What does socio-ecological justice look like?
I envision a world where we are open and honest with one another...where we are all willing to share how we think and feel.
At UBC, sometimes I feel that we don't provide enough room for dissenting voices. I distinctly remember a conversation I had with a friend last year. His political views are much different than mine, but he was willing to share how he truly felt. I got the sense that he didn't get this opportunity very often.
I also remember some of the comments made during my environmental sciences classes. One stands out. I was placed on a team that represented the Albertan government on a debate about the TransMountain Pipeline. Upon meeting my team members, one of them remarked: "Hey, guess we're playing the bad guys!"
Striving towards socio-ecological justice must involve the inclusion of traditionally marginalized voices. But it also requires us to confront our own limitations. This is where the value of courage comes in. Do we really listen to those who rely on resource extraction? Do we really understand their perspective? Are we willing to accept that we can sometimes be wrong?
Once we have these hard conversations, we can start to understand. Once we start to understand, our own views evolve. My proposed intervention this week is to try and spend a week reading stories (at least 5) about local communities dependent on resource extraction projects. By reading these stories, I hope to get a better sense as to why others place so much value in these projects.
@CoSphere
Hi Philip! I loved your reflection and I love your vison for the future. We cannot improve the inclusivity and diversity of our decision making processes if we do not include the perspectives of those communities whose existence (often) relies entirely on resource extraction, in addition to those more marginalized communities. I recently interned for a mining company for 16 months and learnt a lot about three municipalities in the East Kootenays that were born from coal mining: Sparwood, Elkford and Fernie. This experience was eye opening and taught me an immeasurable amount about the importance of including everyone, even those we (think we) disagree with.
I recently listened to a podcast episode that touches on what you're talking about and that I think you'd like. It's called "Canvassing for Climate Action: Here's How to Make it Work" by How to Save a Planet. This episode really truck a chord with me because it talks about how a group of canvassers engaged with a community in BC called Trail, which was built around the success of the Lead-Zinc smelter that has operated there since the early 1900s. The canvassers were open to understanding and listening to this community, and were able to find more in common with them than not. Together, they were able to push forward a pledge signed by the whole of the West Kootenays to demand their local governments develop a 100% renewable energy plan for the West Kootenays by 2050. I loved this episode so much and it really resonated with some of my own experiences living and visiting these municipalities in the Kootenays this summer.
I resonated with your post so much Philip! I have also heard people expressing the frustration that UBC (and most academic institutions) is too "left", and everyone has to agree with that believe system to survive. I have also heard people switching out of Environmental Science and Geography because their belief systems do not align with the major. I found that often in discussion related to climate change and justice issue, people who don't agree with the "politically correct" beliefs and often shunt from the discussion and labelled as "bad people". (Similar to online cancel culture). Most "cancelled" people often ended up recruited into fringe movement by bad actors because they that's the only way for them to find a sense of belonging. In one geography classes, My professor said: "About 1/3 of people are right wing authoritarians that cannot be convinced otherwise. About 1/3 of people are genuinely progressive. And the remaining 1/3 are somewhere in between." Most people are not bigots but they just care about their livelihoods, care about feeding their families. In order for justice to happen, we have to work with these people with an open mind and try to understand where they are coming from. That way they can be our allies in fighting for a more sustainable and just world, rather than being exploited by the bad actors.
I have some contentious feelings about what you are saying, but I mostly agree. One thing I would say when opening a dialogue with someone with who you may not understand their motivations completely is that they do have to be presented with the blunt reality. I also think we need to be extremely mindful of bad actors utilizing the kindness of some people to propagate their message and spread ideas of violence and hatred.
Open dialogues can be a start to people really opening their minds towards each other, I think it's also a great opportunity for bad actors to speak with a misleading domain. The reality is resource extraction must be done in a sustainable way, or else the resource extraction will be finite. Sustainability is in everyone's best interest logically, and it does require time and compassion to explain that.
I do appreciate your sentiments of sensitivity, and I think they are key to looking at the class impact of sustainability efforts.
I really like your point of view, mutual understanding is really important, but I think the biggest obstacle is that different people are difficult to understand each other or even unwilling to understand each other due to cultural differences or traditional understanding. Power is a very dark thing, the party with the stronger power is not willing to listen to the party with the weaker power, coupled with the difference in beliefs, I think even conflict is inevitable. Hopefully, politicians in relevant departments will realize that human beings will have to pay attention to their own actions sooner or later, and long-term development should not be ignored because of short-term interests.