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Doherty’s Weekly Response #5

Posted on October 10, 2012 by tomdoherty54

During my last floor meeting at Brookdale the RA brought up the issue of our kitchen’s hygiene. It is terrible. The last time I made coffee the counter was littered with rice, the sink was a brown pool, and the surface of the heating coil bubbled with some white frothy unknown substance that, when burned, smelled like the smoke emissions from firecrackers. During the meeting everyone nodded his or her head in agreement. Yes, it is disgusting. Yes, anyone who uses the kitchen should clean it up. Yes, if we see something dirty, wipe it down. Then the RA asked who is going to clean it up. Someone said whoever was cooking in there last is responsible. The person who used it last piped in saying that it was dirty before she even started cooking in there. In the end, They did not move. Everyone agreed that it was dirty; no one agreed to clean it; and the kitchen is like that to this day.

This is how we treat environmental responsibility. Recall the infamous illustration of the “Boss Tweed Ring,” where all the guilty men are in a circle and pointing to the man on their right. In this illustration, who is guilty? The New Bedford case study shows us how the current status of an environment is the result of years and years of pollutants and not the result of one accident. One company did not cause the change in New Bedford’s watershed, but a multitude of people and jobs did. Who is responsible? The answer to this question is simple: Everyone.

But who will act? Many of the companies in New Bedford have changed hands, left the city, or gone out of business. Is it right to punish a company today for unknown crimes it did yesterday? If it is not, then what is the alternative? There is, however, an even more important question. While it may be easy to place the blame on an individual, how will we shift the paradigm of correct behavior? If it took years of incorrect practice to pollute the environment it will take years of correct practice to stabilize it. People will be looking for a quick fix solution to a larger problem.

For example, during last week’s lecture we spoke about the carbon dioxide absorption into the ocean. Many of the solutions proposed a way to fix the change in acidity of the ocean. But what then? If there are still high levels of carbon dioxide in the air, the same problem will arise again and again and again. The solution to this is come up with a long-lasting sustainable change in way we use the earth’s resources.

What is sad about my anecdote is that the kitchen was cleaned up, but not by any of the residents. Every other morning a cleaning lady comes in to wipe down all the surfaces and makes the kitchen look like it was newly installed the night before. This is sad because the Earth has no equivalent. The solution for cleaning the kitchen is the same for cleaning the Earth. If we can change the way we use the kitchen everyday and take immediate responsibility of the mess we create, sustainable change can occur.

Doherty’s Weekly Response 4: History

Posted on October 1, 2012 by tomdoherty54

In the previous class, we left off wondering what the possible source of Central Park’s lead levels was. Since it was not the leaded gasoline, as originally thought, researchers pinpointed it to New York City’s use of incinerators. As elated as they might have felt in finding the source of NYC’s lead pollution, what was the point? Incinerators were stopped years ago. This research didn’t solve any problems of today, so what was the idea behind trying to find out why? This requires a small digression into NYC’s trash management and the New Bedford case study.

Getting rid of our waste and garbage has been a ubiquitous and constant problem for cities and villages alike. As cities grow, they sought cheap and effective means of getting rid of the garbage. Rivers were used to dump sewage until reports in the mid-19th century showed that waste would build up downstream. Then incinerators were used to burn any trash that could be burned until reports showed that airborne pollutants are released when trash is burned. Now landfills are used but research has shown that some plastics are leeched into the ground and could contaminate ground soil.

What is important about NYC’s trash management records is how accurate they are. They have recorded how much and what kinds of trash are thrown out annually. Over the course of decades, the introduction, drop off, and general flux in consumption of goods can be seen in what is thrown out. The introduction of breakout products (the nylon stocking, the disposable diaper, etc.) can be seen in the landfills like layers of sediment at the bottom of a lakebed. But again, there is question, why does it matter?

The New Bedford case study illuminates a number of key points to understand. History is important, and this cannot be emphasized enough. Before any action can be taken to undergo treatment of the environment, it is important to understand how the present state of the environment came to be. The case study of New Bedford shows us how damage to the environment is rarely caused by a one-time incident. New Bedford, like many American cities, underwent a number of changes over the course of time. From agriculture, to whaling, to textiles, to industry, each phase of New Bedford presented another new problem to the environment. An environmental issue is rarely an “accident” in the strictest sense of the word but a result of continuous, lasting, and detrimental actions. By pleading ignorance, it is easier for us to call them “accidents.” The inability to fish in New Bedford was not the result of a singular cause, but the result of a combination of sewage, PCBs, and industrial waste.

The Central Park study, the NYC waste management records, and the New Bedford case study show the importance of knowledge and history. History provides context for the issues of today; it allows us to make informed decisions of what does and what does not work; lastly, it shows just how fragile our environment is. Every action we have taken can still be seen within the layers beneath.

Weekly Response 3

Posted on September 27, 2012 by tomdoherty54

I have lived in New York City all of my life and have always known that the city’s air is full of pollutants. But what exactly are “air pollutants” and where do they come from? I had always assumed it was just car exhaust and fumes from the factories. I did not have a single iota of a clue what it was actually doing to the human body.

What it all comes down to is chemistry. Mercury, cadmium, copper, arsenic, lead,  PCBs, sulfur-, nitrogen-, and carbon-oxides, all of the above have some adverse effect on the body over a certain level. What is scary about this information is that it is not confidential or hidden. People know that the concentration of car exhaust in the city is harmful. Companies know that pollutants are released into the air if the proper filters are not attached. Yet…there seems to be this attitude of turning a blind eye towards these unpleasant facts. It is almost as if this is just another part of “the cost of living.”

But what is the cost? From an economic standpoint, using cheaper methods of manufacturing (i.e., ones that release more pollutants) will drive down the price of the product. The problem here is that people cannot put a price tag on health. Health, whether it is personal health or the health of the population, cannot be quantified with precise numbers. It is as if health, without a number, does not factor into the economic equation. This seems to be why it is always forgotten.

Another part of the problem is that, below a certain threshold, pollutants do not cause alarm but they still inflict harm. If the amount of pollutants in the air is just tolerable enough to ignore, then any attempt to neutralize the threat seems like an unnecessary hassle. Even when someone’s personal health is at stake, they are willing to sacrifice a little bit of health in exchange for material comfort or a little extra pocket change.

Also note that air pollutants are not some distant concern we can ship to a landfill in Texas; it is right outside your door. It would be easy to argue “out of sight, out of mind” for a number of pollutants, but even when the damage is done on a daily basis, it seems to not bother most people.

In the previous paragraphs I realize that I have only spoken about the harmful effects and people’s attitudes in a very generalized manner. The next step is to look at the origin of the problem to figure out where to solve the issues. In the previous lecture, we started a discussion about the study of Central Park’s lake. Lead is known neurotoxin and was removed from gasoline in the late seventies to the early eighties in order to minimize its emission into the air. But did it work? We ended the class with one hint: the decline in lead concentrations of the lakebed started to decrease in the early sixties, more than a decade before lead was removed from gasoline. So where did it come from? My guess is lead-based paint.

Doherty’s Second Response

Posted on September 20, 2012 by tomdoherty54

How do we balance economic stability with environmental sustainability? This is the million-dollar question. How can we come up with a solution that allows individual freedom while imposing limitations in order to protect the environment? What role should the government play, if any? Can we rely on individual responsibility? Is there even a solution where someone does not get hurt? Where does true responsibility lie?

In 1976, RCRA, the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, was passed. That same year the U.S. Government ordered GE to dredge the Hudson River in order to remove PCBs from the soil. GE finally started to dredge the Hudson in 2008. What does this say about the government, its people, and the corporation? It seems as if the corporation is fighting a surrogate of the people (i.e., the government). While the people may blame the government for not acting or not pushing the issue, it is actually the responsibility of the people to push their government to action. On the other hand, the corporation is fighting to survive in the wild frenzy of a global economy. The corporation tries to balance government regulations and global competition and all the while trying to make a profit. But who is responsible for the clean-up and can the use of PCBs be justified?

To start with the latter, PCBs were a cheap, efficient conductor used in many electronics from post World War II to 1976. A glance at a history textbook will show you that during this period American business was booming and, you could assume, PCBs made a contribution to this. Hypothetically speaking, if we traveled back to post World War II America and made a public service announcement about all of the dangerous chemicals being used at the time (e.g., PCBs, smoking, asbestos, etc.), would they listen? Would economic prosperity win over environmental sustainability? If we consider this issue realistically, Americans in the 1950’s wouldn’t believe the dangers. The environmental movement would not arise until twenty years later when the effects of the chemicals surfaced. Despite our ability of forethought, it is still hard to believe “theories” without hard evidence. As a counterpoint, consider what would happen if Americans in the 1950’s did stop using PCBs, what would America look like today? It would be reasonable to assume that the technology we have today (e.g., the plasma screen TV, the iPhone, and even this MacBook that I am typing on) would not exist. We might have TVs, but they would be a luxury. While our environment would cleaner, who would stop the rest of the world from using hazardous chemicals? Would the United States lose its world power as the “leader of the free world”? Or, if we were optimistic, would the world follow our example? Then, anyone who did not produce goods through an environmentally friendly way would be frowned upon; environmental conservation would exist in international laws but also as social norms…but this is a very optimistic outlook.

Since many companies used PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides (whether they did it out of frugal economic spending or ignorance of the aftereffects does not matter now), we are still left with a mess to clean up. Who is responsible? If the company created the pollution, it would seem logical that they, being the cause, should clean up the aftereffects. But what if they do not? Is the government responsible to make sure the companies do their job? Is this government’s role? If this is outside the jurisdiction of the government, then the people should be responsible. But how can they act if they are ignorant of the issue or feel they would hurt themselves (usually economically) if they act on this issue? Is it moral to wipe our hands clean by saying “it was the generation before us, we did not cause it,” and leave it for the next generation?

At the end of this debate there are the same recurring themes: economic stability and prosperity, environmental sustainability and conservation, and public versus private responsibility/ethics.

An Initial Response from Doherty

Posted on September 6, 2012 by tomdoherty54

Anybody could create a series of slides filled with data, statistics, and numbers to convey a message. What I found more important than the numbers were the people behind the numbers. Putting statistics under examination showed me how all encompassing and how vitally important environmental justice is.

The first lesson the classes taught me is how little I know. I had never heard of the Dead Zone of the Gulf of Mexico. I had no idea the Sahara and the Gobi were annually expanding. I could not fathom what the effects day-to-day living in America has done to countries around the globe. Then I asked, Why? The immediate and somewhat obvious answer came to me. There is little to no media coverage of this. But why? Do people not care, or do environmental issues seem too abstract to take seriously? I realized that even if half of the world’s population pushed to preserve natural ecosystems, mitigate our impact on the world, and stop wasteful and destructive practices, there would still be half the population pulling in the opposite direction. It is an all or none battle.

My next lesson made a bigger impact on my opinion of environmental justice. Whether anyone likes to admit it, everyone has a set of environmental ethics. No one is advocating that we should “pillage and plunder the Earth for resources.” Rather, in my opinion, people tend to roughly side with one of two camps. One camp is actively trying to take action in preserving the environment. The other is more or less apathetic or ignorant of these issues. This, of course, is a broad sweeping generalization but there is a kernel of truth to it: people cannot act on issues they do not know exist. If we suppose they do know but do not act, then there are a number of other factors at work. Compare a farmer from the Midwest to a resident in New York City. In order to make a profit the farmer may use pesticides or growth hormones on his or her crops because a competitor is using them. When the crops are shipped to New York City, the resident there will try to buy the crop at the lowest price. Both the farmer and the resident are aware of the effects on the environment, but when personal gains are at stake, the environment is usually forgotten.

The next step in this lesson was rethinking how we relate to our environment. The first problem I started thinking about is whether we should even say “our environment.” This phrase implies some form of ownership, which is a dangerous attitude to take. On the other hand, calling it “our environment” conveys the sense of urgency and responsibility we should have towards it. This is the crux of environmental ethics, lessening our anthropocentric view of the Earth while strengthening our responsibility towards it.

After two classes there is one last startling revelation that struck me. We need the Earth but the Earth does not need us. Abusing our only resource for survival is akin to suicide. As abstract as environmental justice and ethics seem to some, it involves all of us.

This class is not merely a set of numbers, it is a call to action. What will I do?

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