Our readings for today address at least three essential questions in the way environmental movements and policy interact (or not).
1) How activism and environmental justice movements can shape long-term policy?
2) How grassroots activism is effective or not in changing policy, but also social relationships at a local/regional level?
3) How culturally and socially insensitive decision making processes in the arena of both public policy and social activism can reproduce socio-ecological conflicts?
Feel free to reflect on some of the questions above, but let’s also reflect on how applying different corpus of knowledge and analytical frameworks might lead us to see these problems differently. For instance,
What happens if we take an environmental justice approach to critically analyze how environmental activism can reproduce social, racial, and ecological hierarchies?
What happens if we take analytical tools from the literature on comparative/international environmental governance to the study of extractive economies at a national scale?
Energy, Environment & Society 
I thought the blog post on Environmental Activism in Appalachia was extremely interesting, and a phenomena that I haven’t had the exposure to before. While I knew that large coal companies had power in that area, I was previously ignorant of the work of environmentalists in that region. In response to Prof. San Martin’s first question, I think in Appalachia we see a negative effect of environmental activists on long-term policy. It seems as though the more activists in that region have pushed their ideas and protested, the more power they give coal companies and the further the region gets from winning the war on coal. In this case, the activists need to step back and approach the region in a different way, not by pushing their ideas on the communities, but by working with communities to show job creation in other sectors to break down the coal based mono-economy of the Appalachians.
However, despite the negative case in the Appalachians, I think the other paper we read showed multiple examples of positive outcomes from environmental justice activists. In the cases presented, the activists are approaching the political issues with a different lens – through environmental racism, and this seemed to be more successful than the war on coal in the Appalachians in terms of policy change. I think a more assertive approach that was based on human rights in these cases was more effective, and it might be helpful for activists in the Appalachians to learn from this and show residents how their rights might be affected by coal companies to gain support for cleaner policies that eventually may lead to victories in the war on coal.
Overall, I thought these readings gave me an enlightened view of environmental activism, whereas before I was frustrated with politics and the failure of movements, now I can understand where some pitfalls might lie in activist arguments.
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Today’s readings really illustrated to me how context-dependent the success of environmental activism is. The fight for environmental justice was a cause that united disparate groups from all over the country and led to new long-term policies, like the National Environmental Policy Act and the formation of the NEJAC. On the other hand, the environmental activism paradigm breaks down when it divides people according to their social background, like it did in Appalachia. As a result, policies remain unchanged because locals push back more strongly against the activists than they do against the sources of environmental destruction.
The requirement to be understanding of people’s cultural histories when you try to educate them or reform their livelihoods is critical. Without such an understanding, activism is bound to sociological division just as much as the entrenched assumptions and oversights of public policy did to cause environmental racism.
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I agree with Patrick that the blog post about Appalachia was very enlightening for me. I think it demonstrates how important it is for the ‘mainstream’ environmental movement to re-analyze its own messaging. I have gone to a couple of the demonstrations in Boston advocating for climate action and there signs talking about ‘Dirty Coal’ and the need for complete divestment are pretty commonplace. I realize now how alienating this messaging is to communities with livelihoods tied to the fossil fuel industry. The ideological fervor displayed by many liberal (and generally upperclass) environmental activists has in some ways labeled environmental activism as too extremely liberal, to the point of being ‘out-of-touch’ as the blog post said. I think this has occurred because of the disconnect between people leading the movement and controlling its messaging and priorities and specific communities directly tied to environmental damage. I think it is interesting that while the concept of environmental justice has gained recognition, it is mainly applied simply communities experiencing the effects of environmental degradation. It has yet to really acknowledge the justice issues associated with communities with livelihoods tied to environmentally degrading industries (although these communities are often experiencing the negative effects like pollution as well).
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Unpopular opinion: While I think that it is important to take the people that are being marginalized into account, I have to believe that the greater amount of utility is more important. As society gets more advanced people and industries will be displaced, but we can help to repurpose them. It is impossible to not step on people’s toes, I don’t think that we should stop social movements because of a fear for the marginal person. Maybe there are ways that they can be helped, but the bigger picture is more important. If we can’t step on people’s toes change won’t happen. However, I will not say that we cannot modernize these marginal people, but not wanting to look at the bigger picture because we do not want to affect these people, is short sighted. Currently oil and gas is having a hard time convincing people to go into these field’s because people don’t want fossil fuels. I’d say that’s good. Let their demand drive wages for these jobs up and the cost of production up. This will continue to shift demand to renewables and make the world a better place.
As the current presidency tries to keep the jobs in coal, we hurt society by subsidizing things people don’t want, and hurt the ability for more job producing things to happen. Markets and policy should follow what people want and are willing to spend. There will always be someone getting hurt, but doesn’t mean we should stop progress, we should just help those getting hurt to transition into the new world economy.
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I’m also going to respond to Iggy’s comment. While indeed, greater utility is ultimately what pushes society forwards, I think that is is very import to think about the socio-political implications of ignoring these “marginal people” and their plight. Think, for example, of the impact that coal miners had on the 2016 presidential election. There were many, many people who voted for Trump singularly because of his stance on coal.[1] And ultimately, clean energy infrastructural change on the scale that the world needs it is tied to politics and politicians. Market forces are important, yes, but you can’t overlook the social and political dimensions of this debate, as well as their repercussions on energy policies.
This ties directly into the 3rd question proposed by Dr. San Martin. The “culturally insensitive” decisions and rhetoric of many activists cited in “The Problem with Environmental Activism in Appalachia” aggravated existing class conflicts between elitist “outsiders” and the people of Appalachia, shaded by rhetoric by coal companies. This kinds of social conflicts ultimately drive voter decisions and have vast implications on policy.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2017/01/01/507693919/coal-country-picked-trump-now-they-want-him-to-keep-his-promises
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As a response to Ignacio, it’s important to note that going about it that way – while it’s the same thing I believe – is probably not going to be the most effective way, given how communities have been advertised to, as seen in the Appalachia paper. We talked a lot about last week about speaking the language of one’s audience, and that’s not just politically correct or anything, but also necessary, to see change. If you don’t, even if policy changes accordingly (which won’t happen because politicians like to seek approval from their base) you won’t get adoption from communities that as a whole are against pro-environment policies. And adoption is what’s important for real political landscape change.
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As we discussed in class environmental activism and justice movements can indeed produce necessary and beneficial change, however, the likely hood of these changes being completely thorough and not leaving out any group of people is unlikely due to the various things that have to be taken into account (filters as one group put it). When it is effective, things such as court cases or general public perception on environmental issues can have very long-term effects on policy. As court cases set precedence and public opinion has long-term effects on congressmen and other politicians.
Grassroots movements can potentially change policy, however, due to being largely led by groups that are disenfranchised in terms of political influence and credibility, along with being difficult to maintain on an organizational standpoint, the odds of success are unlikely unless backed by larger more influential groups of privilege. One success story of a grassroots movements is the court case Cox v City of Dallas Texas, It details the battle between a predominately low income black neighborhood and the city of Dallas turning a blind eye to an illegal dumping site that polluted waterways and released fumes into the neighborhoods in the vicinity. I highly recommend watching this 20 min documentary. https://vimeo.com/102130995
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I thought the comment about how context-dependent these efforts are was really insightful. I agree that there is no panacea policy that will be useful across all environments. The case of Appalacia is especially interesting because of the history present in the area– it’s ironic that outsiders came in and created an extractive mono-economy in the region that destroys the environment, and now the beneficiaries of that economy are fighting off environmentalists who are trying to help them. It is almost like a host organism that’s now defending itself and its parasite with it.
Our group went to the board last class and tried to come up with a series of steps that could break this cycle of misinformation. We chose to start with education, to show people what coal mining and coal burning is doing to their home. The blog post said that even people that do know these things don’t speak out for fear of being ostracized in their communities. Obviously this problem is systematic– nobody in a coal town is going to stop at a booth / attend a lecture that seems in any way tied to environmentalism.
My feeling is that some sort of Trojan horse is necessary in this particular instance. Perhaps there is some way to slide an agenda that phases coal out onto the ballot. A re-framing effort: “Protect our woods” instead of “stop burning coal,” maybe. Alternatively, some new industry could be introduced into the area. It sounds as though the main driver of the pro-coal mentality is people’s wallets; it’s their livelihood. If someone were to introduce a viable alternative and diversify the economy, that would weaken the hold that coal has over the area.
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Analyzing the case of Appalachia coal mining with tools from comparative environmental governance can lend insight into the situation, the conflict, and potential solutions. I think that the failure of outside environmental groups to create change and the consequential rift between local communities and those environmental groups can be understood as a byproduct of the environmental activists failing to consider a nexus approach to environmental governance. These groups, even if they act with long-term environmental sustainability in mind, are guilty of silo thinking. In this case, they are addressing only the energy side of the issue and failing to take into account important livelihood interactions. When we take nexus tools to analyze the situation, the stance of the local communities fits reasonably within the framework. The coal-dependent mono-economy present in Appalachia introduces a very strong coal-livelihood relationship into the nexus. People in the region are reliant on coal for their jobs. The impact that any sort of coal-related governance in the region will have on people’s livelihoods is enormous. Perhaps by breaking out of their silo thinking pattern and acknowledging the importance of the coal-livelihoods interdependency, environmental groups could propose nexus-centered solutions that could shift the region to greener energy without destroying people’s jobs.
However, so far, environmental activists have by and large failed to do this, and, through their silo-thinking, have damaged their relationships with local communities. I agree with Brady that education and reframing, in addition to an adoption of the nexus approach, will be necessary to move beyond past strained relationships. I would add that the education must go both ways. Environmental groups might be experts on the impact of coal on the environment and the coal-energy interaction, and can thus educate local communities on that subject. At the same time, local communities are experts on coal-livelihoods interactions and can educate and inform environmental groups on the context in which their proposed policies will act. A successful environmental justice movement will incorporate knowledge from both groups to craft a nexus solution.
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