User:Psychedelicfrogjuice/sandbox

Table of Contents
A- Anthropocene, Anthropomorphism C- Conservation

D- Dualism, Dystopia E- Ecological Ethics, Environmentalism of the Poor

F- First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (1991)

G- Green New Deal

I- Intergenerational justice

L- Land Ethic, Learning To Die in the Anthropocene

P- Preservation

S- Settler colonialism, Spatial Justice

W- Warren County ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

These human activities have impacted Earth’s climate, ecosystems, and geology, constituting a distinct change in Earth’s geologic record. The impacts of human activity will be seen as a dominant force in the Earth’s geological stratigraphic record millions of years in the future; suggesting we are in a new epoch. Anthro (human) pocene (era)
 * Anthropocene: A proposed geologic epoch encompassing the current period of time in which human activities are evident in the environment. These human activities include activities such as land surface transformation, deforestation, agriculture, urbanization, and increased pollution levels.  The defining era has been variously proposed to be a term beginning with the Agricultural Revolution (12,000-15,000 years ago), the Industrial Revolution, or possibly the period of nuclear bomb testing as measured by radionuclides in the 1950s.


 * Anthropomorphism - Anthropomorphism is a way of perceiving and interacting with the world where human characteristics or behaviors are attributed to non-human beings. While this perspective can neglect animals for what they are, Linda Hogans in the Department of the interior offers Anthropomorphism as a mode of thought that animals are embodied as we are and think and feel similarly. She depicts this term as a mode of connection, fostering us to view other animals as our kin and in relationship with us rather than independent from the human species. Anthropomorphism has the power to change compassion and empathy into pathology.

Leopold - The Land Ethic
 * Conservation- Conservation is the prevention of wasting and misusing resources for future and present generations. While preservationism and conservationism are very similar, conservation seeks a sustainable way for nature to be used by humans and doesn’t aim to exclude human activity in that area. The reason for conservation is to maintain biodiversity, the health of ecosystems, and to protect against growing populations and overconsumption. This relates to Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic”, a philosophy about the responsibility we have towards land, people, other organisms, and the relationships that need to be built. For a relationship to be built, conservation is put into play and allows us to think about what is better for both humans and the environment in the present and in the long term.


 * Dualism - Dualism is the mode of thought in which mind and matter are conceived as separate entities, with the mind being superior to matter. This idea of separation and hierarchy within society affects human relationships with non-human life. In dualistic thought, bodies (matter) are separate from and spiritually lower than the mind or soul, whereas nature is separate from and lower than the mind or culture. The effect of dualism is exemplified in the book Animals and People written by JM Coetzee. Dualism affects the power of imagination by imposing a hierarchy where it creates difficulty sympathizing. It limits the extent to which we can think ourselves into another's being and inhabit other life forms, in turn separating us from other life forms.

Dys (bad) topia (place) Read “Our Ancestors Dystopia Now” By Kyle Whyte:
 * Dystopia, noun: An imagined community or society where there is dehumanizing suffering, injustice, fear, and ecological ruin. The dystopian society is often the result of a cataclysmic decline in society as a result of war, environmental ruin, or governmental dysfunction. Using Kyle Whytes example for “our ancestors dystopia”, “the Great Lakes region have already depleted, degraded, or irreversibly damaged the ecosystems, plants, and animals that our ancestors had local living relationships with for hundreds of years” (Whyte, 2017).  Dystopian realities frequently involve societal and governmental systems that are typically either totalitarian or post-apocalyptic scenarios.


 * Ecological Ethics - Ecological ethics are moral principles that provide social values for human interaction with the environment. In the Land Ethic by Aldo Leopold, he critiqued the economic value during the 1940s in America and explained humans' moral responsibility to the natural world. He provided the revolutionary idea of ecological ethics. He challenged the human sector of interests, which previously focused on morality and ethics regarding the relationship between individuals and social issues rather than the environment.


 * Environmentalism of the Poor: A term that is used to separate the environmentalist movements of survival from environmentalist movements of interest. Created by Ramachandra Guha, it refers to the fact that for many who are poor, the outcome of many conservationist movements is a matter of life and death. This can be contrasted by the conservationist movements originating from predominantly white westerners, who are only ever really putting their self interests on the line, and whose lives will not be significantly affected by the outcomes of those movements. An example that fits well into the definition of this term is the 1970s Chipko movement, which occurred in India and had many women protesting the logging of trees in the Himalayas, because the process of logging those trees degraded the land that they needed to survive.


 * First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (1991)- a group of delegates, whos names were not recorded by any reliable source, drafted and established the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991. This led to people reevaluating their views of environmental justice and accepting the fact that it is tied to racial injustice.

The Green New Deal additionally acknowledges that the United States is a disproportionate contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and a high level of technological capacity, so it should take a leading role in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is a climate justice issue, and thus social justice reforms are a necessary component of the legislation and includes economic security measures, infrastructure investment, and a guarantee of basic human needs. Read "The Green New Deal"
 * Green New Deal: A congressional resolution introduced in 2019 by Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. The legislation recognizes the responsibility of the government to clarify that human activity is responsible for climate change.  It further delineates the impacts of climate change in the form of rising sea levels and temperature increases.  The result of these impacts causes mass migrations, wildfires, coral reef loss, habitat loss, and trillions of dollars in material and production loss.  The Great New Deal lays out a set of goals which includes reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 60 percent by 2030, and net-zero global emissions by 2050.

The term calls out the fact that previous generations have been ignoring their effect on the Earth simply because it didn’t call out their generation. Pope Francis calls out the issue that our actions as a species affect the whole Earth, and that future generations will have to deal with whatever consequences, positive or negative, our actions cause. -Examples: The deforestation caused by colonization led to the extinction of species and a lack of resources right now; the bomb dropped on Hiroshima still has lingering effects on the generations born afterwards. References: Nuclear Bomb EffectsOur Common Home by Pope Francis
 * Intergenerational justice- popularly known because of Pope Francis in his Encyclical Our Common Home. Intergenerational justice is about how environmental justice isn't isolated to just one generation, and future generations will inherit the Earth from us.


 * Land Ethic: The Land Ethic was a chapter of Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac”, and detailed Leopold’s wish that humans considered widening their view of what it means for something to be a part of their community, such that it includes nature. This line of thinking was novel at the time because it asked readers to lend the land the same respect that they would give to any other member of their community. This went against the ideas of many at the time, who thought that nature was something to be conquered and profited off of.


 * Learning To Die in the Anthropocene: Roy Scranton wrote this compelling Climate Change essay from a soldier’s point of view.  As an Iraqi War veteran, he explained the psychological process where a solder learns to accept the reality of their potential death.  Hurricane Katrina resulted in Scranton’s realization that Climate Change had brought about “the same failure of planning and the same tide of anarchy” as he had experienced in a war zone.  This war zone mentality accepts that, in the words of Tom Donlon, National Security Advisor, “Extreme weather events will increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism.”  The inevitability of this occurrence is one that needs to be accepted, according to Scranton, because governments must learn to accept it in order to mitigate its affects.  In a similar way to a soldier accepting their own death, and then doing their best to see that the other soldiers in their company can live, there needs to be an acceptance of our death and a selfless effort to make things better for future generations, of all species.Read Roy Scranton's “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene”:

Read the Wilderness Act of 1964 Ramachandra Guha’s critiques
 * Preservation- The overall objective of preservation is to protect the environment from human activity and the harmful effects that come with it. Preservation is the main goal in many environmental groups and can be seen in the “Wilderness Act” of 1964. This act was made to establish a system that was for the permanent good of the American people and the preservation of “wilderness”. The Wilderness Act assures that increasing population, expanding settlement, and growing mechanisms do not inhabit and alter all land within the United States, and secure land for the future generations and the benefits of natural resources. In Ramachandra Guha’s “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A third World Critique”, Guha criticizes this exact form of preservation, stating that other environmental issues are neglected. His main concern is about the use of the environment and who should benefit from it.

Read more about Settler Colonialism[https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/what-is-settlercolonialism What is Settler Colonialism? ]More on Settler Colonialism...
 * Settler colonialism- a form of colonialism where the colonizers seek to completely erase all traces of the natives from the land. This includes destroying any landmarks left by the natives, spreading false information of the culture to destroy it, forcing the natives to give up their culture, genocide, and more. -examples: what happened to all of the native american tribes. Most people can’t tell you the names of the tribes, let alone the difference between them, despite the fact this originally was on their land. Sources on native american culture are lacking. Another example is what british colonizers did to every place they colonized.


 * Spatial Justice: The idea that an area’s resources should be distributed fairly, and people are given equal opportunity to use those resources as needed. This idea has been shown to be necessary when looking at the American BIPOC communities that have only been allowed to exist within urban areas, as a result of redlining and racist housing policies. This means that they have been forced to live in areas that are further away from protected wilderness areas, which limits access.


 * Warren County- In Warren County, North Carolina in 1982 hundreds of civil rights leaders and activists protested the dumping of toxic waste in much of the African American community of Warren. This is considered one of the most important events in the history of Environmental Justice because it instigated the growth of Environmental Justice studies. Since that time scholars and researchers have documented the reach of environmental racism and inequality in the U.S. and the world. Also creating a social movement to challenge this phenomenon.