know from criminal psychology and other psychology.[00:38:45]
[00:38:45] Dr. Julia Shaw: To share that so that you could intervene strategically more effectively? Yeah. Yeah. And that, that needs to change. Mm. We need more exchange between social scientists and earth scientists. And also we need more exchange between social scientists and policy makers. Mm.
[00:38:59] Maryam Pasha: And I [00:39:00] would suggest social scientists and communications people.
[00:39:03] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. ’cause a lot of that can be driven more effectively. And if we understood those, the, the, the, the psychological mechanisms behind why certain things work and certain stories and certain messages work.
[00:39:14] Dr. Julia Shaw: [00:39:15] And again, it, I don’t wanna undersell the people who are in fact doing that already. So, like series cam, who I met at the environmental education.
[00:39:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. This is such an incredible example.
[00:39:22] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. Um, was there anything that you learned, any psychological concept, uh, idea that you learned while you were. Working [00:39:30] on this book that really kind of like surprised and delighted you.
[00:39:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: Surprised and delighted. Oh, so many things. Surprised and delighted me. But one thing that I, so I went to the UN Conference on corruption,
[00:39:42] Ben Hurst: CUSP
[00:39:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: acronyms.
[00:39:44] Ben Hurst: There are so [00:39:45] many acronyms. What? There, there are cusp. Yeah.
[00:39:49] Dr. Julia Shaw: Class. I don’t know
[00:39:50] Ben Hurst: di.
[00:39:50] Dr. Julia Shaw: I went to both COP and ssp, um, which are both UN conferences. Mm-hmm.
[00:39:55] The impact of corruption on environmental crime
[00:39:55] Dr. Julia Shaw: And what I was surprised by is corruption as the, it was called the universal facilitator of environmental crime. And. I hadn’t really thought about corruption.
[00:40:08] Dr. Julia Shaw: No. For some reason. And as soon as it was said, I was like, oh yeah,
[00:40:12] Ben Hurst: that’s a big, yeah, that’s [00:40:15] definitely part of it. Yeah.
[00:40:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: And as long as you have corruption at, of border guards, of rangers, of police officers of Right. People. And public governments. Of public officials, because that’s who can be corrupted. Uh, or who’s corruptible in the way we talk about corruption.
[00:40:28] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:40:28] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, as long as people can be [00:40:30] bribed, paid off, whatever, look the other way, there is going to be. More environmental crime. Yeah. And, and so what they were talking about is also, and this is where psychology came, came in. Um, they were talking about that we need to stop this. And my [00:40:45] mind went, there’s a whole body of research on corruptibility.
[00:40:49] Maryam Pasha: Mm. And
[00:40:50] Dr. Julia Shaw: so I was learning. Specifically in the context of environmental crime, that there is some specific research on what makes people more likely to accept bribes, [00:41:00] including regulators. Mm-hmm. Like there’s actual direct research with regulators, usually regulators who are no longer working. Right. ’cause they’d be too worried about the consequences.
[00:41:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: And the question is, why? Well, A, were you corrupt at any point? Right. And BY And the answers to Y [00:41:15] are not what you’d expect. Well, so I would expect that it’s. Because someone was giving me some money, money, money. And so yeah, it was cash and that was rarely, I mean, that was part of the answer, but that was rarely the answer.
[00:41:27] Dr. Julia Shaw: A lot of it was because [00:41:30] in my organization, my manager told me that I had to be corrupt because he needed to. He wanted to cut of the bribes. He wanted to, he wanted to cut.
[00:41:39] Ben Hurst: Oh,
[00:41:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: he or she wanted to cut. And so the idea was that you’ve got in these public officials. [00:41:45] Like categories. So whether it’s police or regulators, you’ve got the person, the manager is the crucial part of that.
[00:41:51] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. Where they go, well, I’m corrupt and now you need to be corrupt as well. And part of that is making sure that if I get caught, you go down with me.
[00:41:59] Maryam Pasha: Yes.
[00:41:59] Dr. Julia Shaw: So [00:42:00] there’s a bit of that, like safety in numbers is like you need to be corrupt now as well. Mm-hmm. Because otherwise if you tell on me, then you’ll keep the, your liability.
[00:42:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the other thing is that I want my cut. And so if you don’t give me my cut, I’m either not gonna promote you at any point. Mm. I’m gonna let you go, or [00:42:15] I am going to, in other ways, threaten you.
[00:42:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:17] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so they would say, even when I didn’t, like, I didn’t wanna accept bribes, but I literally felt like I couldn’t mm-hmm.
[00:42:23] Dr. Julia Shaw: Because of the norms in my organization and also the pressure and the, the threats from above. How
[00:42:28] Ben Hurst: crazy is that? And so a
[00:42:29] Dr. Julia Shaw: lot of [00:42:30] it isn’t just. Also like paying people more that there were literally experiments where they’re just like, what if we just pay people more? And that didn’t work because as long as you have the managers being like, no, we still want our cut of the bribes.
[00:42:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I get more plus more. Exactly. Why would I
[00:42:44] Ben Hurst: just get [00:42:45] more? Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. So
[00:42:46] Dr. Julia Shaw: it has to be a psychological intervention. And this is where Corruptibility, for me also became a really important factor that I talk about in the book, uh, especially in the chapter on illegal mining.
[00:42:56] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:42:58] Ben Hurst: Last question. Mm-hmm. [00:43:00] I’m sure that when you’re writing things like this, I would assume that when you write a book like this and you spend three years doing research, it has some kind of impact on you, on a personal level or on a professional level in the way that you think about things, um, and the way that you process what’s going [00:43:15] on around you in the world.
[00:43:16] Ben Hurst: Would you say there’s any ways that this book has changed you? The way that you see stuff, the way that you approach things, uh, has it had any impact on, on you as a person?
[00:43:27] Personal reflections and the power of hope
[00:43:27] Dr. Julia Shaw: Writing this book has [00:43:30] fundamentally changed me.
[00:43:31] Ben Hurst: Wow.
[00:43:31] Dr. Julia Shaw: And for the better, I think where I now understand. Both the environmental science minds, like why we should care about various aspects of environmental crime and just what’s happening in the world around us.
[00:43:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: Because I also spoke with [00:43:45] scientists who are researching, for example, nitrous oxides who are researching biodiversity laws, who are experts on the specific thing that’s happening. Mm-hmm. And I, I met all of these incredible people who are working so hard [00:44:00] all the time, who are incredibly intelligent and.
[00:44:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: I think meeting these people, these heroes, for lack of a better word, these capable guardians. Mm. Um, is it, it, it’s really inspiring and it is really motivating and it makes it. [00:44:15] It made me really angry at the press.
[00:44:18] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: Because why aren’t we hearing their stories? Yeah. Why don’t we know about this? Yeah.
[00:44:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: Why is all, why are we just getting doom and gloom when there are hundreds of thousands of people who are out there [00:44:30] right now fighting for us? Yeah. Um, I mean, and that’s just like, just in environmental law, there’s hundreds of thousands of people nevermind in, in research and science and all these other categories.
[00:44:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. And so that’s where. I feel frankly [00:44:45] reborn. Yeah. Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. Like it, it felt hopeless before, and now it doesn’t feel hopeless. Yeah. And now whenever anyone says, you know, we’re doomed. I’m like, don’t say that. Yeah. Also, you, you are doing a disservice to these incredible people. Yeah.
[00:44:57] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:44:57] Ben Hurst: They’re not hopeless. They’re not hopeless. And we’re not [00:45:00] hopeless. They’re winning. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we need
[00:45:01] Maryam Pasha: to celebrate them and not pretend that they don’t exist. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. Love. I think we’ve probably felt the same. Yeah. On this going into this podcast with the same feelings you’ve felt when you started writing this book and now of
[00:45:13] Ben Hurst: like, there’s not, there’s nothing, there’s no [00:45:15] solution to that’re like, oh my gosh.
[00:45:16] Ben Hurst: There’s literally solutions. There’s Yeah. Solutions. Yeah. And we can
[00:45:18] Dr. Julia Shaw: adopt them and we can steal ’em from other countries. Look at what they’re doing in all these
[00:45:21] Maryam Pasha: different countries. Yeah. Yeah. It’s incredible. Julia, thank you for writing this book. Mm-hmm. Uh, thank you for sharing these with us in these episodes.
[00:45:29] Maryam Pasha: [00:45:30] Mm-hmm. And for talking with us.
[00:45:31] Conclusion
[00:45:31] Maryam Pasha: Uh, Green Crime is now out. You can buy it wherever you buy your books. Um, Dr. Julia Shaw, thank you for joining us. And remember,
[00:45:39] Ben Hurst: Stay curious.
[00:45:43] Maryam Pasha: Thank you for joining us this week. We [00:45:45] really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.
[00:45:46] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure that you get next week’s releases.
[00:45:51] Ben Hurst: While you’re at it, please leave a rating and a review.
[00:45:54] Maryam Pasha: Now let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the pod
[00:45:58] Ben Hurst: Executive Produced by Josie [00:46:00] Colter,
[00:46:00] Maryam Pasha: Produced by Ben Beheshty.
[00:46:02] Ben Hurst: Music, also by Ben Beheshty,
[00:46:04] Maryam Pasha: Communications by Tara Cooper and Izzy Gladston.
[00:46:07] Ben Hurst: Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[00:46:09] Maryam Pasha: hosted by Ben Hurst.
[00:46:11] Ben Hurst: I’m Maryam Pasha, and remember, stay [00:46:15] curious.
