GCSC Seminar: Reframing the Story of Environmentalism to Highlight Inequality, Justice

By Maria Archibald, Sustainability Office

What is the role of the university in addressing the climate crisis? How can academics engage proactively in environmental and social justice work? How can we transform our institutions to meet this political moment with the urgency it demands?

In her upcoming Global Change & Sustainability Center talk, “Interdisciplinarity, Intersectionality and Environmental Justice: The Time is Now,” Dr. Julie Sze, author and professor of American Studies at the University of California at Davis, will tackle these challenging questions. Sze, whose background is in English, Ethnic Studies, and Peace and Conflict, was drawn to environmental justice work because of the movement’s intersectional approach to environmentalism.

“Mainstream environmentalism is constructed as mostly white, and wilderness, and conservationist,” Sze says. “That erases the stories of people of color and cities and workers,” whereas “environmental justice as a movement was always about reframing the story of environmentalism.”

Sze’s research, which emphasizes environmental justice, inequality, and the intersection between social movements and policy, has led her to believe that we must construct a different kind of university in order to respond effectively to the climate crisis.

What does a different kind of university look like? Sze explains that there is no hard and fast answer to this question, but that we must think critically in ways that draw upon social movements and systemic alternatives to discover the university’s role in addressing the climate crisis.

“There isn’t one easy model,” Sze says, and the process involves examining what students are taught in classes, who they learn from, and what is left out of the curriculum. She says it also means imagining universities that are not based in neo-liberalism, debt, and extraction, and planning campuses that provide more services and less policing.

“Can we have campuses without cops?” Sze asks. “That’s a different kind of university.”

As a scholar and educator, Sze also values academic spaces as entry points to environmental justice work. She was motivated to become politically engaged as an undergraduate student, but says of her upbringing, “I didn’t come from a very political background. It’s not part of my genealogy, my family history, my community, to be interested in these kinds of things.”

She believes that universities are integral to solving the climate crisis because of the opportunities they create for students like her to learn things outside of their own lived experiences and to develop passion for environmental justice regardless of their upbringing. When universities make space for students to ask questions, feel outraged, and be curious, “more and more of them want to do this work…and make meaning in their lives,” she says.

On creating a “new kind of university,” Sze argues that we must always remember how our work in academia is connected to the outside world. She points out that while scientists have been warning about climate change for years, our response has not met the magnitude of the crisis. “How much empirical evidence do we have to show before something’s done?” she asks.

The crises we face today must be met with creativity and urgency. “On the one hand, we have to do what we’ve always done, because it really matters,” Sze says. On the other hand, we have to do something else.” Join Sze at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22 at tinyurl.com/gcsc-sze to learn more about what that “something else” looks like, and how you can contribute to the movement.

Sustainability team boosts access to air quality education

By Meghan Burrows and Ayrel Clark-Proffitt, Sustainability Office

The Sustainability Office created a suite of initiatives this past year aimed at one of our valley’s most significant problems: air pollution.

The Sustainability Education team developed several pathways to enhance interdisciplinary air quality education at the University of Utah. Those pathways include efforts to identify and designate air quality courses; create an online air quality course; and pilot an Air Quality Scholars program. The Senior Vice President’s Office provided $9,000 toward the efforts.

“Bringing an interdisciplinary lens to complex air quality issues allows students to engage with faculty in relevant and authentic problem solving,” said Adrienne Cachelin, director of Sustainability Education. “This is an invaluable educational opportunity and one that helps us better understand the systemic underpinnings of disparities in health.”

Identify and designate air quality courses across campus
The Sustainability Education team identified 42 courses from 12 departments that include air quality content. These courses will be listed as electives for the Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Sustainability and will be used to build an air quality track for a new undergraduate sustainability certificate, which will launch in 2021.

Create an interdisciplinary online course
Collecting video and content from “The Air We Breathe: A Multidisciplinary Approach on Air Quality” symposium, held in October 2019, the Sustainability Education team developed a new online course that allows students to explore and integrate a variety of approaches to air quality. Students will learn about local initiatives through the lenses of geography, policy, and health, as well as explore air quality as an environmental justice issue.

President Watkins at the Air We Breathe Symposium in October 2019

President Ruth Watkins addresses attendees at “The Air We Breathe: A Multidisciplinary Approach on Air Quality” symposium in October 2019.

Pilot an Air Quality Scholars program

The Air Quality Scholars program was an innovative approach to bring together students from diverse disciplines to develop solutions for local air quality concerns. Three graduate and five undergraduate students received scholarships and participated in a year-long cohort led by instructors Emerson Andrews, manager of the Sustainable Campus Initiative Fund, and Meghan Dovick, associate instructor for the Global Change & Sustainability Center.

“The scholars from this year-long program were able to engage with students from various disciplines, campus researchers and staff, and community air quality leaders,” Dovick said. “This engagement inspired the scholars to create and implement projects centered around improving air quality for our campus and community. This process demonstrates how collaborative efforts result in meaningful projects.”

The Air Quality Scholars program took a comprehensive approach to learning about local air quality issues and applying that knowledge to real-world projects. In addition to regular group meetings with the instructors, all scholars were required to attend “The Air We Breathe” symposium. Over the course of the year, the students then developed group projects related to research and engagement with air pollution. The projects included:

Analyzing risk perceptions

The Air Quality Data Analysis Project with Tabitha Benney, assistant professor in Political Science, investigated Utahns understanding of health risks associated with long-term and short-term air quality issues. Three students performed data analysis on 1,160 responses to the Utah Air Quality Risk and Behavioral Action Survey to determine the impacts of socioeconomic status on the perception of the health risks of air pollution. Scholars wrote a joint research paper on their analysis and findings, which they will submit to an undergraduate journal.

Engaging learners

In collaboration with the Utah Museum of Fine Art’s planned “Air” exhibition, organized by senior curator Whitney Tassie, Air Quality Scholars developed three apps that will engage the community in healthy behaviors. The first app is a survey about personal habits and air quality, and the second app is a pledge to adapt personal habits to improve air quality. The final app examines the correlation between air quality and school absences. These apps will be on hand at the exhibit and the Marriott Library.

Alerting the campus community

A new email delivery system will inform students, faculty, and staff about air quality status and how to respond. The Sustainability Office and the Global Change & Sustainability Center plan to host a webpage where people can sign up for the emails. Full implementation of the system is scheduled for fall 2020.

New Directions for Environmental Justice

By Nicholas Apodaca, graduate assistant, Sustainability Office

Many of us who care about climate change and environmental justice take action in our daily lives to do our part: we recycle, use sustainable products, use public transportation or eat locally grown food. Yet often environmental problems play out at a larger scale, and while our personal actions can help in small ways, it is important to understand the forces at work in creating environmental hazards and injustice from the start. If we know where injustice begins, we can begin to make a change for the better.

Professor David Pellow of the University of California, Santa Barbara, is exploring new directions in environmental justice in his research. On April 16 from 4 – 5 p.m. in ASB 210, join him for his lecture, “Toward a Critical Environmental Justice: Exploring State Violence & the Settler Colonial Conflicts.”

Pellow began his research in Sociology and Environmental Justice in the 1990s when he completed his Ph.D. dissertation in Sociology,  “Black workers in green industries: the hidden infrastructure of environmental racism,” at Northwestern University. He has since taught at Colorado, UC San Diego, and Minnesota, before arriving at UC Santa Barbara in 2015. There he is the Dehlsen Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project.

In his lecture, Pellow will explore new directions in the theoretical side of environmental sociology.  He breaks it down into multiple approaches. First, he is attempting to further build on existing research that focuses on the intersection between environmental hazards and class, income, race, gender, citizenship and nationality. He sees these intersections as critical for developing nuanced solutions to the complex interactions that produce injustice. “[I am] trying to ask bigger questions about the role of government or the nation-state in producing and exacerbating environmental problems and environmental justice issues in the first place,” Pellow explains. The contradiction is one of “relying on some of the same institutions that are arguably creating the problem in the first place.”

Pellow is also concerned with questions of scale in environmental justice research. He sees environmental justice as an issue that affects us  individually as well as globally. “Environmental hazards regarding academic and policy analysis must be approached as multi-scalar,” argues Pellow. “What happens at the micro scale is almost always revealed to be linked the community or national scale.” As no environmental issues exist in a vacuum, local and regional issues are just as “global” in consequence as environmental injustice outside of the United States. Often, we can find problems in our own neighborhood. Pellow’s recent research on oil refineries located in residential areas of Richmond, California illustrates this well, showing how global economic dynamics can lead to visible environmental impacts on real people.

Lastly, Pellow will explore the ethics of environmental injustice research.”The kind of environmental research I’m doing seeks to question the expendability of ecosystems, of habitats, and of marginalized human populations,” Pellow says. Pellow believes that environmental sociology shouldn’t simply seek to expose injustice, but should fight these notions of expendability. “It’s really about declaring, loudly, the indispensability (of marginalized people). It’s about saying every voice counts. Otherwise, it’s not a democracy.”

Should you too believe that every voice counts in the fight against environmental injustice, and have an interest in the cutting edge of environmental sociology research, come to ASB 210 on April 16 at 4 PM for David Pellow’s GCSC Seminar Series lecture, “Toward a Critical Environmental Justice: Exploring State Violence & the Settler Colonial Conflicts.”

CONSCIOUS EXISTENCE IS RESISTANCE. AN INTERVIEW WITH EARTH U SPEAKER DIANA LEONG.

Conscious existence is resistance—that is the theme of the 4th Annual Earth U: Sustainability & Diversity Mentorship Dinner, which takes place on March 8 from 6-8pm in the Union Ballroom. This free dinner event aims to bring many voices to sustainability issues and develop a network of diverse people, ideas, and possibilities. Panelists from the community will join students and answer questions about their own paths, giving students the chance to interact with professionals from different backgrounds and disciplines. Sign up now at tinyurl.com/EarthU2017.

Diana Leong, assistant professor in English and Environmental Humanities, will provide the keynote address. Student sustainability ambassador Nayethzi Hernandez, the coordinator of the Earth U event, sat down with Leong to learn more about her experiences and research interests.

How do you interpret this year’s theme of “Conscious Existence is Resistance?”

The theme this year reminds me of a quote—I believe it’s either bell hooks or Audre Lorde—that says “self-care is a radical act under conditions of oppression.” The theme, I think, resonates with the idea that coming into one’s own political awareness and social awareness is not only necessary for our particular contemporary environment, especially ecologically and politically, but it’s also radically revolutionary when there are forces in the world who don’t necessarily care about your existence.

What about this event interested you in becoming our keynote speaker?

Part of what is going to sustain any sort of sustainability movement or any sort of movement that is concerned with social justice is an intergenerational dialogue. Working with people who are either younger, just entering the field, or just becoming interested in the conversation and really having those dialogues with them sustains the momentum. That momentum turns into energy, and that energy turns into action. … There are so many different concerns in the state and on campus facing our students, this event is a good way to bring those various conversations together under the banner of sustainability and diversity.

Can you provide a brief description of what will you be speaking about?

I am planning to do a meditation on the three words that are captured by the theme of our evening: “Conscious Existence is Resistance.” What does it mean to be conscious – and to be conscious of what? What does it mean to exist in a world where sometimes we are not necessarily given the tools to flourish in terms of our existence? What does it mean to resist particularly in this moment in history? … I think part of the difficulty facing us as both academics and activist members of the community is that we have a lot of political cohesion at the moment. We are coming together around a variety of issues as we should be. … We should have this political and social cohesion; however, I don’t think we have a lot of political coherence at the moment. I think that the message gets lost in the push for a sort of “blind unity.” … Usually when that happens the most vulnerable of our communities get left out. Finding ways to open dialogue to invite those members of our most vulnerable communities to become leaders in the cause as opposed to marginalizing their concerns will be explored in the talk.

What spiked your interests in ecology and African American Literature?

Growing up in Hawaii, it’s hard not to be intrinsically interested in the environment—it’s what sustains us as a community and there’s a long history of colonialism in Hawaii. Part of my responsibility as identifying as an Asian settler/colonizer is to understand the relationship that the native Hawaiians have with their community. Part of that is a deeply ecological-oriented and sustainable relationship. That’s kind of the original genesis of my interests.

The other binding together with African American Studies is that since the 15th century onward, transatlantic slavery has caused such a huge epistemological, ontological, and historical break in the way that we think about the world. It changed the way that we thought about nature. It changed the way we thought about God. It changed the way we thought about humans, about animals, about economics, about pretty much everything in the world. Understanding how the contours of our thought are indebted to this world historical event, transatlantic slavery, is crucial for understanding why we continue to have these ecological crises today. For me, there cannot be anything like sustainability without also pursuing racial justice at the same time.

What role does literature play in environmentalism?

It helps us to imagine the environment differently. The crafting of environmental narratives and stories is really important for us to understand other people’s experiences of their environment that may be different than ours. … The other thing that I think is crucial about environmental literature is that it helps us to understand the logic behind our thinking and our relationships with the environment. Not just how and why we relate to the environment in the ways we do, but how that fits into our larger concepts of the world. Helping us conceptualize our relationships to the environment alongside other major issues that may not seem, at first glance, related. For example, something like reproductive rights also being an environmental justice issue.

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Hear more from Leong and other panelists at the Earth U: Sustainability & Diversity Mentorship Dinner on March 8. Space is limited, so sign up now at tinyurl.com/EarthU2017.