BBecker- Environmental Justice

In her final chapters Shrader-Frechette poses possible reasons people may raise for not being held responsible for participating in a system that exploits others, as well as reasons for why they are not responsible for action.  Much like her conclusions in other books it focuses on the responsibility of people of power to take action and make changes.  While I understand it is not Shrader-Frechette telling me what I am to do, I do feel like her responses need to be narrowed to be more applicable.  While it is true that everyone should act morally and work to remove the injustices we find in our society, it would be more helpful if she could present options for people of different statuses.  Yes by not being one of the people who is being taken advantage of I am considered privilidged.  However, I am not priviledge like someone who has a job and is not restricted by student loans, and lack of income.  I, therefore do not have the same level of mobility in my choice of actions.  I am limited mainly by my financial status, but also by my committment as a student in the effectiveness of my ability to change the system.  I do not have the freedom to shop at more expensive but ethical stores.  I do not have the ability to currently change who is elected to power positions.  I also do not have the ability or option of changing the system in which business is given so much control over its regulatory status.

What I do have though is the ability to critically analyze my future actions.  When I do have disposable income, when I do have a job in the science or law field, when I do have the ability to critically assess every election choice I will make choices based on the information which I have taken from this course.  This applies critically for me because I will be going into the job market in a field that directly correlates to this problem.  As a future scientist or environmental lawyer I will be dealing with these issues on a daily basis.  I will possibly be put in a position similar to the people I have read about in this book and I will have to make the decisions to be a moral person or a self-interested problem.  To avoid this I will look critically at the businesses for which I work before I apply which will limit my employment options. Knowing what I do now has helped me see how my life is directly and indirectly affected by the systems of injustice in which I am inexplicably a part.  While these readings and the class discussions have helped unpack the ideas presented, it is going to be some time before I am able to take advantage of the information which I have derived.  When that time comes I will be forced to make the tough decisions that wil not always be apparent.  Also, I sincerely hope to carry this information with me to my family and friends and show them how ignorant they are just as I was before this course.

The next chapters answer most of the questions posed after reading the first two.  The main reason businesses have so much power is tha they are the ones who control the information that governs business itself.  Scientists are the ones who provide studies which give information that is used to create the basis for healthcare and government regulations.  They are the ones who are creating the standards for businesses to follow.  Unfortunately, they are employed by the businesses and so have vested interest in making sure that they still have jobs after they publish a study.  Because of this there has been a huge moral dilema between what scientists find out and what they actually pass on to the government and the public.  Also this has led to many cases where scientists have lost all sense of morality for a chance to make more money by putting their trusted name on a study they neither did nor can say is factual.  What is in fac the biggest predicament and the one which we had the most trouble with in class discussion is the decision about what makes something immoral.  We could not come to an exact conclusion that giving up ones job for the sake of saving others lives is the right thing to do.  We did agree that other people should come first but when it comes down to what people can realistically do for the justice movement, we were not ourselves entirely willing to give up our livelihood in place of feeling better about producing information that might save lives.

The second part of this reading section was the presentation of Shrader-Frechette’s idea that human rights is the biggest proponent of environmental justice.  Her idea for this book, unlike the others, is that the people affected have a right as humans not to be taken advantage of and we as humans have an unwritten duty to not harm others.  This means that we are not to benefit off the exploitation of others which caused another interesting discussion in class about the willingness of people to participate in such a system.  The general consensus was that we have no choice about whether or not to participate in the system because there is no realistic alternative.   What this means in terms of what we should do, is that we need to work towards adjusting the system so that it does not operate in this way.  For myself as an “educated” citizen should be working towards a better economic system because it is benefitting me directly.  While I cannot disagree that I have benefitted, I personally do not believe that I am in a real position of being able to change.  Even after class discussions about how immoral my choices may be and the effect of these decisions, I was not presented with an alternative that I could apply tomorrow.

Taking Action, Saving Lives opens up with another infuriatingly frustrating problem to the environmental justice movement.  As shown by the first couple of chapters, companies are given a ridiculous amount of freedoms by both the governing system and the public.  As shown in the first chapter there are endless examples, studies, stories, and cases that show how harmful pollution is to the human race.   However, there are not nearly as many cases of people being able to take control of their lives due to corporate power and persuasion.  One of the problems with the current system governing the business world is that the business are in control of the majority of tools that regulate them.  There are numerous examples in this book about CEOs of a company becoming government regulators of that same industry.  What incentive is there for these people to actually regulate and more importantly, how the hell do we alllow this to happen?  Another example of corporations having control over the governing system is the case studies provided on peoplel who have blown the whistle on bad company policies and practices.  Shrader-Frechette presents examples where companies were able to actually kill a former employee in efforts to prevent information from getting out about their bad business.  Another problem with the current regulation system, is that government officials are frequently considered to be underpaid for their work.  This makes them open to extortion by companies and makes them a liability in their ability to actually do their jobs properly.  There seems something inherently wrong with leaving the oversight of businesses in such a vulnerable position.

Another problem presented in this book is the battle between ethics/morality and personal interests.  What has been shown by these first chapters is the continual battle employees face between being immoral for not blowing the whistle on their company for violations or poor practices, and the employee’s keeping their jobs.  When companies are given the ability to fire and blacklist a person for blowing the whistle, they control the regulation.  When they are able to prevent information from getting out, they control the regulation.  When companies are able to avoid scrutiny by suppressing attempts at working towards justice, they control the regulation.  When companies can pay to have problems overlooked, they control the system.  Finally, when companies are able to control media through funding or lack of funding, they control the regulation. There is seemingly only so much we have left in our power anymore.  In all of this i see a huge imbalance of power.  Why are companies given so much control over the regulation that should govern how they are acting?  What in our system has made us think that this is a good thing?  Why isn’t there anything being done to correct this problem?  Is it that the system is beyond repair?

So far it seems like the best course of action is the one in which the public create pressure on businesses to release correct information.  In order to do this new regulations and regulatory methods need to be developed and implemented by the government.  There needs to be an overhaul in the oversight of companies and a call to make them responsible for their actions.

The more I read this book the more I realize that this is very similar to the global warming problem.  There is so much dependence upon electronics across the globe and we are so infused with consumption in every aspect of our lifestyles and infrastructure that it makes it seem like there is no possible way to end the injustices we have been reading about.  It was nice to see that there have been efforts to reduce problems created by computers and there have been efforts to allow immigrant workers to unionize, as done by the AFL-CIO, but these seem like tears in an ocean.

The vast expanse of the electronics industry has caused an incredible amount of harm and degredation, but there really seems no end.  As I have been reading this book I applauded the efforts by small organizations and communtities to fight for rights, but this does not make the situation any different.  The consumer products are still being demanded and there are currently only a few companies doing anything about reducing their footprints, but there are twice as many not doing a damn thing to change.  There is so much dependence on immigrant exploitation and almost none put forth in valuing people over a product.

One of the biggest problems we have faced recently is the downturn in the economy.  This has led to calls for people to spend more, government stimulus packages, and many other efforts to turn this around, but they all enforce the consumer idea which is the heart of the environmental justice problem, at least in the e-waste apsect.  What I feel is more baffling is that innovation is most prevlatent in the technological and electronics fields.  Why then are there no innovations being made to make this so-called clean industry actually clean.  How can we as the main consumers make companies understand that we will no longer put up with poor practices?  What is the best method of attack?  Do we go through government pathways, consumer boycotts, or what?

The last book mentioned coupling environmental justice problems with human rights frames to make them more appealing for people to care about.  Is this then the answer for the electronics industry problems?  What is the most effective thing that I can be doing to prevent my lifestyle from having harmful impications on someone else?  After talking this over in class I have come away with an even more depressing outlook.  We could neither agree upon a good method, nor come to a conclusion that we could be effective in making a difference.

What is most frustrating about these next chapters is the fact that what is presented actually happens.  Corporations are actually getting off the hook by saying that people choose the lifestyle in which they are found.  Because of this they are completely removed from any responsibility to improve the conditions and give the people more rights.  What is even more disturbing is the idea of workers being asked to sacrifice so much for a product.  Immigrant workers are encouraged to believe that they are responsible for the creation of each individual product.  In a horrible sense they are told to treat the product as if it was their child and they are the parent.  Making sure that the product makes it to the shelves is the sole priority of the worker.  In doing this workers are sacraficing their health and are working towards the success of the business at the expense of themselves.  What is worse is that people are led to believe that they actually have made a choice base on the information they have been given.

Companies frequently withhold or even lie to employees about the products that they are handling which has dire consequences.  When people are unaware of the fact that they are dealing with hazardous chemicals they lose respect for the tool and so may not act as carefully around it.  Also, when people are not told what they are actually working with, there is no conceivable way for them to actually willingly choose to work in unsafe conditions.  Another unfortunate condition in the worker, company relationship is that companies will go to great lengths to prevent workers from getting leverage over them.  As shown in the book when injuries or sickness occurred, workers were sent to doctors who were paid for by the company and so would not give correct assessments of the illness.  This leads to unjust treatment and has direct health implications.  What is also caused by the unbalance in the relationship is that workers are forced to put up with such injustices or lose their jobs.  This enforces the companies stance that people choose to live under such environmentally hazardous conditions when actually they are just trying to make money to provide for their family or children.  When people are forced to choose between a crappy lifestyle and the life of their families, of course they will sacrifice themselves.  What’s most sick is that the companies continually exploit this fact in efforts to make cheaper products.

After learning of these problems it makes me look around in awe at the extent of the problems we face on the e-waste front.  Everything in my life is founded on electronics and sad as it is to say there is very little I could get away with getting rid of.  What this means for me from now on is that I will be more selective and frugal in my choices.  I will keep my computer, phone, TV, and MP3 player for as long as humanly possible in order to reduce my direct effect on situation.  Also, I will encourage my family to participate in this choice to the best of my ability.

The next couple of chapters brought up some interesting ideas about immigration, peoples ability to fight back, and the actual preceedings of the Silicon Valley problem.  The problem of immigration has recently been a huge topic on the political scene.  Both presidential candidates were questioned constantly on their stance on the immigration issue and were required to defend it on the national scene.  This book, however, presents it in an entirely new frame of mind.  The idea of immigrants is very appealing to unscrupulous companies because they are the ultimate source of exploitation.  This class of people is given no representative status and is granted limited rights in every aspect of their life, none if they are illegal.  They are generally migrating from poor nations and are looking to make American dollars which are worth much more.  Due to this they are more willing to accept labor jobs that may be of questionable standards just to ensure that they have a job.  Oftentimes these immigrants are very limited in their ability to communicate due to the fact that they speak only foreing languages.  This has been used to prevent them from organizing because if people can’t talk together they cannot express ideas of organization.  Also, they are essentially expendable.  If an immigrant gets hurt, tries to organize, or complains about their job, they are very easily and quickly replaced.  Due to the large influx of immigrants, there is always someone else to take the openned position which acts as another method of control.   As shown by the examples of Chinese and Japanese immigrant workers, the company is in ultimate control.  When workers tried to organize against the companies they were only successful in bringing new levels of injustice upon themselves.  Companies would oftentimes retaliate to uprisings by reducing the already terrible low amount of rights workers had.

The other part of these next couple of chapters is the idea of image.  Silicon Valley and the electronics industry were made up to be some of the most impressive ideas in their cleanliness and pristine quality.  The electronics industry was able to successfully cover up the horrible situations of health violations and were able to recruit even some wealthy people to live the in environmentally hazardous valley.  By posing themselves as a clean industry, electronics companies were able to avoid scrutiny for their unsafe and unjust practices.  This was accomplished through incredible methods, such as paying off EPA workers to withhold information from certain studies and completely lieing about others.  How is that possible?  Isn’t the EPA supposed to be the end all be all of regulators?

It is good to see at the end of this section that there is action being taken against the valley to discredit the image it held so well for so long.  Organizations are currently working to fix some of the environmental problems such as toxic water in the area.  The fact that the image is broken has allowed people to see the injustices that are actually taking place and has brought about attention to fixing the injustices that have occurred.  NGOs are working to take back the rights of workers and have recognized the violations instead of letting them continue to slide.  The one hope is that there is continued efforts which are effective in achieving this goal.

I was at first confused by the opening of this book because it presented the idea of environmental injustice in way that no other authors have.  It opened by showing that the institutions that we take for granted, origins of problems we still see, and continual exploitation of people of color and low income are all problems that have persisted for years.  Also, it concentrates more on the problems that the electronics industry poses for environmental justice issues.  By showing how racism has persisted in our institutional systems and socially acceptable thoughts and norms, Silicon Valley of Dreams makes us re-question the way we think.  Racism as shown by the first chapters has been infused into the structural make-up of our society.  Since the beginning people of color have been the chosen ones to deal with poor living conditions.  They have been recruited, forcefully most often, to do heavy labor under poor working standards and with few choices as to what they would put up with.  What this has meant for the creation of our nation is that there is a sort of fallback to old time beliefs.  People are no longer openly racist in their practices such as employing labor because they can now be punished for doing so.  However, it has led to the idea that people of color may not have as many qualms about living and working in poor conditions and so people of low economic status and communitites of color are often approached as the best places for hazardous waste facilities and employment.

What this book brings most to the argument is the different approaches to the environmental justice problem.  It seems like women’s rights, immigrants and global issues will be brought into our current discussion on environmental justice.  Up until this point, most of these ideas have not been dealt with in depth, with the exception of the last book and its take on global problems.  I am interested in seeing the arguments for the women’s rights argument and the furthering of the immigrants stance in the justice debate debate because they have been touched on in other books but not fully discussed.

A final thing that is interesting about this book is the main concentration on the injustices that are prevelant in the Silicon Valley specifically.  This book seems like it will take all of the current justice discussions and apply them in a book long case study of this area, and this could prove either successful or unsuccessful.  The idea of the entire book focusing mainly on the electronics industry is very intriguing because it is the one area of environmental injustice to which I was totally ignorant before entering this class.   I much like the rest of the people in the nation as presented by this book was totally oblivious to the extent of the problems that the electronics industry poses to health in general.  I did know that there were toxins in the chemicals required to make computers and cell phones, but I assumed, probably stupidly, that there would be extra precautions taken and companies would go to the furthest lengths to ensure the safety of the people involved.  What I guess is more astounding is the lack of government enforcement on the whole issue.  People are allowed to be led astray by false advertising and tricky image campaigns and injustice is entirely cloaked in the “cleanliness” of the industry.

The last two chapters of Pellow present some startling problems as well as good possibilities of justice to occur.  The presentation in Chapter 6 on E-waste was very interesting because it was the first time I have ever heard of the problems with electronic dumping and deconstruction.  The information in this chapter along with a 60 minutes presentation showed in another class on the problem of electronic dumping have really made me reconsider my use of electronics.  I have had the same phone for about 2 years now, but before that I went through about 7 in the previous 2 years because I was constantly dropping or losing phones.  Up until now I was proud of myself for not getting a new phone because it meant I didn’t have to spend more money.  Now however I realize just how convenient our society has become and how costly that convenience is to the rest of the world.  It is incredibly easy for someone to break, lose, or just replace an electronic device and it is relatively inexpensive.  Just last February I bought my first laptop and was very excited for the change from a desktop.  It removed all the previous limits my desktop created and has proven to be the best buy for a while now.  I can take my work anywhere on campus and even home whenever I choose.  Also, I don’t have to worry about fighting people for time on the computer or have to remember the small flash drives which hold my work, and can take games along with me to entertain me be it between classes or just when I am bored at home or at school.

What I didn’t realize was that my cool new laptop contains some of the most toxic chemicals known to man and has been made off the backs of children and underpriviledged people across the globe.  Also, if I ever decide to get a new laptop I have to deal with the knowledge that my old laptop could be shipped across the globe to China or some other Indonesian country where it will contribute to the poisoning of some small community.

Pellow does provide some hope for the world of global environmental justice in the attempt to frame the issues as human rights violations.  These have proven the best ways to motivate people into action and have historically proven very successful at creating great amounts of change in otherwise stubborn societies.  By bringing the humanity of the problems into the light, TSMOs and human rights activists are showing that it is people who are being effected by our own convenient lifestyles.  It is people who are suffering at my expense.  Before it was always, someone else who had to deal with problems, now it is a face.  Now it is a community that I have both seen and heard from.  Now there is a log in my conscience that will twinge every time I consider getting the hottest phone, game system, or computer.

Probably the most alarming thing I got from chapter 5 is the lack of regulations on pesticide use across the globe.  Here in the United States we import most of the food we eat from nations of the South.  In these nations there are few if any restrictions on the use of pesticides that we have banned here in America.  This means that companies from the North who have large plantations or food farms can use all the pesticides they want to get the best harvest and only have to worry about shipping that food back into the U.S.  However, due to trade restrictions in place the U.S. only monitors a tiny amount of imported foods and then allows everything else in if the small portion checks out.  Due to this, as long as a company can get a crate of food to check, they don’t have to worry about the hundreds of other crates.  They can essentially use as many banned pesticides as they want on the majority of their crops as long as there are a few places in which they do not use them.  We could be eating food that has proven toxins in them.  These pesticides are banned in the U.S. because they have been proven to cause cancer and many other horrible health effects.  However, banned use does not mean banned production.

Pellow points out that there are no restrictions currently in place in the U.S. to prohibit the production and trade of banned pesticides.  Essentially, chemical companies have gotten the ability to continue to produce items that will kill people and there is no way to stop them.  By being so noncommittal in attempting to stop the use of pesticides, we have allowed environmental injustices to continue to occur.  Not only are we at risk from the food we import, but the people who work the farms or plantations are exposed to toxins that kill them on a daily basis.  If a pesticide is deemed too harmful to human health, it should be banned across the globe or at least trade restrictions should be put in place which would make it too costly to produce.

What seems to be the best option provided by Pellow is the work by TSMOs to get restrictions in place in the global South.  If these governments create bans similar to the U.S. there will be no market for such pesticides to exist and chemical companies will be forced to create better alternatives.  However, this is a lofty goal and one that will take a considerable amount of time and effort before it is realized.  What is most frustrating about this problem is that it leaves the average joe very few options when it comes to action.  Unless a person has the ability to get involved with a TSMO they are very limited in the amount of effect they can have.  The governmental system is too open and chemical companies have too much power in interest groups to allow trade implications to be started or accepted by the U.S.

One of the ideas that Pellow contributes well to the debate of global environmental justice is the ideas of a global North and South.  It is brought up in the first chapters but is best explained in the events of chapters 3/4.  The idea of a global North is the nations that are well developed and maintain the majority of both consumption and waste production in the world.  These nations are generally seen to be the key exploiters and constantly take advantage of the underdeveloped, unprivledged global South nations.  These nations frequently are swamped with debts from loans, corruption, and national poverty.  They also, for the most part, have populations made up of people of color and low economic status.  These nations are noted as having very little government concern for the people and a general consensus that the health of the people comes second to economic boosts.  These nations frequently have lower environmental standards and so are the target of businesses who want cheap products.  By building a factory in a South nation, companies can pay low labor and resource prices as well as avoid costly environmental restrictions on the production process.  In the event of environmental injustices, the debate turns into a North vs. South issue.  The people and governments of North countries for the most part have very strict and costly regulations on production and waste.  For this reason, companies with markets in the global North will lower their consumers prices by taking advantage of the global South’s need for economic stimulus.  They will bring outside money to a needy nation in return for the ability to exploit the people of that nation at every turn.

Chapters 3/4 provide nice examples of the best way for the South nations to fight back.  The idea of the boomerang effect has given these people the ability to go outside the unbalanced system and take action against their oppressors.  When TSMOs are able to put pressure on governments in ways that the people themselves are not, the people are given a chance to fight back.  The best example of this was shown by Pellow with Project Return to Sender.  This example showed exactly the problem of North vs South as well as the South fighting back.  When the Pennsylvania mayor was turned down by other nations in efforts to dump their ash waste, they went to the little island of Haiti and left their waste for the people of Haiti to take care of.  It took many years and lots of work by the people in TSMOs across the globe to create enough pressure, but eventually the state was made to pay for the cleanup.  This shows the true power of the people.  Project Return to Sender brought the idea of international dumping to the global public eye.  It showed just how devious and dirty people of the global North can be.  If they can get away with dumping their problems on someone else, they will take every opportunity.

This makes me wonder where humanity has gone.  When and how did money take precedence over people?  What then is the best way to fight against such injustices?  As shown by this example, a global push for humanity through SMOs seems like the best method, and this means the best way to peronally help is to get involved in such an organization.