Traditional views of global environmental politics take the structures and relations of international politics as a given. Solutions to environmental problems, then, must be products of concession, negotiations, and inevitable compromise--a world of top-down planetary management. Lipschutz and Stabinsky challenge students to question these conventional approaches. They argue that much light can be shed on global environmental degradation if we look beyond the mechanics of conflict and cooperation and explore environmental problems from their very roots. Weaving in analysis of contemporary environmental issues--including the electronics industry, biological diversity, forests, food systems, and climate change--with a sensitivity to what is political and what is not, the authors illustrate the effects of globalization and capitalism, and how they shape contemporary approaches to both explaining and acting on those matters. They make the link between the local and global to show how we, through everyday practices, are both consumers of goods and producers of pollution. And, they argue that, in an era of weak and stagnating environmental policy and protection but greater-than-ever change, it is still possible, through collective action, to change global environmental politics-as-usual.