Supplementary Material for Chapter 29
Engaging the Empathetic Imagination to Explore Environmental Justice
This chapter is published as:
Witt J.2016. Engaging the Empathetic Imagination to Explore Environmental Justice. In: Byrne L (ed) Learner-Centered Teaching Activities for Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Springer, New York. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-28543-6_29
Joseph Witt
Department of Philosophy and Religion, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS USA
This file contains the following supplementary material:
- A: Empathy and Environmental Justice Exercise … beginning on p.1
- B: Alternative Issues/Perspectives and Resources… beginning on p.5
Supplementary Material A: Empathy and Environmental Justice Exercise
Construction of an oil pipeline example
Issue (for all students to consider)
Final approval has been given to start construction on an oil pipeline that will run from wells in the north of your country to refineries and transportation hubs in the southern coastal region (a distance of 1,500 miles), where it will enter the global market. The pipeline will run through primarily rural and economically depressed regions of the nation, including through numerous privately owned farms and ranches, near important rivers and watersheds (which supply drinking water and irrigation to several million people scattered across the region), and close to one popular national park that attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists a year. The national government has offered several million dollars in subsidies to help fund the construction project with the promise that it will create jobs, boost the regional economy, and contribute more oil to meet the ever-increasing global demand for fossil fuels. The company in charge of the pipeline construction—Fluffy Kitten Industries—has a poor environmental record, having paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for spills due to lack of maintenance on its previous projects. It has also been criticized by workers’ advocates for mistreatment of its employees—often relying on independent contractors to avoid paying healthcare and retirement benefits.
Instructions to Students
Read your given biography and imagine that you are the person described. Thinking as your given person, reflect on the following questions:
•What do you think about this issue?
•How might it impact your life?
•What specific variables in your story do you think matter most to thepipeline’s impact on your life?
•What are some changes that could be made (in your own life, with your community, or by society in general) that could help solve your problems?
Sample Biographies
1. You are an indigenous woman, a mother of 2-year old daughter, who lives with her extended family on their tribal reservation in the US Midwest. You commute 50 total miles a day to your part-time job at a gas station near the interstate that runs along the border of your reservation. You have a high school diploma and have taken a few basic courses at a nearby community college, but due to the pressures of work and family you have generally been unable to focus much effort on your degree. You could move several hundred miles away to a big city and hope to find work, but that would mean either leaving your child behind to be raised by your extended family or finding regular childcare in the city. At any rate, you feel that it is very important to raise your daughter among the community elders and on her native lands so she may retain connections to her culture. Despite opposition from the tribal government, this pipeline will run through a portion of your tribal lands which you consider to be sacred. Several activist organizers have recently appeared in your community, urging your community to take direct action against the pipeline that threatens your sacred land and is against your community’s wishes. Many of the elders are skeptical of the activists, but they generally agree that your people need to defend their land and community.
2. You are a 25-year old single man who comes from a poor, urban environment. After high school you ran into some legal trouble which has left you with high debt and few employment options. But now you are committed to straightening out your life. While on probation you enrolled in a vocational school and earned all of the appropriate licensing and certification to work as a technician on oil and gas pipelines (although, you had to take out more money in student loans to pay for it). You’ve now completed your certification and are free to move in search of work, but your legal troubles and a lack of local jobs have made it difficult to make a living in your area. Fortuitously, you just came across an ad seeking entry-level, certified pipeline technicians from Fluffy Kitten Industries. The job offers no health care or benefits, makes no mention of support if you’re hurt on the job, and requires that you move a thousand miles away from your home at your own cost. The contract is only for one year, but it promises $60 an hour for entry-level laborers.
3. You are the newly-appointed CEO of Fluffy Kitten Industries. Despite cost-cutting measures, such as hiring contract employees and cutting corners on regular maintenance and oversight, your company has been consistently losing money over the past 5 years. As the new CEO, the board of directors and investors are putting some pressure on you to turn the company around. By making a risky low bid (that you know will require more cost-cutting to meet) you recently earned a contract to lead construction on a new 1,500-mile pipeline project. Growing national concern for environmental issues and your company’s past record of environmental damage, though, mean that you are under increased scrutiny from politicians and environmental groups. Recently, a small group of protestors conducted a direct action at one of your construction sites. They locked themselves to the equipment, forcing a work stoppage for about 6 hours. While the individuals involved were arrested and charged with criminal trespass, the action received a great deal of global media attention and the activist group promises to keep applying pressure as the pipeline project continues.
4. You are a small-scale organic farmer in the central region of your nation. You and your family own 30 acres where you grow organic produce and raise free-range chickens. You run your farm as a CSA (community supported agriculture), and the membership fees you receive help cover your costs. While you are by no means wealthy, you generally make your ends meet and are able to cover your basic needs. While in college you came across some books by Wendell Berry about the value of small farms and environmental stewardship. As a devoted Christian, you also discovered several writings on Creation Care from authors such as Cal DeWitt. These books made a big impact on you, and you decided that it was an important part of your life as a Christian to be a good steward of the land and to raise your family with respect for the environment and with appreciation for the needs of the poor. While the work is hard on your organic farm, you and your family are happy. You have recently discovered, though, that Fluffy Kitten Industries has proposed a pipeline that will run through 3 acres of your property—making those acres useless for agriculture (not to mention whatever damages occur during the construction). The company has received the right of eminent domain from your state government (which overwhelmingly supports the project), meaning that they have offered you the minimum market value for the 3 acres, which you are compelled to take.
5. You are a young mother who lives in a fishing village in a small island community in the Indian Ocean. You have 2 young children of your own (a boy and a girl), but you also often take care of some nieces and nephews who have lost their parents or whose parents sometimes travel to work for long periods of time. While your husband spends his days fishing and travelling to the market, you spend most of your day gathering water from the well a half-mile from your house, gathering firewood from the surrounding woods (used by dozens of other families), tending a small garden, cooking, and watching after children. In the last few years, the total number of marketable fish in your region has drastically declined and your husband sometimes fails to catch anything, which means that you have to make your small garden stretch further and further to at least provide minimal food for your family. Some families in your community have already moved to a mega-city in India where there are promises of work as laborers for the men and jobs as “servants” for women and girls. It sounds promising, but you’ve also heard rumors that there aren’t as many jobs as promised, that many immigrants are forced to scavenge for food and because they can’t pay rent for housing, and that some of the promised “servant” jobs for women and girls are actually at brothels. Recently, one of your neighbors told you that scientists believe that the local decline in fisheries is due to a subtle ocean-temperature rise due to “climate change,” along with increased competition from much larger fishing companies. These scientists also predict that your small island nation could be inundated by sea-level rise within the next 25 years, which may ultimately force you and your family to the big city whether you like it or not. Your neighbor said that your nation’s prime minister recently appealed to the world’s biggest and most powerful nations to reduce their fossil fuel consumption and to generally show that they recognize the impacts of their consumption on smaller nations like your own. You hear that the only way to prevent this impending destruction of your community is if these powerful nations agree to such changes.
Supplementary Material B: Alternative Issues/Perspectives and Resources
This is a list of some other potential issues and resources to use for this exercise, along with a few examples of biographies that could be developed surrounding them. All of these issues are local to the United States, but they inevitably involve global dynamics which may be emphasized through the issue description or choice of biographies. Of course, this is only a sample list, and many other potential issues and biographies exist.
1. Hydraulic Fracturing “Fracking”
This issue entails drilling for natural gas and has proven very controversial around the United States. It connects local concerns over water quality with national and international themes of fossil fuel dependency. There have also recently been legal struggles between communities and state governments over localized fracking bans.
Some sample biographies could include: a local retired person whose water is polluted by nearby fracking; a person with engineering skills useful for working at a fracking site; a person in a distant (or even not-too-distant) land whose home is threatened by rising seas.
Resources for more information about this issue include: Tom Wilbur, 2012, Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale (Ithaca: Cornell University Press); and Gasland (New Video, 2010).
2. BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill began on April 20, 2010 and, over the course of several days, released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill proved economically and ecologically disastrous for an already struggling Gulf Coast. It had significant impacts that are still being felt on local fishing, tourism industries, and ecosystems.
Some sample biographies could include: An Asian-American or African-American Gulf Coast commercial fisherman; an oil industry executive responsible for managing efforts in the Gulf; an indigenous person living in coastal Louisiana.
Resources for more information about this issue include: Antonia Juhasz, 2011, Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons); and Can the Gulf Survive? (2010, National Geographic Films). The PBS Independent Lens documentary The Great Invisible (2014) is another excellent resource. See the following website for more information:
3. Agriculture and Food Justice
Agriculture is a topic ripe with opportunities to encounter issues of justice. This can include water use politics (exemplified by the serious 2015 drought in California), pesticide use and its effects on migrant farm workers, the controversy surrounding genetically modified (GMO) crops, and the issue of urban food deserts (locations without consistent access to fresh and nutritious food).
Some sample biographies could include: A child of migrant farmers who travels the country with her family and moves between several different public schools each year; an urban shopper faced with the choice of buying food at a large national food chain or the local farmer’s market; a farmer who is struggling economically and is promised that new GMO crops will produce higher yields at lower costs.
Resources for more information about this issue include: Alison Hope Alkon and JulainAgyeman (eds), 2011, Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability (Cambridge: MIT Press); Food, Inc. (2008, Magnolia pictures); and The Garden (2008, Black Valley Films).
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