Environmentalists on Elderly/Disabled?

So my mind was wondering, and it stumbled upon the subject of the disabled. I thought back to one of our first classes, when we talked about how many children we would each have and what that meant for the environment. If we make our child-rearing decisions based on how many resources it (the hypothetical child) will consume, then wouldn't a disabled child take up considerably more resources (medical evaluations, treatment, equipment, etc)? If environmentalists are comfortable with saying that people in the US should have fewer babies because they would consume more, what about other types of people who consume more (the elderly/the disabled)? Should they also be regulated the way we do the population?

[I really hope I don't offend anyone. Just curious about what you all think.]

Blog Prompt #4

We tend to see technology as a generally positive (or at worst a benign) force in our lives. And for a variety of reasons, there seems to be a widely-held belief that technology holds the key to a resolution of our environmental crisis. I wonder what you make of this. For this week I’d like you to consider the following:

Will technology save us? Why, or why not? What does that even MEAN, in environmental terms?

If you want another challenge, take a crack at this one: What does our experience with stratospheric ozone depletion (which you’ll be reading about for next Monday's class) have to teach us about technology?

Happy Blogging!

Old Discourse for a Green America?

In his article “Aren’t We Clever?” Thomas Friedman claims that while the U.S. politics continues to struggle with the mere concept of human induced environmental change, China’s embracement of the idea of green development has given the Asian nation a comparative advantage in the world economy that poses a threat to the United States. He states, “by becoming more energy efficient per unit of G.D.P, China saves money, takes the lead in the next great global industry and earns credit with the world for mitigating climate change.”

While I can see the value of making a “green” argument from a neoliberal and purely economic standpoint, as it uses the existing discourse that dominates the United States to advocate for a revolutionary change in the modus operandi and thus making it fit in the traditional and conservative agenda, I argue that the changes that are achievable in this fashion only create a time window for fundamental alterations in the relationship of human beings and nature to be developed and adopted; in order to truly address climate change successfully, the capitalist, competitive, economy-driven, and technology-embracing lifestyle of human beings needs to be abandoned as life is not and should no longer be identified as the mere interplay of demand and supply in a global market but instead as this complex construct of synergetic symbioses between living creatures and nature on which human values should be based.

To start, I very much agree with Laura’s point that the competitive tone Friedman uses in his argument is extremely damaging to any effort of protecting the environment as it forms one of the core problems of environmental degradation: it is exactly this idea of human success being found in winning the “game” of economic growth and technological advancement that makes people, corporations, and even nations adopt a very selfish perspective, putting their very own interests on top of their list of priorities, which prevents human beings from realizing that the world they live on is one planet that they share as a habitat with every other living creature and which prevents them from realizing that their own actions have consequences far beyond the border of their own country. Paul Wapner states, “in many ways, it has been our self-centeredness – our placing ourselves at the core of existence and our willingness to do whatever it takes to advance our interests – that has been the cause of our environmental dilemma.

Thus, as Laura puts it, “since the earth is shared by everyone on this planet, shouldn’t environmentalism be about cooperation instead of competition?” I concur. Thus, Friedman’s neoliberal argument of clean energy technologies and “green jobs” giving China a competitive edge and threatening the United States’ position as the “capitalist leader” might motivate U.S. decision-makers to develop “greener” technologies and procedures, but the basic rules of the game stay the same, which prevents a real change for the better from occurring.

Furthermore, the combination of competitiveness and the desire for self-centered growth through economic and technological advancements results in discoveries that pose a serious threat not only for the environment but also for the human race itself. Bill Joy explains, “in truth, we have had in hand for years clear warnings of the dangers inherent in widespread knowledge of GNR technologies – of the possibility of knowledge alone enabling mass destruction. We should have learned a lesson from the making of the first atomic bomb and the resulting arms race. We didn’t do well then, and the parallels to our current situation are troubling.”

Thus, Friedman’s framing of the issue of an environmental movement as par of a economic and technological competition between the U.S. and China seems dangerous. He warns, “while American Republicans were turning climate change into a wedge issue, the Chinese Communists were turning it into a work.” Calling China communist clearly identifies it as the enemy of the United States and sparks hostilities.

Similarly, Friedman’s concluding remark that Biddle is American-educated and financed but brings profits to China and Europe implies the hostile relationship the United States sees between itself and other nations of the world as its opponents threatening to take a bigger “slice of the pie” than itself. In this sense, a competitive framing of the environmental issues as a race between technologies and economies not only is contra-productive to protecting the environment in itself, although maybe leading to short-term successes as the adoption of “green” technologies can slow down the degradation, it also threatens human life in general as the tense relationship between countries can quickly turn into violence and destruction as the history of the last century has proven.

Consequently, confronted with this information, I have to agree with Bill Joy’s argument “the only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge. If open access to unlimited development of knowledge henceforth puts us all in clear danger of extinction, then common sense demands that we reexamine even these basic, long-held beliefs.” I don’t want to imply that knowledge in general is bad and human beings should be forced to simple and dull lives for their own sake, but instead that our current definition of knowledge is dangerous. The seeking of knowledge for the sake of outsmarting others, for outcompeting other, or even for the sake of knowledge seems a perversion of intellectual engagements; but the fault for that doesn’t lie in us being in the possession of a brain capable of those thoughts but instead our own desire to use it in that way. Thus, it is the norms and values that make knowledge a tool for destruction that need changing.

Bill Joy, himself a technology creator as the cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, argues, “but I believe we must find alternative outlets for our creative forces, beyond the culture of perpetual economic growth; this growth has largely been a blessing for several hundred years, but is has not brought us unalloyed happiness, and we must now choose between the pursuit of unrestricted and undirected growth through science and technology and the clear accompanying danger.” However, this fundamental change will not occur by maintaining the status quo and simply using the existing discourse of competition, free market, growth, and technological innovation; it requires a revolution of the dominant capitalist ideology, establishing a new system of values and norms that acknowledges and embraces the importance of life as this complex system of living creatures and nature – and which might also allow us human beings to find true fulfillment and content, which I believe, and Bill Joy seems to agree, we haven’t really achieved yet.

Blog Prompt #3

Hey guys,
I thought I'd post the blog question here so that we could all reply to it. I think that might be easier:

Thomas Friedman has an article in today's New York Times that I'd like you to read. In it, he argues that the US is in danger of being left in the dust by China when it comes to the production of clean energy technologies and "green jobs."

What do you make of the article? Does talking about action on climate change as a race between the US and other countries make sense to you? Do you buy the implicit argument that climate change is best addressed through technological innovation and a refocusing of the economy's priorities on "green" manufacturing?

Looking forward to reading your responses. 388.001, your posts are due by 5pm on Sunday 26th; 388.002, your posts, please, by 5pm on Wednesday 22nd.

Going Green: A task for united "American" activism?

In his article “Going Green? Easy Doesn’t Do it” Michael Maniates argues that the greatest environmental problem with which the American population is confronted is that in their quest for a sustainable, environmental-friendly way of life, they are sold short by environmental elites and political leaders who are “too timid to call forth the best in us or too blind to that which has made us a great nation.” Instead, so Maniates, in order to truly make a change for the better for the environment they are living in, honest discourse and discussion about the current situation is necessary, so that the American people are allowed to fight together to achieve this truly difficult goal – which they have proven capable throughout history.

While I believe Maniates is making a compelling argument with this reasoning that not only resonates with but also motivates many of his readers to reconsider the current strategy of “going green,” I claim that by making the protection of the environment an “American” struggle, the important global variable of the environmental equation gets lost, almost eliminated, which, in my opinion, is contra-productive to an issue that not only concerns all human beings on this planet but that also demands a participation of every single individual living on earth to truly being able to solve it.

Laura makes the interesting observation that Michael Maniates questions the “green” initiatives taken by referring to Paul Revere, Franklin Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. and their advocacy for change. With this comparison, so Laura, Maniates challenges the revolutionary nature of the American “green” movement and demands that it lives up to the truly transformative, innovative, and progressive social movements that this country has experienced before. However, while this reference to “American revolutionary figures” makes a convincing statement for a more rigorous initiative in the eyes of an American audience – Laura referred to it as the most powerful section -, it makes “going green” an American issue and unites the citizens of the United States in their shared fight for protecting their environment; by nationalizing the cause, the global nature of this problem, though, gets lost, which prevents it from being truly successful as environmental degradation is a problem that is shared by humanity at large.

It is true that the people living in the United States possess the largest ecological footprint of all human beings on this planet, but most large-scale environmental problems cross national borders. The cutting down of the rain forest in Brazil not only affects the Southern Cone nation itself, but instead can lead to changes in rainfall patterns that have an immense influence on a large area of nations. The emission of CO2 of Western European and American cars create a Green House Effect that leads to the warming of the temperature of the whole planet.

Furthermore, Paul Wapner explains in his article “People, Nature, Ethics” that human beings extract resources from the earth to provide energy, food, and other materials. However, in our highly industrialized present, this occurs at a rate at which the environment can no longer keep up. Additionally, the conversion of those resources into consumable goods and services produces waste. But, instead of solving these issues, we seem to prefer the easy way out and simply displace them, which in our globalized world, often occurs internationally. Thus, “Shadow Ecologies” are created, so that New York City “pulls resources from and exports its waste to areas well beyond Manhattan Island.” But obviously, also this strategy is only a short-time solution, as if our consumption and with that waste production continues to increase, also the shadow ecologies will be depleted.

These are just a few examples of the global nature of the issue of environmental degradation. Nevertheless, I believe it highlights that “going green” is not and should not be defined as an “American” issue. The inward orientation that a nationalization of environmentalism creates, prevents the consideration of the effects of the own actions onto the lives and livelihoods of others and vice versa. Tom Knudson’s account of California’s efforts to conserve its ecosystem while importing resources from around the world provides a prime example for that phenomenon. Only when human beings overcome their limited perspective of the own environment being “the center of the universe” and accepting their belonging to the global community, the full scope of the problem can be considered.

In this sense, using American social movements as the inspiration for more “revolutionary” environmental initiatives might defeat the goal of truly achieving change for the better. Unfortunately though, the prevailing emphasis of state sovereignty has not produced many social movements that were active across borders. However, exactly because of that, the green movement is - or better possesses the potential - of being revolutionary: it provides the opportunity for human beings to be part of the very first GLOBAL revolution. Thus, Maniates is right when saying that “time for easy is over”; but the chance of participating in a movement bigger than everything that has existed before, as an agent for change for the global population and the planet we live on, should be motivation enough to quiet conservative voices of conformity and truly set out to becoming “green.”

"Going Green? Easy Doesn't Do It" -Michael Maniates

I enjoyed the piece, especially Professor Maniates's paragraph on American revolutionary figures. The clever and most powerful section made me wonder about how revolutionary the current green movement is. I tried to do some quick research on the the "green revolution," a term I had heard multiple times before, but got lost in a sea of information involving early agrarian reform, Obama's job plan, algae in Canada, and rice in the Philippines. Thoroughly confused, I decided to return to the article at hand. Maniates wasn't debating semantics, as academics so often want to do, but questioning initiative. Nonetheless, he brought Paul Revere, Franklin Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr into the mix for a reason. How revolutionary is the the current green movement?

My first thought was that environmentalism is not revolutionary at all, given that the ideas behind the movement have existed since the dawn of the human race. But then again, so have the ideas utilized in most well recognized revolutions: equality, fraternity, liberty, freedoms. To say that Paul Revere and his contemporaries were the originators of those ideas would be incorrect, though they did utilize them with significant results. For that aspect, I suppose the current green movement fits right into place—it applies well acknowledged and established ideals to as large a population as possible.

Another point to be considered relates to time—must a revolution be sudden, and, if so, does the current environmental movement fit the criteria? As Maniates points out, "environmentalism" (as a loose term) has become a recent fad, with celebrities telling their fans to turn off light switches and recycle. The popularity has snuck up many people, and I would use the word sudden for it. Internationally and politically, the movement started in the early '70s with Stockholm. In that facet, the environmental movement has somewhat slow, with many speed bumps and disappointments.

Regardless of how revolutionary the current environmental situation is, Maniates is calling for a Paul Revere, an FDR, or an MLK Jr. The climate is ripe with most people signed on board for recycling and easy water conservation. Now we need the real challenge. Bring on consumerism!

1. What, to your mind, is the most pressing challenge facing the global environment? Why?

The most pressing issue is income disparity. There are many different levels through which one can view environmental issues—international, national, and local, for instance—all of which have problems that connect to income disparity. While I am tempted to use the term "resource," I feel that it is too vague, covering both tangible and intangible things. To keep this post focused, I chose income because, let's face it, that's how the big guys measure it. Sure, it's easy for people at the World Bank making comfy salaries to dictate that, but seeing as I am writing this on my laptop in an air-conditioned apartment, I feel it is fitting.

Despite noteworthy concessions made for the betterment of the planet, most international environmental cooperation has been hindered by the income gap. There are agreements among certain groups, like how in Johannesburg 2002 groups of countries found common ground in negotiations, however once these groups confronted each other, the previously found common ground (most of it based on income) almost didn't matter. Binding agreements are thus a rarity, and international cooperation has become almost hopeless. The most recurrent theme in international environmental politics is the hypocrisy of developed nations telling less wealthy nations to do what they didn't. The big polluters need to reduce consumption/waste, and the little guys (or up-and-coming guys) need to get rich/developed without destroying the environment. But with the income gap so big, and with power coming hand in hand with income, we can usually anticipate which gets the priority.

Just as income disparity is a cause of global environmental problems, it is just as much an effect. As the world continues to heat up, sea levels continue to rise, growing seasons get shorter, and dangerous weather/natural disasters become more of a threat, it is the poor people of this world that are affected the most. For instance, if we compare the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the latter was much stronger (4th strongest in recorded history). However, Chile is the second most affluent country in Latin America, whereas Haiti is the poorest. For that reason, what might be considered similar disasters have a considerably greater effect on poorer populations, thus amplifying the income gap on the global scale.

Income disparity correlates with the consumption and waste of a people. There are statistics out there that say that the average US citizen consumes X times as much as the average African. There is no doubt as to the negative effect consumption has on the environment (global warming, waste disposal, energy extraction, pollution, etc). Then how can it be that the people who contribute the least to Earth's environmental problems are the ones who suffer the most? And there in lies the beauty: Money=Power; power controls politics.

First Blog Question!

Hey guys,

I thought I would start this blog off by posting the first blog question. That way we can all read and respond to it on here :-)

For your initial blog posts, I'd like you to consider one or both of the following questions:

1. What, to your mind, is the most pressing challenge facing the global environment? Why?

2. Have a look at this piece that NY Times columnist Stanley Fish wrote a summer or two back. What do you make of his struggling to be a "good environmentalist?" What do you think it means to live in an "environmentally friendly" way in the modern-day US?