Race, Poverty, and the Environment

by Carl Anthony



These notes on sustainability consciousness are from work on Race, Poverty and the Environment, at the Urban Habitat Program Earth Island Institute.

1. Modern day racism is a product of the European expansion, the scientific and industrial revolutions, and the legacy of colonialism. It is part of the paradigm that rests on global scale domination of nature and most of the world's people by a powerful and well organized global minority. The outmoded racial system of classification of human communities should be replaced by a system that acknowledges, draws strength from and celebrates human differences, and sees the world's cultural diversity as a great resource for helping to achieve sustainability.

2. Poverty is the lack of access to and control over material resources required for full participation in society. Poverty is different from deprivation. Deprivation is the absence of resources--food, air, water, shelter, privacy--needed for biological integrity of individuals, families, and communities. The modern industrial system manufactures both poverty and deprivation in the majority of the world's population as it creates affluence of a privileged few. This system, like the drug dealer, generates needs which can never be completely satisfied, and generates dependency on the global market. In view of these dynamics, the world can no longer identify human well being as equivalent to economic growth. New indices of human and ecological well being are needed to replace the GNP. Disenfranchised communities have a responsibility and an opportunity to provide leadership in guiding and helping the whole human community achieve a more just distribution of resources, a better quality of life, while reducing consumption and waste.

3. The environment is the sum total of influences which affect the survival and development of an organism or community of organisms. It is unique to each organism or community of organisms, each of which interact with biophysical, technological, and social influences in different ways. Yet all are embedded in a complex web of influence. Practices of conservation, protection and restoration of nature and are not separate from questions of justice, of who benefits and who is burdened by these actions. Environmental justice entails meeting basic needs of living and unborn generations, through fair distribution and use of natural and social resources free from misuse, scarcity, and pollution of natureÕs bounty. Sustainability requires over coming the arbitrary dualism between natural and human systems, inviting and celebrating nature as an actor in our social and technological life, reducing the careless exploitation of nature for greed. We can achieve sustainability through greater cooperation between communities and nature, working on the urban habitat at the metropolitan bioregional scale.

Please send questions or comments to suscon@well.com