Solidarity: Global Pollution

Global Pollution can be addressed through monitoring what pollutants we release into the atmosphere and working to clean up the ones already in the environment. Countries need to work together to come to a universal agreement to preserve the earth for future generations making it a clean, healthy environment.

Solidarity

Violations of Solidarity

• Solidarity is the contemporary expression of the traditional Catholic image of the Mystical Body.
• We cannot live and exist independently from others, we are interdependent beings.
• Solidarity is a truly universal bond, linking together all human beings, living and dead, of every nation, race and belief. For Christians, solidarity is the bond that, through the life of Jesus, as God and man, links all human beings with God.

• Because solidarity acknowledges the humanity of each individual, violations that degrade one's humanity are violations against solidarity.
• These violations include human rights transgressions, such as rape, beatings, torture, unlawful detentions, political imprisonment, and forced starvation.
• Solidarity seeks to promote unity throughout the world, to remind people that everyone is a member of the same human race.
• Issues that infringe on this unity include ageism, racism, classism, and environmental injustice.

How Can Global Pollution be Addressed?

Pope John Paul ii

• In his 1979 address to the U.N. General Assembly, he challenged the free world to defend human rights that were being infringed upon by the Soviet backed Communist party in Poland

• His second encyclical, “On Human Work,” is peppered with 10 references to solidarity: "[Solidarity] is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all."

Reflections

Martin Luther King Jr.

• Dr. King’s belief in human solidarity, the inherent dignity of all human beings, and the need to work toward creating a world where all humans can flourish compelled him to action. He was animated by a strong sense of human solidarity, believing that as those created in God’s image we belong to one another.

Statistics (continued)

(World Health Organization)

• "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. [...] Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

• Data from the World Health Organization and other sources to determines that air pollution is the biggest killer, leading to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and other illnesses.
• Outdoor air pollution, caused by vehicles and industry, is blamed for 4.5 million deaths annually while indoor air pollution, from wood and dung stoves, is linked to 2.9 million deaths
• Water pollution, often contaminated by sewage, is linked to 1.8 million deaths from gastrointestinal diseases and parasitic infections
• Another 800,000 deaths are tied to workplace pollution, including exposure to toxins, carcinogens and secondhand tobacco smoke, coal-related diseases and bladder cancer in dye workers.

The Circle of Social Action

Our faith calls us to be aware of social needs and injustices, awareness requires analysis, analysis results in action, and action leads to deeper awareness and the circle begins again.

These three stages - awareness, analysis, and action - are the circle of social action.

Analysis: Faces of Global Pollution

How is Global Pollution Facilitated by Social Structures?

• Countries that are currently undergoing rapid development and industrialization are most affected. For example, in India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Madagascar and Kenya, pollution is responsible for 1 in 4 deaths.

• Countries' resistance to converting to renewable and sustainable energy that would cut down on pollutants released into the environment

• In addition to areas of the United States, as seen in the video, places around the world are also heavily impacted by environmental pollution and environmental injustice. China is largely regarded as the world's e-waste dump, as most of the world's electronic waste is disposed of in poor areas of China.
• Guiyu, China, located in the Guangdong province in southeast China, is the largest e-waste disposal site in China and possibly the world.
• Tens of millions of tons of old TVs, cell phones, batteries, among other electronic waste are discarded in Guiyu annually.
• In thousands of local family-run workshops, hundreds of thousands of impoverished migrant workers and their children sift through the rubble to extract copper, silver, gold, for resale, often burning or using acid baths to separate elements within the waste.
• These primitive methods of extraction secrete toxic chemicals into the environment and expose workers to health problems.

(taken from greenpeace.org)

Global Pollution

• Often, companies dump waste in poorer areas rather than in richer areas, revealing a cycle of environmental injustice within social class. Because poor areas cannot defend themselves, companies disregard the impact of the pollution on their overall health.

Analysis: Faces of Global Pollution

Statistics on the Affects of Global Pollution

The report by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health blames pollution for an estimated 9 million premature deaths, about 15 times more than all wars and other forms of violence. It concludes that pollution "endangers the stability of the Earth's support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies."

• Workers in Guiyu, often children, are exposed to lead, cadmium, and brominated flame retardants, all of which can negatively affect IQ and cause developmental delays in the brain and nervous system.
• A study by Shantou Medical University found high incidence of skin damage, headaches, vertigo, nausea, chronic gastritis, and gastric ulcers among migrants who recycle circuit boards and plastic.
• This study found that of 165 Guiyu children tested, 82% of children had blood/lead levels over 100, which is unsafe.
• In exchange for their work and related health problems, they receive only a few US dollars per day.
• Much of the toxic pollution comes from burning circuit boards and plastic and copper wires, which releases hydrocarbons into the air and soil, according to CNN.
• Greenpeace Research Laboratories found acid baths leaching into streams, making the streamwater and groundwater undrinkable.

Pollution disproportionately kills the poor and the vulnerable, the report found. Nearly 92% of pollution-related deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries.

Awareness

Pollution is the release of matter into the environment that causes undesirable impacts on the health and well-being of humans or other organisms. Pollution can be physical, chemical, or biological, and it can affect water, air, or soil.

Environmentalism is a social movement dedicated to protecting the natural world from undesirable changes due to human actions.

Environmental Ethics is the application of ethical standards to relationships between human and nonhuman entities.

Video Clip

On the causes and effects of climate change, in general:

On environmental injustice, specifically:

Analysis: How We Can Help

What makes this a social justice issue?

• We can do our part in helping to end environmental injustice resulting from pollution by supporting companies that make an effort to clean up their act.
• To better understand the overall impact of certain companies on the way in which they impact the surrounding communities where there products are handled and recycled, you can visit http://issuu.com/greenpeacechina/docs/greenpeace-guide-to-greener-electronics/5?e=0 (the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics). This guide ranks companies based on the safety and sustainability of their methods, such that consumers know which companies to support and the results of supporting those companies.
• You can also evaluate whether or not you really need to update your cell phone or computer regularly, and when possible, you can return old electronic equipment to the manufacturer. This would help ease e-waste pollution.
• Additionally, to reduce pollution we can conserve energy by turning off the lights in rooms we are not using and using energy efficient light bulbs.
• We can avoid excessive automobile idling and participate in carpooling.
• We can run dishwashers and clothes washers only when full and use environmentally friendly cleaners.
• We can use water-based solvents and whenever possible.
• Ultimately, these practices will contribute to a world where the environment is kept clean and safe for all present and future inhabitants of the planet, a world where all of humanity and all living things are united.

This is a social justice problem because it takes away the natural born human right to clean air, suitable and sustainable living, and long-lasting fulfilling life. Environmental justice is the fair treatment of all people with respect to the environment, regardless of income, race, or ethnicity. Typically, people who are of lower social status, are minorities, or live in poorer countries are affected more by pollution.

Responses to Global Pollution

Sources

Who Does Global Pollution Affect?

• http://www.catholicsocialteaching.org.uk
• http://percaritatem.com/2013/01/21/martin-luther-king-jr-on-human-solidarity-and-an-inescapable-network-of-mutuality-and-the-dangers-of-un-interrogated-whiteness/
• https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/10/20/study-global-pollution-worlds-biggest-killer-and-threat-survival-mankind/783321001/
• https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/pollutiontypes.php

"It's a collective endeavor, it's collective accountability, and it may not be too late."

- Christine Lagarde (Managing Director, IMF)

"Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start."

- Pope Francis

• Essential Environment by Jay Withgott and Matthew Laposata

Global Pollution affects everything and everyone in some way. Ecocentrism is a perspective that places intrinsic value on the whole ecological systems of living and non-living parts of the earth. People who do not live in first world countries, those who have low income, and minorities face the brunt of pollution and its effects.

Responses to Global Pollution (continued).

"[..] power plants can dump as much carbon pollution into our atmosphere as they want. It’s not smart, it’s not right, it’s not safe, and I determined it needs to stop.”

"The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. [...] when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.”

- Former President Barack Obama

Solidarity: Global Pollution

Toni Moore, Hailey Tyler, & Jenna Tyrrell