ENVS final
Plastics, Petrochemicals, Consumption
What are some petrochemicals we have studied in class?
Ethylene: Used to make plastics, paints, alcohols, and rubbers
The most commercially produced organic compound in the world
It is odorless and invisible to the naked eye
Used to ripen fruit while its being shipped
Propylene: Used to make paints, textiles, furniture, pharmaceuticals, and food packaging
Used medically (petri dishes, vials)
Popular in food processing
Gets brittle at low temperatures
Very commonly used
Very hard to recycle (recycling rate around 5%)
Benzene: Used to make dyes, pesticides, and detergents
Methanol: Used in building construction and thermal insulation
How are petrochemicals made? Where are they made?
99% are made from fossil fuels. Most are made from PETROleum (oil). They are made in petrochemical plants.
Louisiana is home to about ~200 petrochemical facilities, the greatest concentration in the western hemisphere
What is a chemical, according to Liboiron?
Many of the chemicals associated with plastics, called endocrine disruptors, defy thresholds and exceed the adage that the “danger is in the dose” or the “solution to pollution is dilution” because they cause harm at trace quantities already present in the environment and bodies.
Chemicals are not neutral entities; they aid and abet cultural and ecological downfall. They are often the tools or byproducts of extractive practices
Humans use it in chemistry/ manipulate matter to create goods
Is plastic primarily a waste issue globally?
Yes, theyve found plastics in animals, humans, tops of mountains, bottom of the seas
Visible Environmental Harm: The accumulation of plastic waste in the environment, especially in the form of litter and marine debris, is a major concern. Plastic pollution affects wildlife, ecosystems, and even human health. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a glaring example.
Ineffective Recycling Systems: Globally, only a small percentage of plastic is effectively recycled (around 9%, according to UNEP). Much of it ends up in landfills or is incinerated, causing further environmental harm.
Global Disparities in Waste Management: Wealthier nations often export their plastic waste to lower-income countries, where insufficient infrastructure leads to higher environmental and health risks for local communities.
What is environmental injustice?
The malpractice and abuse of the environment that directly affects minorities through extraction and the negative effects of certain capitalistic tendencies typically at the expense of marginalized communities
How is environmental injustice at work in plastic, globally?
We find plastics everywhere and they disproportionately affect marginalized communities systemati ally
What do most environmental justice groups agree is an effective way to solve the plastics crisis?
Stop it at extraction rather than production
When were the only 2 times in global history that the production of new plastics decreased?
The gas/energy crisis in the 1970s, and the 2008 recession
Guest Speakers
What is ecological economics? How does it differ from neoclassical economics and environmental economics?
RICO MELGAR-
Ecological economics is a field where economists/ecologists think wholly about how economics affects social justice/people as a whole, covering normal economics shortcomings like;
Mainstream economics fails to address certain issues like; sellers inflation, the 2008 financial crisis, inflation, oligopolies, tariffs, income and wealth inequalities, climate crises, essential resources inefficiently allocated by the market, international exploitation of the global south, energy transition, only people with money can participate in the market
Ecological economics (EE) is a transdisciplinary field with normative goals that takes the house to studying and managing humans impacts on the world through an integrated and systems thinking approach to foster genuine wellbeing for people and the rest of nature by taking full advantage of our accumulated knowledge and understanding of both the natural and the social realities of our finite planetary system.
Georgescu-Roegen (1979): Mathematics is a tautological system, and thus incapable of capturing the evolutionary qualitative changes that characterize socio-economic development.
Daly et al. (1994): We are not atomistic individuals motivated by self-interest, but rather persons-in-community whose very identity is constituted by relations to others.
Gowdy and Erickson (2005): Argue about the absurdity of replacing realism with the formalism of an equilibrium theory that assumes individualism, rationality, perfect information and that all agents are price-taking economic actors.
Melgar & Hall (2020): Neoclassical economics often tries to apply moremathematical rules under the illusion of being scientific, but ends up with a model and production functions that largely ignore fundamental physical [or scientific] laws, e.g., energy, raw material, and waste.
How is New York working to decrease fossil fuel emissions at the state level? Pros and cons of this approach?
The goal is 70% run by renewable energy by 2030
Dual-fuel plants
Increase energy efficiency in buildings
Better windows, more insulation
Electrification of heat pumps
Transit-oriented development
What are clothes made of? How can we find this out?
clothes are made out of different types of fibers and we know that by reading the tags on our clothing
Climate Crisis and Energy Transition
Why is climate change inextricably tied to social justice?
Climate change affects marginalized communities disproportionately because of where they are geographically or monetarily.
Harsher weather decimates island communities
Petrochemical toxins from the industrial plants in Louisiana heighten cancer rates in the poorer black communities (cancer belt)
Who is Naomi Klein? What is her argument about climate change and capitalism?
Canadian author and activist
Ecofeminist
In order to combat climate change, we need systematic change, YOUTH MOVEMENT WOOO
Brings up sunrise movement
Jewish upbringing
Page 39 all we can save
How does Pope Francis’ Laudate Deum frame climate change?
climate change as an urgent moral and global crisis
disproportionate impact on the poor and marginalized
critiques political and economic systems that prioritize profit over environmental health and calls for decisive, unified action to reduce emissions and protect the planet
underscores the interconnectedness of all life and the ethical responsibility to care for creation, appealing to individuals and nations to embrace sustainable practices and policies
What is the Sunrise Movement?
Launched in 2017
Young people advocating for Green New Deal
Gathering people to try and force massive change at the federal level
Very heavy on bringing people together
“We’re building people power and political power. We fight for what we believe in, no matter what”
They fight in solidarity with other movements
They foster community and strong leaders within the youth
What is the Green New Deal, and what are its main tenets? Why hasn’t it succeeded? Does it have a future?
Transform our energy system to 100 percent renewable energy and create 20 million jobs needed to solve the climate crisis.
Ensure a just transition for communities and workers, including fossil fuel workers.
Ensure justice for frontline communities, especially under-resourced groups, communities of color, Native Americans, people with disabilities, children and the elderly.
Save American families money with investments in weatherization, public transportation, modern infrastructure and high-speed broadband.
Commit to reducing emissions throughout the world, including providing $200 billion to the Green Climate Fund, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and reasserting the United States’ leadership in the global fight against climate change.
Invest in conservation and public lands to heal our soils, forests, and prairie lands.
End the greed of the fossil fuel industry and hold them accountable.
Demographical resistance in the public, industrial resistance in the fossil fuel industry, and slow legislation process
The right people aren't being put into power
Who is Colette Pichon Battle? What does she fight for, and how?
Colette Pichon Battle is a lawyer and climate activist from Louisiana/the south. She grew up with spiritual ties to the land and community of her home, that of which was taken away from her by hurrican katrina. Her grandfathers land and house that he built were lost. She was motivated by the grief of losing her childhood home that she decided to join the climate movement. She is the founder of the golf coast Center for Law & Policy, and co-founder and Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth. She went on a pilgrimage with women of african decent as well as Native americans down the Mississippi river where they performed afro/turtle island rituals and worked on healing and bonding over shared colonization of european folk/americans. They also cried for the river. She also helped fight legal battles for immigrants whom suffered the loss of their visas through exploitive employers.
Taken from website- Taproot Earth builds power and cultivates solutions among frontline communities advancing climate justice and democracy. All of our work is rooted in a commitment to Black Liberation.
GCCLP is a non-profit, public interest law firm and justice center with a mission to advance structural shifts toward climate justice and ecological equity.
What is climate anxiety?
Climate anxiety is what scientists/conervationalists/environmentalists often feel surrounding the experience of working around and with climate struggles, Ray details how younger generation feels it more debilitatingly and how it can even result in loss of sleep, appetite, and start depression
What are some tools and suggestions Ray proposes for mitigating climate anxiety?
Focus on what you can control, focus on the local, foster climate justice, avoid polarizing language, reject the martyr complex, we need to desire not fear the future
Environmentally related mental health issues exist and are pervasive; accpetance of this is the first step.
Self-hatred and misanthropy are not useful, or sustainable, if you esnt to effect change.
Climate anxiety is diversive: know how gender, class, race, age, ability, and location shape your outlook.
Resilience is critical to the movement, not a luxury outside of it.
What is Ray’s concept of spheres of influence?
How you can influence the way people around you treat climate struggles, starting with your personal life, expanding out to global stuff
Personal, family, community, campus, society, cultural, global
Briefly describe the greenhouse effect.
Solar radiation is sent toward earth. Some gets immediately reflected by the atmosphere. Some is absorbed by the surface, and some gets reflected off of the surface back into the atmosphere. Some is absorbed by the atmosphere, some emitted by the surface Some is emitted by the atmosphere and absorbed by the surface. With the presence of greenhouse gases in the air, the scale is put off balance when the same amounts of solar radiation is put into the earth and atmoshere, but cannot leave, raising temperatures on the planet.
Certain gasses in the earth's atmosphere, like carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat from the sun by absorbing infrared radiation, preventing it from going back out into space.
What are the activities that emit greenhouse gases and which gases do they emit?
Dairy culture releases methane. Transportation industry (cars, container shipping, planes) and electricity release CO2
What is the difference between ozone depletion and global warming?
Ozone depletion is what happens when the greenhouse gasses weaken it, allowing harmful radiation from the sun and space to collect in earth’s atmosphere, causing global warming. Ozone depletion is a contributing factor to global warming, but they are not the same.
Briefly, how has Earth’s climate been characterized in the last 800,000 years?
Atmospheric CO2 is higher than any time in that last 800,000 years, and levels are increasing faster than any time in millions of years. The exponential growth began in the 1950s.
Describe Earth’s radiation balance.
Energy from the sun reaches the earth as light
Energy heats earth
Earth re-radiates a portion as infrared radiation
GHGs block infrared radiation
• as GHGs increase, more radiation is blocked
• result - net rise in temperature
Radiation balance of earth is thrown off when greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere increase
What is the difference between positive and negative radiative forcings? Can you name one of each?
Positive radiative forcings (Greenhouse effect) trap heat in the atmosphere, while Negative radiation forcings release heat from the atmosphere into space, like volcanic eruptions (sulfur)
Who is the IPCC and what do they do?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a United Nations body that assesses the science of climate change and provides governments with scientific information to develop climate policies
What happens at COP meetings?
representatives from countries around the world gather to discuss, negotiate, and agree on actions to address climate change, including reviewing progress on existing agreements, setting new targets for emissions reduction, and coordinating efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change
all to reach consensus on international climate policies through formal negotiations
key aspects include reviewing each country's climate action plans and discussing funding mechanisms to support developing countries in their climate efforts
What target has the IPCC set for global ambient temperature rise?
celsius only rises by 1.5 celsius
What are the major sources of emissions in Vermont and what are their solutions?
Heating and transportation of goods
transitioning to cleaner vehicles, increasing energy efficiency, reducing total miles traveled, more efficient use of fuel
What are some of American’s attitudes toward fossil fuel use?
It's a polarizing scale. Those most affected are those most against fossil fuels, while those who make the most money in the industry are those who fight the most for them.
Environmental Humanities
What are the environmental humanities and what disciplines do they draw from?
The studies of how humans interact with their environment, drawing from history, philosophy, literature, and anthropology
How is Dreaming Climate Consciousness an exercise in the environmental humanities?
It practices finding solutions and working on them and thinking forward. “You need to desire the future, not fear it”
Why are the environmental humanities necessary in meeting the grand challenges?
The environmental humanities are necessary because they open the conversation up to deeper thought and interpretation and include all types of people inn the grander issue of climate change.
How can we reframe the unknown to be a good thing?
When there is uncertainty/unknown there is opportunity and hope.
How can the work of environmental movements end up being part of their goal?
What is hope, according to Ray?
Critical hope- our hope isnt a way to ignore problems, it is moving us to action, not complacency
What is eco-guilt, and how can it be assuaged?
Guilt about how our consumer habits are destroying the planet, (individual responsibility)
Intersectional Environmentalism
What is intersectionality and where did the idea come from?
intersection of social justice and environmentalism, ex: food justice, inequities, public health,
Like a cross-section of identity
Intersectional environmentalism term was coined by Leah Thomas in june of 2020 when she posted on instagram with the intention of bringing social justice to the forefront of environmental spaces
What is intersectional environmentalism (IE)? Provide two examples.
An inclusive form of environmentalism that advocates for the protection of all people and the planet. It demonstrates how social justice issues and environmental issues are interconnected.
How did IE come about?
Intersectional environmentalism term was coined by Leah Thomas in june of 2020 when she posted on instagram with the intention of bringing social justice to the forefront of environmental spaces
How does IE overlap with environmental justice (EJ)?
IE is the different movements crossing paths, and environmental justice is also two movements that became one
How does standpoint theory relate to IE or EJ?
Standpoint theory- a feminist social theory that explores how a person's social and political experiences shape their understanding of the world
How is rest an activist or environmentalist act?
Themes from the Course
What are the Grand Challenges in Environmental Studies?
Consumption and waste
Climate change
Environmental justice
Urbanization
Clean water
Regenerative agriculture
Biodiversity and the extinction crisis
What are the 8 principles that frame this course?
We aim to challenge the idea that humans and nature are separate entities.
We aim to highlight that the origin of environmental injustice is often racial, cross-cultural,
gendered, and based on differences in class and sexuality.
We aim to elevate awe, wonder and joy as cross-cultural experiences.
We see a pluralism of solutions to the grand challenges in Environmental Studies and
acknowledge their existence in indigenous and nonindigenous perspectives.
We aim for a co-production of knowledge framing.
We see issues and histories of land access as central to environmental thinking, scholarship, and
action.
We aim to identify the difference between individual and collective responsibility as we
underscore a systems perspective on environmental challenges.
We aim to introduce students to classic scholarship and thinking in Environmental Studies while
simultaneously providing a contemporary critique informed by current scholarship.
What is colonialism?
ALWAYS ABOUT LAND
Assuming access to native american Land
Land vs land
extractive/ ownership vs stewardship
Very current and preset, not just old settlers and stuff
What is capitalism?
Exchange of goods and services for money
Capitalism is an economic system where private individuals and businesses own the means of production and control the distribution of goods and services.
In a capitalist system, the primary goal is to make a profit.
Capitalism values exchange value over use value
Money->commodity->MORE MONEY
Goal is make money, not meeting needs
PROFIT is money that DOESNT go to the laborers.
System that is exploitive to both laborer and consumer
What are some colonial ways of relating to the land, according to thinkers like Max Liboiron and Robin Wall Kimmerer?
Suburbs, state parks, national parks, hunting, mining, fossil fuels, and large-scale agriculture, owning land, western science
What are fossil fuels?
Energy sources formed from the remains of p lants and animals that lived millions of years ago
Over millions of years, the heat and pressure form the earth transformed these remains into coal,oil, or natural gas