Environment Flashcards
What is environmental sustainability?
the degree to which a human activity can be sustained without damaging or undermining basic ecological support systems”
Automobility as ideological?
(serves the interest of people in power, taken for granted as natural when it isn’t):
Pimp my ride Uber Emotional exploitation Roll up the rim The price is right Gas points Fast and furious movies and people driving those cars Car shows Grand theft auto Nascar (sport) Commercials (fossil fuel burning car will get you more “in touch” with nature) Skip the dishes
Lines up absolutely with neoliberal ideologies. Individual cars are all about private transit and ideas of private security. Causes social problems. Parents drive kids to school because they think it’s safer but most accidents happen in the parking lot.
Cosmology?
the branch which studies the origin and evolution of the universe.
Onto-epistemological divide?
idea that the western conception of the world posits that our brains and bodies are somehow separate and that thinking is the height of being). Nature as separate from culture. Humanity on top of everything else. Underpinning all the abuse of the environment that western culture has engaged in. This logic allows you to think you can control and exploit the environment.
Metabolic Rift?
the metabolic rift between humans and nature opening up under capitalism, he’s referring to the ways in which a profit-driven economy requires us to treat nature as though it were something totally separate from ourselves, even though humans are in fact part of nature.
What is climate change?
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures due to human activity and, in particular, the release of greenhouse gases into the environment
Tragedy of the commons?
When we take better care of the environment, we have better success ourselves
And we take better care of the environment when we feel responsible for it.
We need to inject idea of responsibility.
Our oceans are the common grazing land of today (we throw plastic in it, it’s public land). We need to take responsibility for this because the fish are dying and in result we suffer.
What is environmental racism?
Environmental racism:
Unequal distributions of environmental hazards
Racialized communities disproportionately affected by environmental hazards like pollution, contaminated water, soil, air,
Examples: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans (2005), Grassy Narrows Ontario (ongoing), the “sacrifice zones” on Indigenous lands in North Dakota (Cairns, p. 128)
Explanations:
Racialized poverty –> settlements in cheap land –> same land used for undesirable industries
Path of least resistance (racialized political power) therefore less able to protest and resist these types of environmental racism
Racism (lives just understood as less valuable)
What is E-waste?
the name for obsolete, broken, and worn-out electronics—from computers to mobile phones to televisions
What is planned obsolescence?
designing products to quickly become outdated and then replaced by the constant emergence of newer and cheaper electronics
Ex: fast fashion, LOL Dolls
The China price?
“China price” (Steckley and Letts 2010) environmnetal and labour cost on china and people in china for people to have cheap products produced.
Low cost of products from China
High environmental and labour cost for workers in China
China = largest producer of coal
What is eco-entitlemement?
eco-entitlement is an expression of democratic entitlement that focuses on preventing an environmental disaster before the crisis escalates
Ex: Divest Harvard
What is eco-disentitlement?
not entitled to a clean and healthy environment)
Fossil fuel dependence?
Supply about 86% of humanity’s total energy demand
For transit, space and water heating, electricity, products (plastics, etc)
Why, according to Cairns, did the SHOREline youth support the oil industry despite experiencing the negative effects of the industry?
How is fossil fuel dependence an expression of the onto-epistemological divide?
Kids in Louisiana’s life were impacted by fossil fuel dependence, but were not opposed to the industry because that’s where their parents’ income comes from.
