Categories » Morality and the Environment

 
 
 

Is This Progress?

November 18, 2011 by
Categories: Corporate Behavior, Environmental Rights and Justice, Green Consumerism, Green Energy, Morality and the Environment

One Tiny Step Forward…

If you’ve been following the Keystone XL Pipeline development, you probably heard two things that seem like positive environmental developments.  First, the corporation behind the development of the project, agreed to reroute the planned pipe such that it will no longer run through the Nebraska Sand Hills region.  Potentially good news for Nebraskan environmentalists, ranchers, conservationists, who raised concerns about the impact of subterranean oil on the Ogallala aquifer, described as “…a massive subterranean waterway that underlies 27% of the irrigated land in the U.S.”

Nebraskan Rancher in the Sand Hills

 

 

Second, the Obama administration and the State Department recently announced that the project would be sent back for review, citing the environmental and socioeconomic considerations raised by the specter of continued oil dependency and dirty extraction.

…And One Giant Leap Back

However, any optimism about these developments should be severely tempered.  While the guaranteed protection of the Ogallala aquifer is a good thing, the obvious question that emerges is, why were they threatened in the first place?  Moreover, a careful examination of the State Department’s announcement on the Pipeline clearly indicates that the delay 1) is primarily to find a less contentious route for the proposed oil; 2) times the final decision-making such that the policy will be determined after the election.  A more cynical person than I would suggest that Obama is primarily trying not to alienate his remaining progressive-environmentalist constituency, while intending to go ahead with it anyway.  But, if the next President is a Republican, well, the possibility of the Pipeline becomes a certainty.

An Eminently Reasonable Man

Take a look at the rhetoric surrounding the issue: obviously, you have industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute stating that the Pipeline will create “…thousands of jobs almost immediately,” something that has to be a concern for Obama given his poll figures as of late.

More colorfully, Rick Perry has pointed out that our dependence on foreign oil, much of it produced by nationalized companies in countries such as Saudia Arabia, places American troops and security at risk.  We strengthen hostile regimes, because we fill up our SUVs with their product.  (Ironically, this is an argument made by environmentalists for reducing oil consumption – inimical to the Keystone XL).

Something Else to Keep in Mind

In any case, despite the superficial progress, there are a plethora of well-reasoned objections, on clearly stated environmental grounds, to the project as a whole – not just the proposed expansion through the Sand Hills.  In the Colbert Report, Middlebury’s own Bill McKibben critiques the whole idea of the project.

Adding Insult to Injury: the First Nations and Injustice

One final point: while McKibben’s argument is sound, it seems as if there was not enough time on the Report to get into one of the more troubling aspects (to me) of the whole production of the Keystone.  Even if we were guaranteed that the transit of oil were safe in the US, oil extraction is severely problematic for the people who live near the tar sands: indigenous and First Nations peoples.

As can be seen in this report by the NRDC (TarSandsInvasion-full [PDF]), the extraction of oil from tar sands is immensely hazardous to the local ecosystems upon which indigenous people depend.  Air pollution, and the seepage of toxins into groundwater, aquifers, and local ecosystems have led to high rates of cancer, asthma, acid rain, and the accumulation of toxins such as cyanide and ammonia.  Not surprisingly, and as is the case in the US, indigenous people in Canada are at the lower end of the socioeconomic totem pole.  It is important to keep in mind, when we think about environmental problems, that some populations are more vulnerable than others.  Thinking about the Keystone XL (and other environmental issues) should raise questions, not just about consumption, local ecosystems, and wellbeing – but also about demographics and social identity.  Who benefits?  Who loses?  Do certain populations lose more?  In so doing, we should oppose environmentally harmful projects, not just on the basis of ecological concerns, but also on the basis of human rights, justice, and socioeconomic equity.

No comments »

Tradition: Some Things Change, Some Things Remain the Same

October 26, 2011 by
Categories: Morality and the Environment, Nature Preservation

Old meets new.

One of the first international campaigns, and one that has become a shorthand for international environmentalism as a whole, was to Save the Whales.  However, the initial attempts by the International Whaling Commission to regulate the killing of whales were dismal: improperly chosen international quotas, a lack of monitoring, and rampant defection meant that for the first few decades of its existence, the IWC permitted a fundamentally unsustainable rate of killing whales – to choose one specie for example, only 3% – 11% of the pre-industrial population of Blue Whales remains. As is usually the case, human technical ingenuity, including but not limited to the invention of the exploding harpoon in the 19th century, and the development of whaling vessels that functioned as floating factories, permitted mankind to change the environment (read: kill whales) faster and more efficiently than before.

Nevertheless, environmental movements in the 1970s and 1980s, encouraged by the emergence of international environmentalism embodied in the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, with the US as a powerful ally, and with the votes of new non-whaling members, persuaded the members of the IWC to adopt a de facto commercial moratorium.  At the same time, given the dependence of some traditional indigenous communities on whales, member states included an exemption to the ban on whaling in the IWC, permitting Eskimos (among others) to hunt a limited number of whales under the current Schedule.

But things are more complicated than that: while it sounds romantic to imagine the traditional whale hunter, spear in hand, plying the waters for trade, the reality is that indigenous populations are no more immune to the allure of technology.  The Inupiat, for example, use powerboats and grenade-tipped harpoons to hunt.  While causing nowhere near the level of environmental impact implicated in the real transgressors of the whaling moratorium – the Japanese Nisshin Maru is currently the world’s last remaining factory ship – for some, this does raise questions about how “traditional” the practice is.

However, there are other, potentially more serious environmental issues at play here.  First, as indicated in this wonderful video on the practice, the practice of whale hunting is now – like many other forms of human activity – being affected by climate change.  Thus, another ostensibly traditional activity is under threat from the process of industrialization.  Second, as described by the EPA and other international regulatory bodies, whales are, by virtue of their position in the marine trophic web, likely to accumulate Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), long-lived, bio-accumulating compounds that can cause cancer, developmental defects, and function as endocrine disruptors.  This is somewhat alarming, considering that, as indicated in the video mentioned above, the consumption of whales is shared by entire communities, women and children alike (confession: the thought of eating whales is – to me – a scrumptious one).  Could it be the case that we do need to ban whale hunting,  not necessarily out of some desire to impose our cultural preferences on other societies, but rather out of humanitarian concerns?

No comments »