"In being forced to do what is right...

men lose the dignity of being right." ~Wendell Berry

Laura Smith and I were talking last night after a long and thoughtful day in Detroit. Laura is a PhD student in architecture and environmental psychology, and is an interior designer, too. We talked about environmentalism, ethics, and personal motivation. Laura knows a lot about personal motivators for action related to the environment. She said that the two biggest drivers for positive environmental feelings are time in nature, and having a role model to look up to. Of course, what are not motivators for people to change their behaviour are policies, governmental or private, that are enforced top-down, particularly because most all of these policies are based on incentives (here, here, here, here), which don't convince people that the flaw is something deeper than where they choose to spend money, or something like that.

But what may be more of a barrier is the forcefulness associated with policies and law. In no way am I saying that environmental law is not necessary, but the pride of individuals rests in their ability to make choices for themselves. An apt example is the raising of kids, particularly in their teenage years. Deep down, most parents do know what is best for their kids, and they do tell their kids what to do and what not to do. But in being told what to do, there is almost an automatic reaction on the teenager's part not to listen to advice or orders, even though it is in their best interest to listen. That begs the question, How is it that we may have a world in what people choose to do themselves is what is the right thing to do? I know some might think that "right" is a subjective word, and there may be many "rights." Yet, it is clear that most all ecological and social harm has arisen from people doing the "right" thing, be it for themselves or their families. When I say "right" choices, I mean choices that respect and dignify not only people's immediate families (other people), but others (including nature), too.

This drives at a fundamental ethic in which tradeoffs, something I will write about in a day or two, are a thing of the past. Of course, a changed education stemming from a changed ethic seems like a way in which minds can be shaped from the very beginning. There would be no need for laws governing the sanctity of a river or of the air. What this necessarily results in is a reduced goverment, a reduced oversight, and a reduced need to be forced to do something. These are all things that all of us can agree are good.

Guest blog #19: Ashwin Salvi at the airport

Foreword
Here is a little piece that Ashwin wrote the other day, which goes in line with previous posts on the issues of travel and choice. He talks about the issues of waste in airports and in planes, aside from the considerable atmospheric, and consequently climate and ecological, impacts of air travel.

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"The issue of trash and waste really didn't sink in until I was at the airport the other day and was sipping on my coffee (of course, from a disposable cup).  I took a look around, people watching, when I realized almost everyone at my gate had at least one, if not more, disposable items with them.  Items ranged from coffee cups, plastic bottles, plastic food containers, wrappers, etc., all things we have become accustomed to expect when shopping at the food/drink stalls.

If this is what I experienced just at my gate, I can only imagine it is approximately the same at other gates. And other terminals.  And other times through out the day.  And at multiple other airports.  

I did some research into the trash airports generate, and although many trash reducing steps like recycling (though some still consider that waste) have been implemented, the data presented in a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council is startling.  In 2004, the U.S. airline industry discarded enough aluminum cans each year to build 58 Boeing 747 jets! (A Boeing 747-400 is made of 147,000 lbs of high-strength aluminum.) In addition, 18,000,000 lbs of plastic were also discarded and enough newspaper and magazines thrown away to fill a football field to a depth of more than 230 feet.  The report also stated that from the 10 airports reporting, 1.28 lbs of waste was created per passenger, about 1/3 the total amount of waste Americans generate in one day.  Considering that an empty 20 fl oz plastic bottle weighs approximately 2 oz, 1.28 pounds is considerable.

While these numbers are seven years old and many measures have been implemented to reduce waste from airport, it still highlights the severity of the problem.  There will be a point soon that this drastically high rate of waste production is going to directly impact the liberties and comforts we enjoy in life.  While airports have become stricter with what you can bring through security, there are still ways to reduce your waste generation. For example, bring a reusable empty water bottle and fill it up with water/tasty beverage of choice after security.  Instead of purchasing food with lots of packaging or getting food to go, get something freshly made (pizza comes to mind) or eat at the store if that replaces the use of boxes/styrofoam with a reusable plate.  

I encourage everyone to think about all the things you throw away and how you can reduce your waste footprint.  Simple changes like replacing paper towels with a cloth towel can go a long way to reduce waste, energy consumption and the factors that contribute to larger problems like climate change."

~Ashwin

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Post script

More on aviation and ethics as part of my dissertation...it's going to be exciting!   

To more sustainable neighbourhoods in Detroit

Some of you know that I have been involved in teaching and coordinating a class on Detroit this semester. It all started last year when Laura Sherman and Krista, two other wonderful graduate students that are in the same fellowship cohort as I, decided that it would be fun to put together a place-based class on sustainability together. There are a couple of such classes that already exist, but the places are foreign - one teaches and takes students to Kenya, the other Chile. We decided to focus on some place close to home, a place to me that is home - southeast Michigan. What better place than Detroit? An awesomely fascinating place with a huge cultural history and an increasingly vibrant collection of individuals wanting to turn the corner on a not-so-pleasant past.

We got a bunch of extremely talented undergraduates to sign up for the class, which began in January. After teaching in Ann Arbor for eight weeks, and taking three trips to Detroit, the whole class is now fully prepared to spend two entire weeks in Detroit. We will be living at Wayne State University, and focusing our studies and energy on southwest Detroit, particularly the neighbourhood of Delray and the surrounding neighbourhoods of Hubbar-Richard, Springwells, Mexicantown, and Boynton. We are fortunate enough to be working with Professor Larissa Larsen, who has long-standing connections to Delray and its residents. She has been actively involved in helping the residents face the challenges of living in Delray. In this place live people much less fortunate than most, particularly because of discrimination, segregation and zoning laws.

Fortunately enough, the residents of Delray want us there (nothing is worse than going to a place and telling people what they should do, especially if they don't want you there. This has been a struggle facing many places like Detroit.), and want us to help them re-envision their neighbourhood in the light of the New International Trade Crossing, a publicly-owned bridge that is being planned in competition to the privately-owned Ambassador Bridge, which spans the Detroit River to Windsor, Canada. The landing for the new bridge is proposed to be in Delray. What this means though, is that there will now be several thousand trucks passing through Delray now, worsening an already degraded environment. It will be the supreme responsibility of our students and us to come up with culturally- and historically-sensitive plans, based on neighbourhood input, that will hopefully serve as templates for a new Delray.

Over the next couple of weeks, from 8 to 21 May, I will be writing about our experiences in Delray. This will be one of the most challenging things I have participated in, particularly because of the present tensions between culture, race, history and environment. The challenges of sustainability will be front and centre.

FRACK YOU - Innocent until proven guilty

There a couple of themes from previous posts I'd like to pull together with this post, namely proactive law, the precautionary principle. I just read another article in Orion about fracking, When Cowboys Cry, by Sandra Steingraber, in which she talks about the continuing efforts of oil and gas extraction companies, like Halliburton, Chevron, and Exxon to frack in places like plains of Montana, the south of France, the vales of England, and the forests of Poland. More disturbing, however, is the part when she writes,

That was the week that stories about fracking broke in the international press, and the European environmentalists were scrambling to figure out what laws in the European Union might apply to this new technology. Like the sons and daughters of Montana's cowboys, the sons and daughters of the Allied Forces were having a hard time finding legal traction.

The British journal The Ecologist reached a similar conclusion in an investigative report about the European plans of Halliburton, Chevron, and Exxon and others. Although fracking in the United States is linked to toxic pollution and social conflict, notes The Ecologist, the technology is being rapidly exported. Fracking "exceeds the government regulatory process." It is "set to continue." It is, perhaps, "too powerful to oppose."

My former lab mate Paul, who graduated just last week, and I would talk many times about socio-environmental issues. He always has insightful things to say, and he said one thing that put a different perspective on things I've written about previously (here, here), including trust and faith in large organisations such as government and corporations, I believe on the day of the one year anniversary of the BP-Macondo well blowout and oil spill. He said, with regard large companies and corporations, "The companies are innocent until proven guilty." This statement puts a twist on a commonly held legal dictum, particularly because companies are not just "potential" criminals - they have been implicated and proven guilty time and time again. Each time, they have paid a small fine, and have moved on to commit the next crime. These companies are serial criminals, manic criminals. The statement also lends credence to how the precautionary principle operates in our society today - it is not that a law is implemented if a bad socio-environmental outcome is possible; rather a law is not implemented if it maybe possible to hurt the profits of companies. Society and environment be damned.

It is clear that regardless of the future applicability of retrospective law, those with power have the ability to subvert the law. Indeed, it doesn't matter what the sentiment of the law is, loopholes in law are treated as not an overlook in the law, not a space in which the sentiment of the law can pervade, but rather a space within which detrimental activities we thought would be regulated against can operate freely and without conscience. It is as if the outcome is not criminal or regulated against, but rather the mode of crime. This is contradictory to how the law operates in other (related) arenas. When someone commits first degree murder, it doesn't matter how the murder was committed, but what is important that the crime occurred. There is no legal loophole that says, "Oh, you used a stone to commit the crime rather than a gun. You're okay. You're free." But with ecological degradation, it is not the first degree crime that is illegal, rather it is just the manners in which the crime is commited that are deemed to be acceptable or not. There is then a legal discrepancy, a cultural schizophrenia, that is obvious.

What might be an approach to prevent this from happening, given the legal system we have? I heard a provocative Speaking of Faith episode from a few years ago, Reflections on the Death Penalty in America, in which a guest said that we must look into laws that maintain the dignity of humans. This can be easily extended to the environment. Rather than have a legalistic framework that is full of loopholes, why not have a legal framework that is inherently holistic and inherently proactive. Given the arguments made for and against even well-worded laws, why not have debates on the heart of the problems?

Some thoughts on violence

I get nervous when I see a gun. I get nervous because of what it represents in our and of our society, and the power it gives to the one that owns it, and the fear it instills in the ones that don't. I see a gun as a manifestation of our deep insecurities, and a manifestation of an understanding that what we do is not in the best interest of people and nature. A gun is a symbol of a life being forced upon us rather than a life lived in peace with what is environmentally, and consequently socially, acceptable. I don't want to get into a debate over what is acceptable; indeed, all of this blog has been dedicated to drawing these boundaries and extending our imaginations. Yet, as Jay Griffiths has written about beautifully and sadly in the current issue of Orion, guns and violence have been used against people and nature in West Papua for decades now. These unarmed people have fought to preserve their way of living and their mountains from the onslaught of the violence of mining. This is just one example of countless examples.

These past few days have been interesting. They have been days in which masculinity and dominance has been celebrated, ones in which introspection and asking "Why?" have been superseded by the thoughts of retaliation and revenge. Regardless of your stance on the issues,what I can say is that the events of the past few days have changed absolutely nothing, but rather they have further entrenched us in a continued violence that will to wreak havoc on lives, human, non-human and non-sentient. The environment, the ground and air and water that sustains us, will of course be impacted on negatively, despite the "just war theory," which I have written about previously. I can see that in the flag-waving of recent days, many lives and minds and hearts have fully accepted the manner in which we choose to end the fear that pervades our daily lives.

The world I want to live in is one without guns and violence, toward nature and people. It is of course something that has been written on and acted upon by countless, yet violence still surrounds us and pervades our minds. When we look at and make objects themselves with capacity to harm, we are compelled to pull a trigger or push a button that will blow someone or some place up.

I hope to have conveyed over the past months that there is actually no difference between environmental issues and social issues. They are one and the same. Committing violence against people is the same as committing violence against the land, air and water. Violence towards land, air and water is the same as violence towards people; it does not take a logical leap to make the connections. The world I want to live in is one without the fear of consuming toxins in my drinking water.

"Goods"

(There may be some economic jargon in this post.) In a world full of products and gadgets and materials extracted from nature, we use the word "goods" to describe anything and everything that can be moved around for personal profit or utility - food, fabric, metals, and electronics. There are of course public goods (say, something like clean air) and private goods (say, a car). Public goods are those things that we all need (and now want), the existence of which we hope will be taken care of by large organisations we've created, like governments. Private goods are those that are available primarily to those who have the ability to buy them. Generally, like in the US, depending on what you think the right approach is to deal with large scale problems is, you might think that the problem should be privatised, or should be made public. We can make things private goods, or public goods. There are of course several issues that arise because of this, but I don't want to delve too much into them. What I do want to focus on is the word "goods."

As you can tell, we have used the word "goods" to describe those objects we've become so accustomed to in our lives, many of which we feel are indispensable. Yet, it is hard to deny that in the creation of "goods," we've done significant harms to everything that allowed us to produce the "goods" in the first place. I think it is particularly ironic that we use that word, because it obscures what actually happens to make those objects. In fact, many bads, by most everyone's standards, have to happen to make these "goods" for us. We may trample on the grounds of indigenous peoples to extract metals, we may dam their rivers to produce power, and we may cut down rainforests to produce timber for furniture. The military is a wonderful oxymoron that typifies this issue - we want "security" and therefore we must produce weapons that necessarily make others insecure.

There may have been times when the "goods" were produced at a scale that didn't disturb nature and culture locally that much, let alone globally. But given the ever-increasing production of "goods," we of course step over limits of nature and ecosystems and the abilities of people to cope with these interventions. We have overstepped limits to such an extent that it is indeed ironic to say that some gadget is a "good." How might we be able to redefine what a "good" means? Is there another word that we can use that adequately captures the essence of our choice? Clearly, "commodity" does no better. Rather, it encourages us to view objects and nature as things to be "consumed."

Against the tide

As you may have come to realise, one of the main reasons why we face such dire ecological crises is because contemporary societies have designed themselves to be "outside of nature" with the desire to control our experiences. Our interactions with it have been minimised, and our bubble has been built around extracting energy and material from nature and the environment around us, and depositing degraded materials and energy back outside of our bubble, into nature. Our ethic is defined by doing what we want "in here," and not worrying about what happens "out there," as long as the flow of materials and energy in continues, and as long we can continue dumping what we want out there. We have created this disconnect in order to shirk responsibility in dealing with shortcomings of our philosophies and mental capacities, and in our humility.


I am reading this fascinating book by Alan Weisman, called The World Without Us, in which he envisions how nature might take over human structures and landscapes such as houses and cities. We have many times fought against nature in creating spaces for us to live, eat, and sleep. In having done so, we constantly struggle to maintain what it is we've invested in. For example, in having "reclaimed" land, like in The Netherlands, we are compelled to keep the forces of water at bay by constructing something like Maeslantkering.

Weisman describes the fascinating case of what it takes to keep the New York subway system running smoothly. Everyday, those running the subway must keep 13 million gallons of water from overpowering the tunnels. Because there is little soil and vegetation to absorb rainwater and groundwater, subway tunnels funnel the water into themselves. There are 753 pumps, maintained by crews, that have to pump water uphill constantly, because of the depth of the subway tunnels, and natural groundwater that gushes up from bedrock. Weisman writes, "Following the World Trade Center attack, an emergency pump train bearing a jumbo portable diesel generator pumped out 27 times the volume of Shea Stadium. Had the Hudson River actually burst through the PATH train tunnels that connect New York's subways to New Jersey, as was greatly feared, the pump train-and possibly much of the city-would simple have been overwhelmed." Pat Schuber, superintendent of Hydraulics for New York City Transit continues, "When this pump facility shuts down [because of no electricity], in half an hour water reaches a level where trains can't pass anymore."

There seems to be an ethic, prevalent throughout our interactions amongst ourselves, and with nature, of domination and competition. We want to dominate other people and their principles (leading to armed conflict), and we want to dominate the forces of nature by creating structures that nature wants to topple, and by demolishing violently natural areas for things of monetary "value." What if we were to live our lives not forcefully against the tide of nature, but rather with it?