Every major environmental issue arises on a global as well as local scale. In particular, the central questions revolve around the use and distribution of vital, but dwindling resources of food, energy, and water. Access to and control over these resources raise fundamental questions about the paths to global development, poverty alleviation, and the capacity of individuals and nations to secure the basic requirements for decent human lives. They are, therefore, inherently matters of global justice.

Philosophers dealing with issues of justice need data and a solid grasp of the way the world works. Policy makers and generators of empirical data benefit from normative frameworks that can enrich our understanding of the way food, energy, and water production on a global scale is changing both the natural environment and the basic modes of human interaction. 

This site is designed for interested readers from all backgrounds. Entries are updated several times each week. Suggestions are welcome and indeed essential to the aims of this website. 
  • To learn more about the FEW Problem and why it poses issues of global justice, click the link to The FEW Problem. 
  • To learn more about the website's philosophical approach, click links to About This Site and The Twin Aims of Justice.
  • For specific topics and general overviews, click the Pull-Down Menu Bar above or the Button Links Column below.

 How to Use and Navigate this Website

     Page Links

This website debuted on January 25, 2013. It contains more than 450 unique entries, arranged under 31 topic headings, organized within 5 overarching subject headings, with over 1350 external links. There are two ways to access the entries. You can click on the Pull-Down Menu Bar Above or click on the Page Link Buttons on the right. You can also use the search function at the top of each page in order to access all of the pages in which a specific topic is discussed.

Each entry is designed to be read as a freestanding discussion of an environmental issue of global significance. The entries on each topic page are arranged in a narrative format that can be read from start to finish, beginning with elementary expositions of key concepts suitable for a general audience and increasing in complexity and detail for those who wish to pursue issues in more depth. 

Each topic page concludes with discussions of materials that should be of interest to a wide audience of scholars, policy makers, and activists who value interdisciplinary discussions of pressing environmental issues from perspectives supplied by theoretical approaches to global justice. 

Each topic page also can be read as part of a larger narrative within the overarching subject headings, and the entire website can be read as a continuous work, beginning with the explanatory tabs, "About this Site" and "The FEW Problem," and turning next to any of the subject matter headings of most interest to each reader. 

The site is designed as a book length work (currently over 170,000 words) that can be used simply as a reference guide by reading entries in more or less encyclopedic fashion, or it can be used as a primer on various interconnected issues of global justice and the environment and a basis for further exploration. However, the web format has one advantage over a traditional book. It is designed to be updated frequently with new entries as well as revisions and supplements to existing entries. 

Moreover, the website is not conceived as a journalistic enterprise, driven by current events or an editorial ambition to post timely responses and commentary in the way environmental blogs typically do. While newsworthy items often prompt new entries and revisions of old ones, the primary goal is to maintain a web resource that has a large and expanding core with wide coverage of matters of enduring significance.