When I was eighteen, I interviewed my sister about her carbon footprint. It was the first time I had questioned my family’s privilege and how it links to our environmental impact. During the interview I asked my sister if she would ever seriously consider switching to an electric car. She responded with a strong “no” because she felt it limited her choices. Initially, I was upset at her answer as I found it astounding that someone with the ability to even consider something as expensive as an electric car was rejecting the idea due to something as trivial as choice limitation. I was upset at her for not using her privilege for environmental good. I now understand the choices of an individual should not be judged in this manner since environmental issues such as carbon emissions and climate change are much more complex and require solutions far greater than simple consumer choices. Environmental issues cannot be solved solely by individual lifestyle changes, though these can be important for raising awareness; collective actions for systematic and institutional changes are even more crucial. Current social and economic systems value certain groups of people – generally white, heteronormative, wealthy individuals – at the cost of marginalized groups and the environment. In forming my concentration, I attempt to explore how human relationships to the environment inform human relationships with one another.
Understandings of Humans and Their Natural Environments
Studying humans and their natural environments in various cultures and geographies led me to an overarching, important theme: humans believe they have dominance over their environments yet simultaneously view the Earth as impervious to human actions. Humans, however, are not truly the powerful creatures we perceive ourselves to be because we have a reliance on natural resources that are finite. The planet also does not go unchanged by our actions and humans suffer the consequences of our behaviors that lead to environmental degradation. The reason for all of this is simple: humans are not separate from Nature, rather we are forever a part of it.
Humans are biological creatures and for as much as we try to make sense of our existence and intelligence, we are still citizens of the Earth. I turn to the theory of Gaia to understand humans as a part of nature:
Gaia is not a big organism. It is Life, with a capital “L”, that, to be sure, includes as some
of its copartners animals, plants, bacteria, but also many other participants not usually
counted in its balance sheet — atmosphere, soil, rocks, seas, clouds, minerals, continents
— that have been transformed, mobilized, generated, inhabited, engineered by life forms
over eons of time (Latour, 2020, 15).
Humans are co-partners with other beings and we are connected across time and space. Just as the atmosphere, soil, and so on have evolved over large expanses of time, we too have changed and are connected to these changes. The Earth’s ecosystems, continents, and various other elements are impacted by our actions. Regardless of human survival, Life will continue, but the Earth has entered a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – in which the planet has forever changed due to human action. Future life forms will be impacted by our actions and will also inhabit and transform Gaia for millennia. This is why environmental issues are complex, multi-generational, global, yet also local problems. Disregarding any aspect of these issues artificially distances the entanglement of humans with nature.
Humans separate themselves from the environment in attempts to dominate it. When humans forget or purposefully remove themselves from Nature they create an illusion that wherever they have settled has been “conquered”, giving a false sense of superiority:
There was once a town in the heart of America where all lives seemed to live in harmony
with its surroundings… Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change… In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches… The people had done it themselves (Carson 2015 [1962], 1-3).
This quote represents how humans believe they have dominance over the land without truly understanding the consequences of their actions. In Silent Spring (1962), Rachel Carson details how the use of DTD, a pesticide, has brought environmental harm and health concerns to the United States. Humans create destructive weapons such as pesticide because they believe the Earth is boundless. Despite what power humans believe they have over the natural world, there is still the understanding that the planet would never “turn against” humanity by creating unstable living conditions for its inhabitants. The Earth is still reactive and responsive to humanity’s actions, as exemplified by the strange blight from Carson’s narrative. Ultimately, humans as dominant creatures versus the Earth as an unchangeable entity does not prove to be beneficial for humans or the Earth.
I am interested in how humans understand themselves in relation to the planet because I believe that if humans understood themselves as a part of nature they would be less likely to harm the environment. This may be one of the steps necessary in questioning our systems, institutions, and so on. In the next section I delve into how the human connection to the Earth also informs our connection to one another. Understanding humans as a part of nature can help us comprehend our interconnectedness with the planet as well as to each other.
How Humans Hurt Themselves by Harming the Earth
While environmental destruction exists on local and regional levels, such as the example from Carson’s Silent Spring, this issue is ultimately also global and multitemporal. It also does not only affect one generation, rather, actions have the potential to affect multiple generations in the future. This has led to complicated, interrelated social issues. Environmental harm leads to human harm through global, multigeneration destruction.
So far I have grouped all of humanity together, but in reality there are varying levels of accountability for different groups of people. Humans are not all equally responsible because they do not all harm the Earth in the same way. As described by Ramachandra Guha,
The central paradox of global environmentalism is that the people who are the most vocal in defense of nature are the people who most actively destroy it… few among these lovers of nature scrutinize their own lifestyle, their own heavy reliance on nonrenewable resources, and the ecological footprint their consumption patterns leave on the soil, forest, waters, and air of lands other than their own (Guha, 2000, 367, 370).
Guha is specifically referring to Westerners that criticize the environmental practices of the global South without considering how their actions may contribute to the very destruction they desire to prevent (Guha, 2017 [2000], 109). Humans harm themselves by harming the environment when affluent powers (such as wealthy countries) exploit and yet blame others (specifically developing countries) for the destruction of the planet. Privileged individuals of the West may comfortably sit in their ignorance without acknowledging how their lifestyle must come at the cost of vulnerable groups from other parts of the world. Guha demonstrated how environmental issues are global, but the last sentence also indicates how this issue is multi-generational. Guha details how non-renewable resources and ecological footprints are harmful to the environment and have lasting effects on the Earth. When one generation dies they leave behind their impact on the planet; in our case it is pollution. Multiple generations share the Earth’s natural resources and how current generations exploit it negatively affects the livelihoods of future generations. This represents one of the many reasons why individual changes cannot solve this issue. While Western individuals must acknowledge their own privilege there must also be a recognition of how these issues are upheld by systems that span across time and space. These environmental issues harm a collective, so they require a collective response to properly mitigate and/or adapt to.
I found it important to frame environmental issues through global, multi-generational destruction because it sets up the framework that these issues require systematic and institutional changes. Collective action, as previously stated, does not mean a group of individuals making individual changes. In the next section I will explore what it means to participate in collective action and why collective change is significant.
The Environment As a Social Issue
Not only are there varying levels of accountability when it comes to the environment, but also when it comes to the social groups that are harmed in the process. As previously mentioned, environmental issues are collective issues, but determining accountability can be a tricky process. In the previous section I mention how the West has harmed other countries, but environmental issues do not boil down simply to the West limiting carbon emissions, pollution, etc. I want to explore how economic systems, specifically capitalism, are related to our social systems and how different types of oppressions are ingrained into these systems.
The environment is understood as a social issue through the way it impacts a collective and the individuals within that collective. Candis Callison’s ethnography How Climate Change Comes to Matter (2015) investigates the specifics of understanding climate change as related to groups of people on complex and intimate levels. Callison takes the time to converse with Inuit people to pinpoint where climate change comes into their discourse, histories, and contexts (Callison 2015, 42). “A prominent locally elected official, upon hearing my personal and research introduction, said, ‘Climate change… It’s more something they talk about on CNN. It’s out there. It’s not what we talk about’” (Callison 2015, 44). This person made the distinction between their community and the rest of the world which speaks to the Inuit relationship to environmental issues and their relationship to others globally. I consider the neglect of the Inuit community to be an environmental injustice because climate change impacts their daily lives yet globally there is little to no attention given to them. The Inuit community did not emit the carbon that warmed the atmosphere to melt the glaciers but the global community has failed to acknowledge that and take necessary action to mitigate and help the community adapt to the problem. The Inuit community has been tasked with dealing with this problem and they will continue to deal with it for generations to come. The necessary action to address this issue will require a look into economic and social systems.
Issues such as melting glaciers point to warming temperatures from carbon emissions but also to the capitalistic system that impedes implementation of renewable energy and other technologies. Plastic China (2016), a documentary directed by Jiu-liang Wang, illustrates how capitalism is specifically designed to keep various communities and groups under a specific role, thus forcing them to deal with the environmental problems caused by the very system under which they are oppressed. In the documentary, the story follows one family in a rural part of China that receives large shipments of plastic from the West and processes the plastic by burning it in unsafe conditions to eventually sell for an unethical wage. The family suffers from severe health conditions because of the toxins that they inhale from the smoke. The children play in mountains of single-use, discarded plastic instead of attending school due to financial stress. China, at that point, purchased the plastic from the United States and processed it with cheap labor. The smoke from burning plastic degraded the air quality and allowed the United States to participate in overconsumption while not suffering the consequences of the waste. Since this documentary China has stopped importing America’s trash, but the United States continues to send its trash overseas to other countries. The cost of trash from the U.S. does not account for the environmental degradation, health effects, etc. and for this system to work there requires a community that cannot reject the work or any of its negative effects. The issue of refuse ultimately displays how capitalism functions to oppress various groups of people and the environment.
Environmental justice rightly concerns itself with speaking for the entities that cannot speak for themselves (eg., future generations, ecosystems, non-human organisms) as well as for those who have been silenced (eg., indingenous communities, marginalized people, etc.). Neglecting such issues or the ways that current systems do not prioritize the environment and vulnerable communities is something we do to our own long-term detriment as a species.
Ending Thoughts
I recognize the importance of viewing humans as a part of nature but also continue to grapple with the true meaning or import of that statement as I continue to study nature and all of its complexities. It is clear that humans are destructive to themselves when destroying the Earth but it is also crucial to recognize how privilege allows some to shield ourselves from the negative effects while marginalized groups suffer the consequences (even when they often do not participate in the destruction). I conclude that we must hold certain entities accountable and yet there is no formula for how this could or should be done. I feel I cannot blame my sister for not wanting an electric car but I can challenge her and any other person to consider their role in their communities (from local to global), work to acknowledge privileges, and strive to combat injustices.
REFERENCES
Callison, Candis. How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts. Duke University Press, 2015.
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Penguin Books, in Association with Hamish Hamilton, 2015 [1962].
Guha, Ramachandra. The Paradox of Global Environmentalism. Current History, November 2000, 367–70. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2000.99.640.367.
Latour, Bruno. Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth. MIT Press, 2020.
Wang, Jiu-liang, director. Plastic China. CNEX Studio Corporation, 2016.
LIST OF WORKS
Four works from the Humanities produced after the mid-1600s, in Humanities fields such as Literature (including works of literature as well as literary criticism), Philosophy, History, the Arts, Critical Theory, and Religion:
- Latour, Bruno. 2020. Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020.
- Hughes, David McDermott. Energy without Conscience: Oil, Climate Change, and Complicity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
- Robinson, Kim Stanley. New York 2140. S.l.: Agave Konyvkiado KFT, 2020.
- Dr. Seuss. The Lorax. London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2018.
Four works from the Social and/or Natural Sciences that should be nonfiction works, produced after the mid-1600s, in the Natural Sciences (such as Biology, Neuroscience, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry or Astronomy) and Social Science disciplines (such as Political Science, Economics, Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology):
- Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Penguin Books, in Association with Hamish Hamilton, 2015 [1962].
- Bone Handled Toothbrush, Unknown Artist, circa 19th century.
- Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. The Mushroom at the End of the World: on the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.
- Zalasiewicz, Jan. The Planet in a Pebble: a Journey into Earth’s Deep History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Seven works from premodern or early modern periods:
- Spanish Silver Coins, Unknown Artist, circa 17th Century.
- Dürer, Albrecht. The Rhinoceros. Drawing. New York, 1515. The MET.
- Queen Puabi’s Headdress, Unknown Artist(s), circa Early Dynastic IIIA period.
- Storm, Theodor. The Dykemaster. London: Angel Books, 1888.
- Tieck, Ludwig. Blond Eckbert. London: Chester Music, 1797.
- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Erl King. New York, NY: Carl Fischer, 1782.
- Turtle Automaton with Neptune as Vintner, Leodegar Grimaldo, 1626.
Five works that point specifically to your concerns in your concentration:
- Bullard, Robert D., Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, and Beverly Wright. Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: a Report Prepared for the United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries. Cleveland, OH: United Church of Christ, 1987-2007.
- A Civil Action. USA: Paramount Pictures, 1998. https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Action-John-Travolta/dp/B003SI1TK6.
- Callison, Candis. How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts. Duke University Press, 2015.
- Guha, Ramachandra. The Paradox of Global Environmentalism. Current History, November
- 2000, 367–70. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2000.99.640.367.
- Wang, Jiu-liang, director. Plastic China. CNEX Studio Corporation, 2016.
At least four works that place the colloquium issues or questions in cultural, political and geographical contexts, including perspectives from the global south or from parts of the world outside of the regions in which you are focusing your concentration.
- Latour, Bruno. 2020. Critical Zones: The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth, edited by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020.
- Guha, Ramachandra. The Paradox of Global Environmentalism. Current History, November 2000, 367–70. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2000.99.640.367.
- Wang, Jiu-liang, director. Plastic China. CNEX Studio Corporation, 2016.
- Callison, Candis. How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts. Duke University Press, 2015.
At least four works that help the student explore the colloquium themes and questions from an historical perspective.
- Bullard, Robert D., Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, and Beverly Wright. Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: a Report Prepared for the United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries. Cleveland, OH: United Church of Christ, 1987-2007.
- Hughes, David McDermott. Energy without Conscience: Oil, Climate Change, and Complicity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
- Zalasiewicz, Jan. The Planet in a Pebble: a Journey into Earth’s Deep History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Penguin Books, in Association with Hamish Hamilton, 2015 [1962].