EcoRes Forum

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Discussion Themes
Education, activism & awareness; Country- & situation-specific solutions; Reaching decision-makers; Advocating ethics: Can/should it be done?
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[MLeyser]

<b>Methods and Methodology: What’s Working and Why</b>

As we move on to the next topic, looking at what is and isn’t working in E/CJ approaches around the world, I’d like to open the floor and ask for examples from our participants and panelists.

In your field, what approaches have you adopted (or have you seen adopted) to incorporate E/CJ, or to address E/CJ issues? Are these efforts working? How do you measure and evaluate their success or the lack thereof? Background details regarding at what level and with which audiences you’re working would be helpful, as would suggestions of materials, readings, or particularly effective tools and approaches.

<b>Think about it</b>: In terms of environmental education, many have encouraged active classroom advocacy on these issues. Others have been critical of this method, arguing that advocacy has no place in the classroom. What do you think? Is it effective? Is it ethical? Might answers vary depending on student age ranges? Can/should guidelines be observed in advocating from the chalkboard? If so, what should the guidelines be – and who should make that decision?
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Mary Leyser, EcoRes Forum (www.eco-res.org)

[S Thompson]

An environmental justice framework in environmental education raises questions about the equity of resource distribution, of ways of knowing and of environmental health. This framework constitutes movement towards a sustainable future, linking environment and development education. I see it as the next step in environmental education to move towards sustainability for all—starting in our communities in solidarity with others around the world, as environmental equity issues are both local and global.

[J Bendik-Keymer]

This will be brief -- I'm looking forward to hearing what practitioners have found works!

Wendy and Mary were discussing how to work with people who have deep resistances to EJ and CJ. For the sake of arguments, let's assume that the core of EJ/CJ is justified -- climate change is happening; it will affect the powerless disproportionately; most of them were not the main polluters; etc. Furthermore, whatever the specifics of justice, common human justice is right to assume that it's unfair to put heavy burdens on powerless people who did not do much of anything to deserve them, or cause them. Assume all this for the sake of argument.

Then, how does one deal with people who deny the core assumptions above? I've two strong intuitions on this:

1. It's important to treat every person with respect as a rational being, unless you have strong evidence that the person is irrational. If you do, the person still deserves respect as a being trying to fulfill its good in a complex world that may be threatening or hard to understand. I say all this, because it's easy to lose education from the beginning through condescension structuring the scene. A corollary of this view is that one has to acknowledge the limitations of one's own mind and hold open the very likely possibility that one has not seen something important from one's viewpoint, something one's fellow human has. To school, one has to be open to schooling.

2. I think bringing the argument back to stories from our personal perspectives -from the first-person, the "I"- helps. Humans have the natural ability to identify with each other. This identification comes out especially well under situations of equality (see intuition 1 above). I think it helps people resistant to justice to start living in the shoes of those subject to injustice. This is what sharing stories can accomplish.

To use stories, well, though, there has to be an interest in sharing the stories . What is the story of the guy with the pickup truck? What can he teach me? And if stories are used, there can't be a hint of twisting them subtly to make one's point -- like those aid stories that are pitched with music and imagery that corners a person into feeling he is wrong if he doesn't give. The story should just be a story, as honest and objective as it can be. Not trying to treat the other rhetorically.

One of the things that I loved about Obama's Philadelphia speech about Rev. Wright was how he managed to listen to the stories of people put out by affirmative action. He schooled people on racism, and precisely, I think, because he took each person's viewpoint and stories seriously. Aristotle proposed that there is some truth in every position.

In any event, I think personal identification can help avoid the dangers Mary warned us academic philosophers about. Socratic questioning is a lot different when identification is at work around it.

I just had one more intuition:

3. The Greeks had this concept of fearless speech -parhessia. The parhesiastes was the person who invoked his democratic right to speak plainly and openly even when power was against it. I find it admirable the Greeks had such a right in their democracy.

I think we can learn something from fearless speech. There is a low-grade fear that creeps in between people of different ideologies, a distrust. But I think we know the experience of people lifting themselves above the distrust to just say what is on their minds and hearts. They assume the others listening are fellow humans, and it's like the speakers want to get something off her chest. These are moments when you feel that people have stopped BSing and fighting, and where someone wants to be real and communicate.

These moments aren't magic, although they are magical. They won't sway someone set against listening. But they involve identification, trust, respect and equality, and I think people all over the world listen to them, even sometimes when they are in positions of power. That's been my experience.

(Whoops -- wasn't brief!)

[A Satpathy]

Dear Mary,

I don’t think, we require any fixed format to deliver. When it comes to environmental education, it is the end result that matters, i.e. how we are delivering to achieve the end purpose. In my opinion boundary line should not be demarcated, especially in the realm of education. Education is for knowledge and skill development. If that is the end objective, it does not matter whether it requires fixed or flexible methodology. Adoption of certain methodology is to achieve certain objective. If objective is the core one methodology should be flexible enough to accommodate to the issues and line of thoughts to get into the objective. To that extent class room advocacy need to be encouraged, wherever possible as part of environmental education campaign.

Thanks.

Asutosh Satpathy, Ph.D.
President

Resource Development Centre
122, Katwaria Sarai,
Saheed Jit Singh Marg,
New Delhi - 110016 (India)

Tel: +91-11-26525702, +91-11-26535108,
Fax: +91-11-26601460

E-mail: asutosh.satpathy@gmail.com

E-mail: info@rdcindia.org Url: www.rdcindia.org

[MLeyser]

Many thanks, Shirley and Asutosh, for weighing in on the environmental education question. Obviously, there’s a lot involved and a lot to think about for the educators among us. (Thought: Are we all educators, at some level?) As Asutosh points out, results matter. For those interested in pursuing this topic, you might be interested in checking out the ongoing breakout session on environmental education and environmental ethics, hosted by Olga Osadchuk.

Jeremy, good point on the value of personal identification. This idea holds true at so many levels throughout society. I agree: Being open is key to being heard. And I VERY much like the <i>parhessia</i> concept; thanks for sharing. This takes courage and it takes conviction. Courage to speak, and courage to listen.

Who was it said, in essence, “The more I know, the less I know” (or more correctly: “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.”)? Harking back to a favorite undergrad text: <i>“For Socrates, he who truly knows justice becomes just, he who knows truth becomes truthful, and he who knows beauty becomes beautiful. In certain kinds of knowledge, one understands how all things are linked, and in this sense, when one knows anything one knows everything.”</i> Sounds promising, yet we recall that Socrates himself “went to his death still pleading ignorance” – feeling that he himself had never met this definition of knowledge – all the while arguing that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” (<b>Does the Center Hold?</b> D Palmer, London: Mayfield, 1996)

But I digress.. (-:

Coming back to the idea of what’s working in current E/CJ approaches, for those who would like to read some examples of grassroots EJ efforts in the US, let me share the following links, from the website of Dr. Robert Bullard’s Environmental Justice Resource Center, web page: Voices from the Grassroots:

Relocation from "Mount Dioxin", Margaret Williams

Black Farmers Win Racism Settlement against USDA, Gary Grant

Surviving Chicago's 'Toxic Doughnut', Hazel Johnson

St. James Citizens Defeat Shintech, Emelda West

The Color Purple and Land-Use Politics in East Austin, Susana R. Almanza and Sylvia Herrera

Tucsonians Fight for a Clean Environment, Rose Augustine

LA CAUSA, Carlos Porras

CANT Defeats Uranium Enrichment Plant, Roy Mardis

Native Americans and Environmentalists Derail Ward Valley Nuclear Dump, Philip M. Klasky

Transit Justice in West Harlem, Peggy Shepard

LA's Bus Riders Union Rolls over Transit Racism, Geoff Ray

Pesticides in the Barrio: The Case of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, Sarah J. Peisch

Environmental and Economic Justice for Immigrant Women Workers, Helen Sunhee Kim

Silicon Valley Workers Win Justice for Rodrigo Cruz, JoLani Hironaka

The War Against Military Toxics in Alaska, Pamela K. Miller

<b><i>What say you, Forum? Any thoughts on the above, or examples to share from your area?</i></b>
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Mary Leyser, EcoRes Forum (www.eco-res.org)

[B Ronken]

Something being developed in many countries, related to EJ, social justice, and development, is 'Green Jobs.' I also saw Van Jones speak about his work with this.

Article CLIMATE CHANGE CAN CREATE JOBS gives the UN perspective. Link: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ET_Cetera/Climate_change_can_create_jobs_UN/articleshow/2601403.cms

[W Lee]

One of the things I do when I teach my course in philosophy of ecology is take my students on a field trip to a local historically preserved mining town name Eckley's Miner's Village (The birthplace of the Miner's Union--the "Molly McGuires") to show my students in a very empirical--touchable--way the relationship between an ecology, the division of labor, coal-mining, and--in this case--religion. They find the experience really enlightening--it comes with a tour and a small but well-done museum.

I then have us eat our bag lunches outside the village at the strip mine that replaced all of Eckley's workers--also VERY instructive.

[C Okereke]

Firstly, I agree with the view that willingness to listen and respect is very important in communication. The opposite if this is shouting, patronizing and moralizing all of which have has been shown to be in effective in persuading and winning hearts and minds. Here is a bullet point list of some of the approaches that work.
What Works:
a. Clarity and simplicity of message by advocates. People should communicate with a view to clarify and not to confuse.
b. It helps when campaigners and advocates back their message with specific examples.
c. It is more effective when people get their data- numbers, dates, etc right.
d. Staying a much as possible within the law of the land during campaigns and demonstrations. Here I am thinking of what happened in Nigeria during the Ogoni (Saro- wiwa) demonstrations.
e. Good to focus on issues rather than persons - although sometimes naming and shaming could bring good results.
f. Using creative metaphors and languages that names and dramatizes has been shown to be helpful in creating support.
g.The use of certain icons has been shown to be effective in communicating climate injustice.
h. It helps when advocates have alternatives and possible solutions.

What Does Not Work: Well, quite simply the direct opposites of the above points.

- Chuks Okereke

[C Okereke]

I am really sorry to go back to the question of anthropocentrism and justice for non human nature, but I didn’t get the chance of making a contribution. Question: should non-human nature be regarded as right objects/subject for justice? Having given this issue much thought myself, I have come to the conclusion that none of the theoretical approaches for defending justice for non-human nature (utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics) is internally coherent. My impression is that what is needed after all is not a total rejection anthropocentrism but an embrace of some form of cautious anthropocentrism or what Brennan calls ‘enlightened anthropocentrism’ (Brennan 2002). Since it seems that the moral duties we have towards environment ultimately derive from human-centred interests, all that is needed is prudence in our dealing with nature. A prudent approach to nature seems to me generally sufficient for practical purposes and perhaps even more effective in delivering
pragmatic outcomes, in terms of policy-making, than non-anthropocentric theories. (see Brennan and Yeuk-Sze 2002). Moreover, as eloquently argued by Guha (1989), there is a real danger that the promotion of certain versions of non-anthropocentrism, such as Romanticism, might only serve the purpose of securing exotic recreational places for the rich elites while taking the focus off
issues of poverty, unequal resource control and distributional justice which are main environmental concerns of the majority of the world’s population.

For more information, see: Okereke C. (2007). ‘The Ethical Dimensions of Environmental Change’ in C. Okereke (ed.) The Politics of the Environment. London: Routledge, pp 136-144.

Brennan, A., and L. Yeuk-Sze. 2002. Environmental Ethics. The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/
archives/sum2002/entries/ethics-environnemental.

[W Lee]

Greetings everyone, and C. Okereke....and not to get off-topic, but at the risk of tooting my horn for just a moment, may I say "right-on" to Okereke's observations about anthropocentrism, and recommend three essays of my own that may be of interest on this subject:

2008. Forthcoming. Restoring Human-Centeredness to Environmental Conscience: The Ecocentrist’s Dilemma, The Role of Heterosexualized Anthropomorphizing, and the Significance of Language to Ecological Feminism. Ethics and the Environment.

2008. Forthcoming. Environmental Pragmatism Revisited: Human-Centeredness, Language, and the Future of Aesthetic Experience. Environmental Philosophy.

2008. Forthcoming. “Who’s My Special Beagle?” Anthropomorphizing, Anthropocentrism, and Moral Responsibility. Ed. Steven Hales, What Philosophy Can Tell Us About Our Dogs. New York: Blackwell.

[AA Thompson]

This is a message esp. for Okereke, -- we're still "open for business" over in the Justice for non-humans session! All threads there are available for more postings. So please jump in!

Allen

[Moderator]

With Topic 3 underway and Topic 4 soon scheduled to open, we're going to wrap up this discussion on "Current Approaches: What's Working". Once again, many thanks to those who contibuted thoughts, examples, and questions.

While this thread will remain open for discussion until the end of the e-conference, the plenary discussion has moved on to Topic 3, "Aspects & Issues: Tackling Tough Challenges". Hope to see you there!
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<i>EcoRes Forum E-Conference Moderator</i>