While talking about "Climate Change" is sexy and working on "Clean Development Mechanism" even sexier, we often forget the close nexus between Poverty and Environment.
Thankfully the "Millenium Development Goal" of the UN is still relevant. Maybe, once the environmentalists and Governments stop looking towards the sky, they may come back to their "original Down-to-earth" agenda..... Where poverty in developing countries is seen as the greatest polluter..
Here is a good link to understand more about the Poverty and Environment nexus. Click here
If you don't know about the Millenium Development Goal, check here.
To know more about the work being done on MDG in India, check here . Also check the UNDP site in India.
Start thinking about it NOW, because there is just 6 years more to achieve the GOALS !
If you are working on MDG, join our MDG Club and start brain-storming on how to break the nexus between Poverty and Environment!
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I was reading an interview of Vandana Shiva by Scott London available at www.scottlondon.com.
I would like to quote from there -
London: You've said that the most critical issue confronting the world today is a dual one: the need
for ecological sustainability, on the one hand, and social justice on the other. Many people, especially here in the United States, see these issues as separate and unrelated. But for you they are inextricably linked.
Shiva: Yes, for me the two are very closely linked, in part because my view of ecology comes from the margins of Indian society, from the agricultural producers who make up 70 percent of India — people who are dependent on natural resources, on biodiversity, on the land, the forests, the water. Nature is their means of production. So for them ecological destruction is a form of injustice. When the forest is destroyed, when the river is dammed, when the biodiversity is stolen, when fields are waterlogged or turned saline because of economic activities, it is a question of survival for these people. So our environmental movements have been justice movements.
I think the reason it doesn't appear that way in the North American setting has a lot to do with the history of this country. The occupation of America (and Columbus's arrival quite clearly was an occupation, no one can deny that) meant that the entire history of the Native Americans was rendered invisible. The land could only be occupied if it was first defined as empty. So it was defined as a wilderness, even though it had been used by native people for millennia.
So historically nature has been defined as wilderness. Later, when the wilderness movement emerged, it emerged separate from the issue of social inequality and the economic problems of survival. It was a preservationist ecology movement created by an occupying culture. Clearly, a wilderness movement started by Native Americans would not have had the same roots.
So today the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies.
I think we have reached a stage now where we need to find solutions to economic injustice in the same place and in the same ways that we find solutions to sustainability. Sustainability on environmental grounds and justice in terms of everyone having a place in the production and consumption system — these are two aspects of the same issue. They have been artificially separated and have to be put back again in the Western way of thinking.
Replies
I would like to quote from there -
London: You've said that the most critical issue confronting the world today is a dual one: the need
for ecological sustainability, on the one hand, and social justice on the other. Many people, especially here in the United States, see these issues as separate and unrelated. But for you they are inextricably linked.
Shiva: Yes, for me the two are very closely linked, in part because my view of ecology comes from the margins of Indian society, from the agricultural producers who make up 70 percent of India — people who are dependent on natural resources, on biodiversity, on the land, the forests, the water. Nature is their means of production. So for them ecological destruction is a form of injustice. When the forest is destroyed, when the river is dammed, when the biodiversity is stolen, when fields are waterlogged or turned saline because of economic activities, it is a question of survival for these people. So our environmental movements have been justice movements.
I think the reason it doesn't appear that way in the North American setting has a lot to do with the history of this country. The occupation of America (and Columbus's arrival quite clearly was an occupation, no one can deny that) meant that the entire history of the Native Americans was rendered invisible. The land could only be occupied if it was first defined as empty. So it was defined as a wilderness, even though it had been used by native people for millennia.
So historically nature has been defined as wilderness. Later, when the wilderness movement emerged, it emerged separate from the issue of social inequality and the economic problems of survival. It was a preservationist ecology movement created by an occupying culture. Clearly, a wilderness movement started by Native Americans would not have had the same roots.
So today the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies.
I think we have reached a stage now where we need to find solutions to economic injustice in the same place and in the same ways that we find solutions to sustainability. Sustainability on environmental grounds and justice in terms of everyone having a place in the production and consumption system — these are two aspects of the same issue. They have been artificially separated and have to be put back again in the Western way of thinking.