Black, White and Green

I write my first post of 2008 on the eve of my own birthday, but reflecting on the far more important birthday occurring today. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr is one of the most singularly courageous, visionary and inspirational men in history, and would have celebrated his 79th birthday on this day had he not been taken from us by the hand of cowardice, hatred and ignorance. The civil rights battle is far from over in the United States – indeed, one need look no further than our failure to give gay American the same rights as others – but I think Dr. King would see progress in the decades since his work and his untimely death. The fact that the leading Democratic Presidential candidate is a black man says something positive about where we are now.

Another important development since Dr. King’s death has been the fusion of civil rights with environmentalism in the environmental justice movement. Although its roots go back to Thoreau, Teddy, Muir and Leopold (actually, it really goes back to the tribes that peopled the country before colonization), the environmental movement hit an upward inflection point shortly after Dr. King’s death in the late 60s and early 70s. The environmental justice movement has been a more recent evolution. Briefly, the concept of environmental justice argues that environmental impacts should not be felt disproportionately by minorities, low income communities, or other socio-economically disenfranchised components of society. The crusade of Erin Brockovich, made famous in the film starring Julia Roberts, was in essence an EJ fight. And many consequences of global climate change will be disproportionately felt by the poor and minorities. The devastation Hurricane Katrina imposed upon the poor, black districts of New Orleans was a recent and poignant example (note: while no storm is solely a result of climate change, there is little doubt that our warming planet is causing or will soon cause stronger and more frequent big storms like Katrina, and its impacts were exacerbated by loss of coastal wetlands that would have buffered some of the large waves).

Yesterday, one day before Dr. King’s birthday, the bombing of the Serena Hotel in Kabul stood in stark contrast to his message of hope and peace. Like too many Americans, I have embarrassingly become somewhat numbed to the continued violence in the Middle East. But I took notice of this incident because a friend that I admire greatly was in the hotel during the attack, and narrowly escaped with her life. She works on women’s rights in Afghanistan, and amazingly will continue to do so after the horrors she faced. Like the days and weeks following 9/11, moments like this cause me to re-think my own field in a larger, or at least different, context. And I am certainly not the first to do so. In parallel with the advent of the EJ movement, has been the growth of a related but distinct field that examines the implications of environmental degradation for global security and stability. In many cases it is clear that water shortages, desertification, devastating storms, decreased agricultural productivity, depleted fisheries, and other environmental problems can result in social problems ranging from unemployment to outright war.

Environmental justice and the intersection of environmental protection and global stability have not been prominent themes in the 19 posts preceding this one (although they have not been completely absent). But I will strive to pick up these important topics more in 2008 and beyond.