I think that most actions, unfortunately, will have some negative effects, but we can make our world more just by coming up with a middle ground for all the parties involved whenever making ecological decisions. A big component of this is ensuring that all parties are a part of the discussion and are respected as equal parts, be it in businesses, corporations, governments, or other institutions. Ensuring representation at different levels of decision-making, but particularly higher levels, will help. To increase representation, we need to make this employment accessible to underrepresented communities, as well (e.g., outreach to indigenous high schools to provide these career paths as potential options). We also need to start incorporating environmental values and ethical discussions into our education system - not just as a separate subject, but as a part of everything that we already study. This will help us engrain values of our relationship to the land and increase our empathy for others with different perspectives. A lack of connections to others (including the environment) is what allows those in powerful positions, mentally, to disconnect from our responsibilities. We need to rediscover and expand our empathy, so that wherever people are present, a consideration for justice is also present.
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Love the thinking of incorporating Indigenous Studies into the school system, but I am worried as to how their injustices will be portrayed. Textbooks are still used heavily, and which textbooks, and what goes into these textbooks are determined by the government, to quite an extent. For example, textbooks in Texas were edited to call slaves "workers" instead, and it baffles me as somehow no government official saw anything wrong while sanctioning this. No one put their foot down and argued how wrong this was.
I love your idea of introducing environmental and ethical studies into the school system. It makes me think about my own schooling and how my community could have benefitted from it. It also makes me think about how UBC could take steps towards justice and reconciliation by requiring that a course on Indigenous perspectives and value systems be taught as part of their degrees, seeing as we will all be contributing members of society in our respective areas of expertise and we all occupy stolen (Musqueam) land for ~4 years of study. It's only a starting point but any start is a good one.
Definitely agree with you about implementing ethical discussions into all subjects taught at school, this would lead to a more empathetic future for sure. And the idea of partnerships rather than one corporation or government exerting their power over all other stakeholders would ameliorate so many problems of environmental injustice we see today.
Hi Vani! I like how you mentioned we should implement environmental values and ethics into our education - I agree that it would be really beneficial to building our empathy and connection to the land.
I like the idea of increasing representation in our communities. This can be done through ethical dicussions in our community to allow for others to voice their opinions.