Social injustices Flashcards
What does rendering technical mean?
To oversimplify something that is actually more complicated and top-down
Creates “solutions” to superficial problems and depoliticises them
Why is climate justice important geographically?
Causes and impacts are uneven
How does the climate justice movement compare with the envi justice movement in 1960s USA?
Builds on the environ justice movement, but now has a global remit, increasingly in the global south too
What is climate colonialism?
- A misinterpretation of climate justice
- Forces poorer countries to deindustrialise and limit fossil fuel emissions when they lack the technology to develop by an alternative means
Why is climate justice often referred to as a “triple injustice” (CITATION?)?
- Hits the poorest
- Who feel the most impacts
- At a greater cost
What are the 4 pillars of climate justice outlined by Newell et al 2021?
1) Distributional (costs and benefits)
2) Procedural (equitable and fair)
3) Recognition of different perspectives
4) Intergenerational
(Newell, et al., 2021)
What is a good source for the UN polluter pay principle?
Adger, et al., 2006
Also UNFCC 1992
What is a good example of climate colonialism?
- REDDT+ (Citation??)
- Inhibited development
Who has raised the issue surrounding individualist approaches to climate justice?
Okereke and Coventry 2017
Besides localised impacts, what other reasons are there for moving beyond a state focus for climate change?
Corporations that are ultimately responsible for climate change
Besides forcing people to do things that they cannot afford, why is an individualist solution to climate injustices flawed?
Makes people selfish and self-centred so that they do not cooperate as a group
What is the first example of environmental injustice movements?
N. Carolina PCB protest 1982 in Warren County
What would be a novel approach to studying environmental injustice?
Understanding new conceptualisations of nature, urbanity and wilderness
Based on the works of R Williams, Cronon etc
What are 3 other ways of thinking about envi. injustice?
- Environmental Racism
- Pollution of Colonialism (Libiron, 2021)
- Social/racial segregation mirroring pollution (Bullard, 2006)
How does environmental injustice compare with envrionmentalism?
Looks at the localised impacts of the environment on communities, not distant national parks and wilderness places
(di Chiro, 1996; Cronon, 1996)
Who is a major proponent of envi justice movement?
Rob Bullard (2006)
What was a problem with the obsession with wilderness of the 60s envi movement?
- The socio-ecological trouble with wilderness
- Wilderness as a privileged landscape (Cronon, 1996)
- Not an intersectional movement
What is a contemporary example of environmental injustice?
Cancer alley, USA (Raised by Biden 2021; covered by Davies, 2009)
What is a local example of privileged environmental injustice?
- Fen Ditton, Cambs against honey pot hill sewage works
- Funny how wealthy seek to preserve their assets (i.e. not allow depreciation of house prices) only when really threatened (same with Gatwick expansion etc)
- Only the wealthy have the time and money to protest
What is the temporal issue surrounding environmental and climate justice?
The slow violence effect (Nixon, 2011)
What is a critique of slow violence?
A spatial element - boiling frogs
People in the west insulated from the impacts by distance as well as time. A cognitive dissonance
(Highlighted in Beardsley 2012)
What is especially troubling about the slow violence of environmental deterioration?
It becomes normalised as there is no sudden spectacle
The communities are seen to be riddled with cancer cases because of compositional, not contextual factors (c.f. Bambra, 2019)
Who has raised awareness of intergenerational effects of environmental inequalities
Walker et al., 2005
Also enhancement of issues if left unadressed
Who discovered a correlation between % ethnic minorities and levels of pollution in USA?
USA Racial Justice Study (1987)
What are two examples of noise pollution?
- Rogers, 2014 on Boston airport traffic
- Mitchell and Dorling, 2003 for air pollution in UK
What is an example of a study into green space access?
O’Brian and Morris, 2014 in the UK for different marginalised groups
What are the two biggest limitations to environmental justice?
1) Misses big picture with solutions and impact assessments (esp. spatial and temporal scales)
2) Arbitrary levels of acceptable environmental quality - issues of triage
Why does Libiron suggest that pollution is inherently colonial?
- Not just capitalism
- Pollution duped elsewhere, with locals having no say
- A form of expropriation by dumping
Who has pointed towards a decolonised and pluralist conception of environmental injustice?
Coolsaet, 2020
Also Álvarez and Coolsaet, 2020
What 3 reasons do Álvarez and Coolsaet, 2020 give for decolonising environmental justice?
1) “Environment” and “Justice” based on western ideas
2) Participation can be limited by material restrictions
3) Knowledges from global south overlooked
What is a good quote about toxicity and slow violence?
“Toxic pollution is a form of violence” (Davies, 2019)
How are structural forces/violence linked to slow violence?
Structural inequality can exacerbate effects of slow violence in a reinforcing cycle with epistemic inequalities
Davies, 2019
What does McCauley and Heffron (2018) overlook in their historiography of a just transition for climate?
The critical Marxist analysis into the limitations of technology-driven solution that secures jobs
McCauley and Heffron (2018)
What source links environmental justice with political ecology?
Svarstad and Benjaminsen, 2020
Covers role of power in participatory approaches etc
How many countries have balance of emissions and vulnerability to climate change?
Just 28 (16%), as of 2010 (Althor, et al., 2016)
What is a major flaw with Althor, et al. (2016) analysis into climate change inequalities in terms of emissions and vulnerability?
Fails to look at the historical responsibility in terms of cumulative GhG emissions and creating vulnerability through colonialism
What source has studied the epistemological flaws of climate science?
O’Lear, 2016
Doesn’t say science is wrong, but rather that it paints an ill-informed picture geopolitically
What is one of the major problems with climate justice?
- Hard to define boundaries
- Measures - yearly? Cumulative? Aggregate? Per Capita?
