Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene Symposium 2017

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/183716

The School of Global Environmental Sustainability's Global Challenges Research Team hosted a two-day symposium, "Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Anthropocene," on April 24-25, 2017 at the Lory Student Center at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. The symposium brought together faculty and graduate students, independent researchers, community and movement activists, and regulatory and policy practitioners from across disciplines, research areas, perspectives, and different countries. Environmental justice (EJ) is a central component of sustainability politics during the Anthropocene – the current geological age when human activity is the dominant influence on climate and environment. The overarching goal was to build on several decades of EJ research and practice to address the seemingly intractable environmental and ecological problems of this unfolding era. These digital collections include the program and symposium papers.

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Open Access
01 Program: Environmental justice in the Anthropocene symposium
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Colorado State University. School of Global Environmental Sustainability, author
"We have planned a diverse, international Symposium on Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene. In this program, you will find logistical information about the symposium, the School of Global Environmental Sustainability (SoGES) Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Anthropocene Global Challenge Research Team (GCRT), Colorado State University, and Fort Collins."
Open Access
02 Agenda: Environmental justice in the Anthropocene symposium
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Colorado State University. School of Global Environmental Sustainability, author
Final agenda for the "Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene Symposium" held on April 24-25, 2017, Colorado State University, Fort Collins Colorado.
Open Access
Bioenergy and social sustainability in Yucatan, Mexico: an elaborated understanding based on energy justice
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Banerjee, Aparajita, author
A few years back jatropha projects were promoted in Yucatan, Mexico like many other countries in the global south for bioenergy production mainly by federal agencies. The aim was that jatropha biodiesel projects would provide energy security along with rural economic revitalization. When the projects started their operations, community members living proximate to the projects got localized employments that benefited them in some ways. However, some years later, the projects closed down due to several reasons. In this paper, we present results of our qualitative study conducted in rural Yucatan to understand how the communities were affected by the projects, and how the projects did not ensure long-term socio-economic sustainability of the area. We also show that though the Yucatecan bioenergy projects were aimed to solve fossil-fuel energy-based problems like energy crisis and climate change at national and international levels, these projects did not solve localized energy-related problems. Community members themselves continued using firewood in traditional three-stoned fire pits for their domestic cooking while working in jatropha plantations for producing biodiesel meant for national or international consumers. Based on our results, we argue that while planning bioenergy projects or any other renewable energy projects, it is critical and just to ensure how such projects can improve localized energy access related issues especially when such projects are sited in marginalized rural communities.
Open Access
Garbage, power, and environmental justice: the clean power plan rule
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Baptista, Ana Isabel, author; Amarnath, Kumar Kartik, author
Open Access
Operationalizing environmental justice through tools and approaches of the Climate Change Response Framework
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Swanston, Christopher W., author; Handler, Stephen D., author; Janowaik, Maria K., author
The Forest Service recognizes that climate change poses a multi-generational challenge that spans borders, transcends unilateral solutions, and demands shared learning and resources (USDA Forest Service 2011). The Climate Change Response Framework (CCRF, www.forestadaptation.org) grew from this recognition, and was formally launched in 2009 to address the major challenges that land managers face when considering how to integrate climate change into their planning and management. Practitioners whose livelihoods and communities depend on healthy forests face daunting challenges when responding to rapid forest decline or preparing for future change, particularly tribal natural resources professionals and tribal communities (Vogesser et al. 2013). Emphasizing climate services support for these rural communities can help them build adaptive capacity in their cultural and economic systems, often considered fundamental to environmental justice. Supporting climate-informed decision-making by these practitioners and communities requires climate service organizations to show up, listen, and then creatively work with practitioners to meet their own goals on the lands they manage. The emphasis of the CCRF on stewardship goals, as opposed to climate change and its effects, represents a subtle but important shift in focus to people and their values.
Open Access
Sustainable commons governance and climate justice: ecofeminist insights and indigenous traditions
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Perkins, Patricia E., author
This paper brings together North American and global examples of traditional and new forms of "commons" which help to meet local subsistence needs and develop communities' social, political and economic resilience in the face of climate change. Commons governance represents a dynamic means of risk reduction which addresses the shortcomings of both market and state-oriented governance and is becoming increasingly relevant as climate change threatens human subsistence worldwide. Indigenous traditions and leadership are central to this (re-)emergent phenomenon. Drawing on the literatures of ecological economics, political ecology, and ecofeminism as well as the work of Elinor Ostrom to situate these ideas, this paper sets out a framework for assessing communities' climate resilience from an equity standpoint, in terms of their commons-readiness. Some of the indicators involved in this framework include each community's openness/boundaries, historical experiences and aptitudes with commons, indigenous leaders and integration of indigenous culture, social networks and social learning, political and economic autonomy, income distribution, and women's empowerment. Climate justice -- improving the local and global equity of climate change impacts and procedures – advances in parallel with commons development; this paper also discusses scale issues related to local, regional, watershed-based, international and global commons and climate justice.
Open Access
Environmental justice and the clean power plan: the case of energy efficiency
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Martinez, Cecilia, author
The purpose of this paper is to provide an outline of environmental justice (EJ) issues of the CPP, specifically with respect to energy efficiency. It is one of a complement of papers sponsored by the Milano School of International Sustainability at the New School that are intended to provide an EJ review of the CPP as a foundation for understanding the opportunities and challenges for integrating equity and justice in climate policy. The catalyst for this set of papers exemplifies one of the problematic issues of climate policy in the U.S. as it has developed over the last several years. While various policy mechanisms have been extensively analyzed in terms of economic efficiency, flexibility and costs of compliance, these stand in stark contrast to only a handful of research efforts that focus on equity impacts of domestic climate mitigation policy. Our goal here is to provide a summary of the major justice/equity issues associated with the CPP specifically, and mainstream climate and energy policy generally. As such, it is not intended to be an in-depth analysis, but rather a starting point for further policy research which we hope to continue.
Open Access
Valuing nature equitably: beyond monetary values
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Britto dos Santos, Natália, author
Nature is essential to human well-being, providing material and non-material benefits. Interest in ecosystem valuation has increased steadily, initially focused on providing monetary valuation of nature and its services, raising debates regarding the appropriateness of these measures in different circumstances. However, monetary valuation alone cannot capture the full range of nature's benefits, and relying only on monetary values can lead to underestimation as well as environmental and social injustice. As we face the Anthropocene, the planetary crisis calls for urgent changes in how we perceive and value nature. This paper explores the idea that nature's values are understood by people not only as instrumental values (people's satisfaction) or intrinsic values (nature per se), but also as relational values arising from nontangible relationships. Further, I discuss the need to incorporate a plurality of valuation languages and knowledge sources to better understand ecological, socio-cultural and monetary values, considering specific conditions under which particular approaches may or not be appropriate. Otherwise, we might disregard important values, especially those which are less tangible and/or difficult to measure. This conversation is of utmost importance since all values are relevant to understand nature's benefits for humans and should be considered in order to make wise, social, environmental and climate just decisions regarding urgent planetary challenges.
Open Access
A matter of respect: TEK
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Greenwood, Kim, author
Open Access
Environmental justice, conservation, and the politics of pipelines
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Lester, Julie A., author
The United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently approved the construction of a natural gas pipeline through three southern states. Supporters of the pipeline focused on the economic benefits that pipeline construction would bring to communities, while those in opposition questioned the environmental justice and ecological impact of pipeline construction. This paper will explore the politics of the approval and construction process for the pipeline with a focus on the narratives of public and private actors in support of and in opposition to the pipeline. Through an analysis of narratives presented in the media, public hearings, and other sources, interested parties may learn more about how stakeholders highlighted issues related to economics, environmental justice, and conservation to advance their agenda.
Open Access
Achieving emissions reductions for environmental justice communities through climate change mitigation policy
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Sheats, Nicky, author
This paper focuses on emissions reductions for EJ communities under the Clean Power Plan in particular as well as climate change mitigation policy in general and argues that these reductions should be both mandatory and planned. The next section of the paper discusses why, from an EJ perspective, equity should be an integral part of climate change mitigation policy; then the need for climate change mitigation policy to produce emissions reductions for EJ communities is discussed; this is followed by an explanation of why neither the Clean Power Plan nor carbon trading programs in general can guarantee emissions reductions for EJ communities in the manner needed; then a specific mechanism for achieving these reductions under the Clean Power Plan is proposed; and the paper concludes with several final thoughts. Many of the ideas contained in this paper have been presented before in various forms in comments submitted by this author on behalf of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance. However, additional ideas, discussion and detail are included here.
Open Access
Is renewable power reaching the people and are the people reaching the power? Creating a just transition from the ground-up
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Farrell, Caroline, author; Stano, Madeline, author
This article will examine how the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment (CRPE) and the residents we work with are planning a Just Transition in the historic heart of California's oil and gas industry. Like many extractive-based economies, the oil and gas industry has created dependence and cycles of poverty. Tied to oil and gas for its economic growth, yet overburdened by its pollution, California reflects the paradox facing many extractive economies around the world. The article will discuss how state climate policies and targeted private investment can be implemented at the local level to improve community health, build community wealth, and create accountable governance systems that benefit low-income communities and communities of color. We will begin by discussing the Environmental Justice's Movements definition of a Just Transition. We will also discuss how California's climate policy has evolved over the last few years to incorporate elements of a Just Transition Framework. Finally, the article will discuss the case study of Arvin, CA, a low-income Latino community in the heart of the oil and gas industry we are working with to plan a project to become 100% fossil fuel free.
Open Access
U.S. Federal panel on agency, inter-agency, and international environmental justice initiatives
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Pierce, Lizana, author
Indian Country consists of 567 federally recognized Indian tribes including Alaska Native villages, over 200 Alaska Native village and regional corporations, and other tribal and intertribal organizations and associations. Staggering gaps exist between tribal communities and the rest of the Nation. Specifically, • Native Americans are three (3) times as likely to live in overcrowded housing and with inadequate infrastructure (plumbing, sewage systems, water treatment, electrical, and broadband) • About one in four (4) American Indians and Alaska Natives (27%) live in poverty • Unemployment rates are twice (2X) as high as those among non-Indians nationally • More than 175 remote Alaska Native villages rely almost exclusively on diesel fuel for electricity and heating oil for heat. In some communities, electricity costs exceed $1.00/kilowatt-hour; more than eight (8) times the national average of $0.12/ kilowatt-hour • 14.2 percent of tribal households lack access to basic electricity.
Open Access
Food beyond rights: where resistance meets cooperation
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Valle, Gabriel, author
One distinctive characteristic of life in the Anthropocene is uncertainty, but that uncertainty is not equally felt amongst the general population. In this essay, I argue that while the new norms of life in the Anthropocene may encourage a placeless, timeless world where individuals appear to be constantly at odds against their own existence, the so-called marginals make use of uncertainty to forge revolutionary subjectivities that enable new ways of being, seeing, and interacting with each other in the search of more just and sustainable worlds. The purpose of the essay is to describe the ways in which a group of low-income and recent immigrant gardeners, those who are often more exposed and vulnerable to the uncertainty of life in the Anthropocene, cultivate new subjectivities that forge alternative pathways toward justice in order to better their quality of life.
Open Access
U.S. Federal panel on agency, inter-agency, and international EJ initiatives
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Herzog, Margaret, author
A brief overview of Federal-wide Environmental Justice Policy and BIA Tribal focus
Open Access
The dynamics of consumption activities by income level in Mexico and CO2 emissions
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Santillán-Vera, Mónica, author
The overall purpose of this paper is to emphasize that consumption activities –which are considerably different among income levels– are drivers of CO2 emissions and particularly studying this picture of Mexico from 1965 to 2015. Although from the economic science most of the climate change studies have been based on the conventional approach focused mainly on the supply (activities and actors related with production sectors), some alternative approaches focused on the demand (activities and actors related with final consumption of goods and services) have already been developed, and some of them take into account economic inequality. The "consumption-based emission inventories" –which consider emissions embodied in products of consumption, whether locally produced or imported– are an option to estimate the impact of consumption activities of a country on CO2 emissions. However, consumption activities are not homogeneous within a country, so including in this scenario internal economic inequality allows allocating emissions among individuals and suggests an extreme carbon inequality between rich and poor people. From these alternative approaches, CO2 emissions of Mexico during 1965-2015 are analyzed by applying a simple expenditure-CO2 emissions elasticity model in order to allocate carbon responsibilities among income groups within the country. This top-down analysis uses consumption-based CO2 inventories and elasticities from 0.7 to 1.0 (based on estimates of previous bottom-up studies) and points out there has been a big carbon inequality among income groups all through this period. If an average of 0.9 elasticity is considered, in 2014 the poorest decile emitted 2.4 tons of CO2 per capita, while the richest decile emitted 13.3 tons, and the richest percentile 38.2 tons. This kind of studies –non-existent for Mexico– leads to rethinking the weight of income distribution and consumption patterns on climate change, as well as the allocation of mitigation responsibilities among both countries and individuals, thus opening up complementary options to design mitigation strategies and policies.
Open Access
"Building the bigger we" for climate justice
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Goloff, Benjamin Max, author
Open Access
Vital seeds: an assemblage approach to seed production and ownership
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-24) Comi, Matt, author
This paper is a think piece which attempts to examine the complexities of holistic research in a brief space. I outline a theoretical positioning for environmental study based in assemblage thinking, a sometimes contentious (Hornborg 2017), but useful approach. I then demonstrate the kind of inquiry by utilizing this assemblage approach in order to explore and critique discursive-legal issues in US patent and PVPA certification legislation. The end-goal of the project is to begin exploring how assemblage thinking within environmental justice scholarship could imagine a more just ecologic future.
Open Access
Brazilian environmental justice in crisis: traditional peoples, environmental governance, and the limits of socioeconomic inclusion
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Azenha, Gustavo S., author
Through exploring the ongoing and intensified struggles between traditional peoples over land and natural resources in Brazil, I analyze the limitations of current forms of environmental decision-making and socioeconomic inclusion, and the contradictory impulses of sustainable development in which these are embedded. I examine the conjoined evolution of policies for economic development, the environment, and traditional rights since the 1980s in Brazil, exploring the shifting terrain of environmental justice struggles during different political economic phases, including democratization in the 1980s, the rise of neoliberalism in the 1990s, the postneoliberal turn of the early 2000s, and the current re-entrenchment of neoliberalism accompanying Brazil's political and economic crisis. Since the 1980s, there has been an overall trend towards strengthening socioenvironmental movements, policies, and governance, but in the last few years, there has been an erosion of traditional peoples' influence in environmental policies and an undermining of traditional land and resource rights. These trends occur alongside what have been seemingly contradictory efforts at promoting poverty alleviation and socioeconomic inclusion under the guise of sustainable development. I argue that these efforts are based on narrow conceptions of inclusion and citizenship that are modest in scope, focused on the short-term, and overlook critical structural matters. The promotion of socioeconomic inclusion has insufficiently safeguarded established rights and has limited participation in policymaking in important ways, yielding forms of sustainable development in which environmental and social concerns are superficial and echo historical exclusionary, assimilationist, and developmentalist efforts to promote "progress". With the strong conservative backlash of the current political and economic crisis, even these deficient efforts at socioeconomic inclusion are being scaled back, at the same time that environmental policies and traditional rights are being deeply eroded, posing serious challenges for cultivating a just and sustainable future. Because of the inseparable links between nature and state-making in Brazil, and the important role Brazil plays in international environmental governance, my analysis of contested ecologies in Brazil brings insights into the broader contradictions and limitations of global sustainable development efforts and the persistent challenges to cultivating more inclusive forms of environmental governance.
Open Access
Tribal consultation and collaborative governance: environmental and cultural justice through the lens of the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) and the National Historic Preservation Act (1966)
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017-07-25) Rowe, Matthew J., author; Finley, Judson Byrd, author; Baldwin, Elizabeth, author; DeMinck, Rashail, author

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