BBecker- Environmental Justice

There were some very intersting points brought up by these last few chapters that may bring about a whole new look to the future of environmentalism and environmental justice.  The chapter on Biocolonialism expanded previous environmental justice issues into the more scientific based world of genetics.  It outlined the possiblities for possession of genes (human, plant, and animal) as a justice issue.  The conference was established to create an understanding between the scientific world of genetics and the environmental justice advocates.  While some activists felt that it was a true gesture of wanting to work together others pointed out its obvious disillusionment of some of the actual problems; for example trying to address the genetic problems with asthma when it is obvious that the bus depots spewing tons of toxic chemicals and particulates into the neighboorhood air is central to the problem.  Another interesting part about the biocolonialism chapter was the importance of indigenous people to the movement.  While the scientific community seemed like it was trying to help make sure that these people are not taken advantage of just because of their land and the assests on it, it did seem like they may have just been saving face with the environmental community to prevent getting bad public images.  This seems like a face value attempt to win over people by showing them how much good these companies could do for the impovershed but it doesn’t really tell how they will avoid making sure that these people are taken advantage of in the process of researching these new wonder medical advances.

The chapter talking about globalizing justice seemed to point out some very interesting and relevant problems that will be facing the environmental justice movement in the here and now.  With much of the environmental movement issues, as pointed out by the book, it is an example of a company or industry taking advantage of a poor or ethnic community.  However, in an age when companies are becoming global entities it is necessary to think about combating them on a global scale.  Just because a movement or NGO may prevent people in the US from being taken advantage of, it doesn’t mean that the company has learned its lesson.  In many cases it moves to places with large labor forces and few restrictions.  This causes a whole new bag of issues for environmental justice advocates to focus on.  With injustice going global it is important that organizations that fight injustice go global as well.  We need to make the global community aware of the problems of environmental injustice and raise a global resentment to it occuring.  If a company can no longer find someone to take advantage of because everyone knows what to expect, the company will eventually have to change or go under.  Yes, this is an ideal, but by reaching out to international communities, NGO and the environmental justice movement can begin making steps in that direction.  This means that the idea of community has to expand quite a bit.  Previously the most successful movements have been driven by strong community ties and involvement.  By working together to combat the company people in a community were able to overcome their lack of knowledge and relative lack of power as individuals.  They pooled their resources and were able to contact people to get the correct information needed to prevent injustice.  This has to expand to included people across national boundaries.  NGOs have to build international communities that can work together against international companies.

The final chapter went about showing how the environmentalism and enviromental justice movements could possible benefit from working together as well as showing how they have both succeeded and failed while working apart.  By pointing out the occurrences where working together is most beneifitial, this chapter is helping point out the lack of importance of disparities.  People working together to solve local and global problems have the ability to pick and choose their battles.  It is important to take away from this chapter that there is no black and white when it comes to defining the relationship between environmentalism and environmental justice.  It is necessary for activists to know that this complete distinction, while useful for maintaining the movement, does not always require a clash over issues.  By working together the two movements can actually make a bigger dent in certain issues than by separating their time and efforts.

What was interesting about these chapters was the apparent disconnect between people on the Military Highway and the environment around them.  When interviewed they could point out five or six obvious and pressing issues, but nothing took precedence on their agenda.  I would have thought that the apparent trash abuse in and around their homes would have been the most prominent complaint, but things like being downwind of chemical factories and the multitude of mosquitos were more likely to be mentioned above trash.  This brought up a few questions or points of importance.  The poor have always been treated like they are ignorant of the problems around them and their ability to affect the results.  However, these people realize that they need a place for trash to go that isn’t inside their homes and so the abandoned, dried up lake was a good option.  Yet, they knew and were very frustrated by the very idea of being downwind of a chemical factory, and knew that there was nothing they could do to make the factory stop belching toxic chemicals into the air or water.  They removed themselves from some of the problems by buying bottled water for example.  They didn’t like the water, but instead of trying to take steps towards fixing the problem, they buy bottled water and avoid the issue all together.  What is most interesting about the interview process was the ability or likelihood that the people would go into extensive conversations about the problems around them.  It was interesting to note that the people contacted in the prosperous neighborhood were the most unlikely to let someone come back and get an interview at a later date.  This points out the apparent disconnect people have from the issues surrounding them.  If people do not directly feel pressure or strain upon themselves from environmental issues they won’t make it an issue for themselves to undertake.  However, although they were more removed, they were also more likely to have a feeling of connection or ability to affect the government system and so put more time towards helping an environmental cause.  The poor had a great “disenchantment” with the government and saw it as of no use to they current afflictions and therefore there was no reason to participate in it.  Many times people mentioned the two-faced nature of politicians but it only came from the poor people that were interviewed.  From this study it is important to take away the proximity, physical and intellectual/emotional, that people have to both to environmental issues and the functional ways of participating in the govnerment.

What was interesting about the next chapter was in apparent conflict between free market and environmentalism or environmental improvment.  There seemed to be a consistent affect or trend in free market profit motives taking over environmental concerns within the global market.   Whenever attempts were made to regulate trade in efforts in favor of environmental goals, they were fined as impedeing free market trade.  Until environmental goals take precedence over profit and free market globalization there will be no way to reach the Kuznets Curve point of turing degredation into improvement.

At the end of Shrader-Frechette the take home idea is that it is every citizen’s responsibility to get involved within their community to learn the issues, the NGOs, and to get involved with the community happenings.  This was a very localized idea because each community as noted by Shrader-Frechette is a case by case basis with variances that could not possibly be held across every spectrum.  By getting to know his or her own community, a citizen was doing the best possible thing to prevent environmental injustice.  After reading chapters 5/6 in Sander and Pezzullo, that idea changes just a bit.  As shown by the Massechusettes examples, there are many ways in which different factions can join together and get something done within the political system.  The examples showed many movements (environmental, labor, social and environmental justice) all working together to create a larger template for success that would allow them to gain important political access and consideration.  They opened the doors for communication between the state government and the concerned people in NGOs and allowed changes to happen on both a distributive and productive level.  They raised awareness of the problems in labor, environment, and justice movements, but were also able to get money, bills, and clean up action to be instituted within the entire state.  This example shows the effectiveness of organizations working together even though they have different goals and ideals.  Each organization was able to contribute a different set of skills to the fight and with their combined efforts they were able to make changes across the board.   At the end of Shrader-Frechette I thought the best thing to do would be to implement a template that could be shared amongst communities as an example of how best to organize, what issues to address, and how to gain support within the community.  This could be shared among institutions, such as churches, that already have a following gathered and just need a cause upon which to center their actions.  This would give a quick start method to NGO movements in small communities no matter what their structure or what the issue.  However, after reading chapter 5, which showed great examples of collaboration, it seems to me that there should be included within that template, a section that shows where certain movements might be effective working together to put more pressure upon the political, economic, or social structure which was leading to injustice.

After reading chapter 6 it is disturbing to see how the different ideologies of both environmentalism and environmental justice created such problems that they were unable, and still are unable, to take a large opportunity for environmental and environmental justice change and make a huge difference.  Instead, because Libby didn’t meet the parameters of either movement, it fell through the cracks and greater acts of environmental harm and injustice have been committed.  The asbestos was allowed not only to be spread around the US but was allowed to be exported to communities and nations outside the US.  Now it has truly become a global problem.  Where once there was a huge opportunity to  rid the world of a great amount of asbestos, instead there became the unfortunate spread of it to the entire world community.  This seems like to great a problem to leave be.  There has to be some realization that ideals are not the only reason for pursuing an opportunity.  People have to be able to recognize that they are part of a larger social community and that what happens on that large scale affects everyone.  Yes, the environment needs protection from humans, and yes humans need protection from humans, but humans are the main factor in both and so we should pay attention to what other humans are doing, or not doing, no mattter what.  By seeing that the asbestos problem affects not only the environment around it, rivers and bodies of water, but also the human population, the environmental movement would have jumped a huge problem before it got too bad.  Also, by recognizing the struggle of the people and the silencing that was going on in the area, environmental injustice movements would have been able to help the people to seek the emergency status they required and get the asbestos movement into the open air for people to get concerned about and make a stink about.  Both movements dropped the ball because their narrow visions of the world in which they live did not see the scope of the problem.  What people need to do and make sure of in their involvement within their communities, is make sure that other communities and issues are not forgotten.  Ensure that the community is safe not only from direct community actors, but indirect ones as well.  This is difficult to do since there is no national boy scout telling us who is doing what, but by keeping our eyes open we may see what others miss as opportunities to make a big difference, or avoid a big problem.

It is interesting to note in the essay by Jamieson that environmentalists are in themselves divided.  The book started out by showing how environmentalism and environmental justice are divided on issues, paths of rectification, and ideals.  Now Sandler and Pezzullo show that environmentalists cannot always agree upon what their “movement” entails and what its specific goals may be.  Some are nature lovers who like places to visit and connect with the non human element.  Their goal is to conserve and preserve these locations of wonder and relaxation.  Others feel it is the atmosphere and global climate change that is the main factor of environmentalism.  Human effects are harming the world community and making it unsafe for future generations.   Jamieson, as posed by the title, feels that justice is the uniting factor for both divisions, and that justice is the singular mindset that brings all voices together.  He points out that there are two main points of justice action, changing the distribution and the way people are punished.  Most environmentalists try to make sure that the environment/nature is harmed as little as possible in the process and feel it is the duty of the offender to clean up the messes they may make.  Those who are more concerned about the human aspect (environmental justice advocates) like Shrader-Frechette say that it is everyone’s responsibility to take action against the offenses and make sure that environmental injustice does not occur.  For people like Shrader-Frechette, it is the people’s original inaction or ignorance that allows injustice to occur and therefore each and everyone person is responsible for undertaking the project of educating him or her-self about what he or she can do to become activists within his or her own community.  They are to locally take action against the institutions that would inflict injustice by participating in NGOs.  Also, Shrader-Frechette sees the justice problem as an issue of rights or political equality.  It is soley an issue that deals with social status or lack thereof.  People, usually minorities, are taken advantage of because they are not granted the same rights or considerations  as the more involved, affluent, influential politically active people.  For this reason, the minorities are the ones who take the brunt of environmental injustices.  For those who don’t take the political equality view of justice, it comes down to who should be the ones bearing the cost or benefit.  It is the distributive justice ideal that comes to play.  The environment is the responsibility of everyone and therefore we all have an active role to play in maintaining order both in human and natural communities.

One intersting consideration in the article by Allen et al. is that of people seeing the environment in different ways.  These authors point out the differences in which races may distinguish the environment around them, but I like to apply it to the different ways in which each individual applies the notion.  As an environmental science and policy major I feel that I see the environment in a much broader scale than do some of the other students here at Drake.  To provide an example: my good friend Andy sees the environment from a much more recreational lens.  To him hunting and fishing are the too main reasons to protect the environment, and having the job of killing deer in an overpopulated area is the way in which he contributes to the cause.  He is not an environmental activists in many people’s sense, but in his own experiences of the environment and nature, this is the way in which he does his part.  My own view is somewhat different.  After taking classes and seeing how much differences in land management affect the world we live in, I have decided to pursue a career in environmental consulting.  I would like to become the consultant for private engineering or conservation firms that have land projects and just don’t know how to manage the property in which they wish to develop.  Development in this sense could mean returning the land to its natural states, making it good for recreation, or just adhereing to environmental constraints put in place by the EPA.  In all cases, by making sure that the least amount of harm is inflicted, and by maximizing the benefits that the land has to offer, I can present a plan of action for the firm to follow.  I take the considerations of law, land, nature, and society and mix them into a solution that allows for each to coexist with as a little confrontation or harm as possible.  That I feel is the best way in which I can contribute the the promotion of the environment around myself.  I mix the two thoughts of environmentalism, like many due, from chapter 3, but I feel that it is necessary to see as many angles as possible or you will miss out on the best opportunity.

Interestingly enough, the book does come around to  say that communities working together make the biggest difference in situations of environmental justice.  The last chapter alludes to “transformative politics.”  As implied by the title From the Ground Up, justice and action start with the little man.  When people change the way they act, the entire system changes.  Lots of little voices telling the government that it isn’t doing its job add up to a significant moving power.

Before people can change the system in which they live, the awareness has to be raised that the system is indeed flawed.  Without this understanding, it is impossible to determine the best corrective course of action. Success by grassroots organizations showed just this idea.  Lots of aggrevated or concerned people decided they had had enough and worked to better their odds.  By connecting all the little voices into networds of informed individuals  who can add pressure to the apporpriate actors, individuals are turning the government into a living, working institution of environmental justice.

Some interesting things to note that the book brought up are that the idea of transformative politics is only possible in a democratic system.  It assumes that since everyone in a democracy is able to voice their concerns and opinions, there is a good chance that changing an individual will have cascading effects in the democratic system itself.  However, it is interesting to point out that environmental justice, as earlier described by the book, occurs in places where commercial voices are much louder than the local community or individuals.  This inequality is not due to the democractic system, but to the larger societal ignorance and apathy.  Changing these problems will definitely lead to a change in the structure and system because it will make everyone realize that our nation is a community and we are not separated by economic status, and we are a unified front against any and all instances of injustice!!!…Sounds very appealing.  But how does one go about changing apathy? Make the community more cohesive! Make people understand how they are affected! Make the system more open to the public and give equal say to people and corportations!  Make people realize that they have a say in the politics around them!  Listing these goals sounds like something is being done, and it is I just wrote lots of words with exclaimation marks but gave you no idea how any of these things will be accomplished or how.  I feel like that is the biggest problem with this book.  It suggests that the community is the main factor in environmental justice issues, and that a community should bond together to change the system around them.  Transformative politics will change the system one person at a time!  But honestly, I couldn’t tell you one environmental issue facing the Des Moines community right now.  I could tell you that Drake is making a “green movement” effort, but I have no idea what that entails.  If you look outside of Meredith right now, the east windows face a dirt mess.  When it rains, all that dirt washes away and causes sedimentation in nearby water systems.  The coffee shop in Olmstead changed to free market but a Starbucks in being put just accross the street under the West Village apartments.  All I could tell you is that the furniture in Olmstead now sucks. The chairs are much less comfortable than they used to be and so I choose not to sit there between classes.  That is the extent of the issues I could tell you about in the community of which I have been a part for 3 years now, almost 4.  I’m sure that these changes all occurred for good reason and are promoting a better environment, but I never was informed they were going to happen, I never was given the opportunity to put in my ideas.  There is a student senate, but I know nothing about what it does.  Every year, people come to chapter and express their stern belief that if I elect them to (insert position name) they will change the communication problems and make my voice heard.  So far I haven’t even gotten an e-mail from this group.  I read in the TD what the senate is doing, but there is no guy calling me up and putting me on speaker phone during a meeting.  This is a tangent but I feel it is somewhat relevant.  The ability to change a community seems like a very daunting process and I don’t feel like I am the only person in the world who looks at the prospective of community change as anything but a piece of cake.  I personally would like a directory of who is most influential, where they eat and at what time so I can meet with them and make change happen, without wasting lots of time and effort talking to dead ends.  When that directory is made please make sure to send me a link.

Like most politics, this book gives me the sensation of all talk no action.  It describes what the issue is, how some people have gone about success and others failure, but ultimately just tells me to institute “transformative politics.”  No instructions, no guidelines, just become more informed and create that all important network.

The introduction was interesting in that it presented the book as a printed contradiction to itself.  It has 10 papers in which authors neither pick a side nor tell exactly which way the reader should take the issue.  Instead it is presented as a book which will tell the wonders the environmental justice and environmentalism movements could do if they just decided to work together.  This all seems to make for some interesting reading and indeed the first chapter is.

It was very interesting to read the different interpretations of both environmental justice and environmentalism.  The first part of the chapter seemed to be all groups/individuals who consider the earth and environment as a tool for human life and development.  It has no precedence over humans or human rights and those who do support environmental causes are seen as outcasts and are given no respect.  “Indeed, the environmental justice movement attacks environmental groups that support wilderness or endangered species as racist and classist.” (p.27) Another interesting quote said something the effect that “humans are an endangered species.”  Somewhat comical to think about considering there are over 6 billion of us present on the earth today.  These individuals see the environmental justice movement as purely human centered and a problem of color, exploitation, and distribution.  It is a movement that has to be made by humans to protect the rights and privileges of those who are disadvantaged and have no voice.  It is a problem of industry, government and business in which goals to clean up the enviroment are centered around the human need for a safe place to live.

There are others in the chapter like Thoreau and Marx who see that people are not “apart from nature but a part of it.”  It is up to people to realize their place in nature and utilize their skills to protect that which is the support system on which we depend.  Without nature, the book mentions a few times, there is no human race and there are no problems of distribution, status, color, or anything else.  It remains the key goal to protect the earth for current and future populations, and that may come at a cost to some humans; be it economic or otherwise.  These proponents of environmentalism seem to take on the perspective that by saving the earth, we are saving humans and will inadvertantly correct the problems that are facing disadvantaged populations.

Like the book says, it is interesting to see how the two sides come into conflict with one another and could cause some seriously hindering tensions.  However, this does make one question the ability of two such organizations to successfully exist and accomplish their stated goals.  If the two sides have such issues about deciding who or what to protect and the best way to go about achieving such protection, it seems like they will fruitlessly cancel each other out.  While some are destroying the earth in the name of saving humanity, others are deferring cost to humanity while trying to save the earth in the name of protecting humanity.

What I find most intersting is that both sides seem to have such resentment for the other.  In the introduction, Sierra Club and the NRDC both stated goals or desires to work together, but the Sierra Club spokeswoman pointed out that no cooperation would ensue unless complete equality was agreed upon.  Money seems to be a constant problem for any sort of environmental justice or environmentalist movement to move forward from.  It is the sole decider of who has the power and therefore who gets their way.  Without it nothing happens, but when it is present there is so much argument over who controls it and how best it should be used that nothing happens; or at least something happens, but only a few are content with the outcome.

My final overarching question after reading these two parts of the book is plainly this.  How can success be made on either frontier (EJ vs E) if no one agrees that they are two parts of the same fight?  Is there anyway to pursue an overarching theme that covers both reasonably well while still achieving the ultimate goal of a clean earth for everyone?