Week 9 - Earth and Its Environment Flashcards
Recognize and identify the roots, context, and central concerns of the environmental movement.
- contrary to what was previously believed in the Industrial Revolution about humans being able to control science and nature for their benefit - fed into might is right mentality
feminist environmentalism has sought to address include:
animal rights;
the environmental economy of illness and well-being;
a questioning of science as an unquestioned force in human social relations;
the state’s role in environmental concerns;
women’s political, social, and legal rights as they relate to health and the environment;
ecoactivism–which is simply a term to describe activism/protest that places ecology and the health of the environment at the forefront of discussions about political, economic, and social disparity
Recognize and identify the life and accomplishments of Rachel Carson.
American scientist and writer
Exposed the problems with chemical pesticides, including DDT (used in agriculture to control bug populations) whereas people who developed it insisted it had no impacts on human health
Silent Springmeticulously described how DDT entered the food chain and accumulated in the tissues organisms, causing cancer and genetic damage.
Problematized technological processes and paradigm of scientific control
Carson died from breast cancer in 1964.
Recognize and identify the significance and mass appeal Silent Spring (1962).
Recognize and identify the central methods and conclusions of Silent Spring.
Silent Spring (1962): widely accepted as THE book that started the environmental movement popular text - regarded among scholars as beginning of environmental movement
Media is a conduit for transmitting environmental ideas (Kroll, 2001).
Media shaped divergent messages for different audiences—a phenomenon that assisted in transforming local environmental issues into a matter of national concern.
Shift from grass-roots to universal consensus on environmentalism.
Kroll explores three texts as a means of dissemination of the book: book into magazine (New Yorker: urban audience) as it pertained to health of their bodies, book-of-the-month (suburban), televised (mass audience) spoke to multiple constituencies and diverse audience (by major news broadcaster who picked up the book and used it to create a national discussion on role of science and media in changing hearts of people
Recognize and identify the critiques that Carson faced from her detractors.
Public response was swift - called into question technological optimism and processes that introduce chemical compounds to humans in a way that was not questioned prior to this
- questioned notion that science is benign
rising anger over the effects of air, water, and soil contamination, and also legislative reform. For example, DDT was banned in Canada in 1972, though it is still used on agricultural crops in other parts of the developing world.
Compare and contrast the ways that Silent Spring book was presented to different segments of the audience.
Presentation of texts adapted to meet tastes of various audiences (urban, suburban, mass).
For example, suburban presentation of the book focused problematizing the suburban ideal and domestic harmony (middle class ideals of composite ideal family), and the polluted nearby silent spring.
Serializing urban nature: “The New Yorker’s version of
“Silent Spring” was more than a mere serialization…constructed to appeal to an urban audience, a readership more concerned with the threats pesticides posed to their bodies than…widespread environmental contamination.” (Kroll, 2019, p. 405).
Suburban - “The domestic imagery of a number of Carson’s examples highlights the way pesticides threatened the integrity of the family unit.” (Kroll, 2001, p. 410).
Mass appeal - CBS presentation: “Carson’s text achieved renewed emphasis through the surroundings, audience, and the constructed message of the television program.” (Kroll, 001, p. 412). Essentially, we shouldn’t trust the narrative that science has presented us, fallibility of scientific discourses
- questioning of previously unquestioned basis of science that science cannot be influenced by nefarious interests i.e. big Pharma
Identify and recognize the life, key accomplishments, and central claims of Naomi Klein.
Canadian journalist, educator, activist, and film maker who has been advocating against the effects climate change reform for over a decade. In particular, Klein has been a vocal critic of the environmental and human costs of disaster capitalism, which she argues promotes a “shock doctrine” that dismantles environmental and consumer protections.
Identify and recognize the central arguments of the documentary This Changes Everything.
transformative change can happen in the midst of crisis and collapse. In this way, much of her work offers a hopeful message for change in the midst of shock and crisis. She also uses the power of human stories to bring light to climate injustice and the activism that responds to it. As the COVID19 pandemic has unfolded, Klein has made a compelling case that this crisis is intricately connected to climate change and the disaster of capitalism as a economic driver of human induced ecological crisis. She argues that these “shocks” can either push human society towards an “evolutionary leap” of environmental and social change, or leave it vulnerable to the opportunistic impulses of big business and politics, who have shown themselves to care very little about vulnerable people .
–argues that the story of climate change is really a story about inequality and vulnerability.
–wealth and power have shaped every aspect of our response to this crisis - not all of us are equally responsible
Identify and recognize the grievances of Beaver Lake First Nations against the encroachments of the oil industry on their traditional territory.
- tar sands in Alberta are being mined on traditional territories of indigenous peoples despite that they are supposed to have access to their lands under legally binding treaties
increasing concerns about petroleum oil spills in their lands
Recognize and identify the research focus, accomplishments, and methods of Dr. Ingrid Waldron.
sociologist, writer, and public intellectual. She is the Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at Dalhousie University and the Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project
research and teaching focus on health and environmental impacts of pollution in Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities. Dr. Waldron’s book, There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities, was released in April 2018 by Fernwood Publishing.
Recognize and identify the mission and goals of the ENRICH Project.
community-based research and project that advocates for environmental justice and educates on the topic of environmental racism that has been specific to Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities.
Recognize and identify the term environmental racism; recognize and identify the role of feminist environmentalism in approaches to There’s Something in the Water.
Environmental racism is the idea that BIPOC communities, those who are racialized and have less access to power in society, are disproportionally affected by toxic industries, because of government and corporate decisions.
Recognize and identify the ways in which racialized communities in Nova Scotia have reacted to environmental racism.
- “postal code determines health”
- black and indigenous communities usually located near sites of production/resource extraction
- hazardous waste nearby
- resulting health impacts - cancer
Recognize and identify how the ENRICH Project engages in community centered initiatives and bring awareness to environmental injustices.
- amplifying voices of women of colour
-Recognize and identify the motivations and tactics of Greta Thunberg.
-Recognize and identify Thunberg’s actions, tactics, and arguments on the topic of climate change.
Our House is on Fire. In it, Thunberg reminds us that we should not be hopeful about the future of our home planet. Her suggestion is that we should panic, we should act as though our house is on fire, because it is. She argues that the right to a future should frame discussions around climate change. Here, we see that fundamental human rights bridges the divides in discussions about environmental justice and different branches of the social justice movement.
