In this weeks reading of “The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities” by David Nye, I found the breakdown of humanities treatment of nature to be extremely interesting. I had never considered how much information about societal constructs could be told from analyzing humanities poor treatment of nature. From the very beginning, we are coerced into realizing that environmental humanities is a relatively new thing, which I had never considered. Its creation shows a lot about how people are realizing their mistakes with their treatment of nature. Society has unintentionally made the poor treatment of nature the standard for nations to thrive since the Industrial Revolution. While there are now people trying to fight back against this unsustainable way of survival, many nations and industries will not dare to accept a change because it could mess with profits or disrupt the flow of a lot of populations.
What interested me the most is idea of ecoracism. Ecoracism is the concept that wealthy nations will “outsource their pollution” (p18) to poor countries in order to maintain a clean and healthy country. While one nation will benefit, the other country will see the build up of an unsustainable ecosystem. For a superpower to create an unhealthy environment for a less fortunate country shows that we are blatantly allowing modern day imperialism. This is a huge problem in itself because it paints the average person as either ignorant, an enabler, or too lazy to do something about the issue. The lack of unity against the issue matters because solving the environment crisis is not an attainable goal without unity. Even if people choose to ignore the issue, eventually everybody is going to feel the effects. Nature does not know any borders. Natural resources are being depleted from the planet that is shared by all of humanity. Eventually, superpower nations will not be able to throw their pollution in other countries.
It is incredibly alarming that people have access to this information and do nothing about the impending issues that will be impossible to ignore. Humanity is derived by nature, and I personally believe humanity could thrive with the natural resources we have access to if greed and comfortability were not an issue. While there are some true efforts to fix the environment, if people are not unified it will not be able to be fixed.
Glad to read your thoughts and learning here. I wonder if these articles are pushing back against the idea that there is a “fix” or solution to this problem. I wonder if we are not being prompted to think outside of this capitalist concept and structure. What do you think?
Hi Rigo,
Your post was such an interesting read! Your powerful title, “Humanity is Nature’s Greatest Parasite” hooked me immediately and perfectly began your very smart and compelling criticism of the climate crisis and it’s unequal effect around the world. Your quote “For a superpower to create an unhealthy environment for a less fortunate country shows that we are blatantly allowing modern day imperialism.” was so powerful, perfectly encapsulating the root of the issue: the dehumanization of the people of less economically stratified countries, and global superpowers taking advantage. And tying up that argument with the statement “Nature knows no boundaries” was so impactful. Because it’s true—no matter how much more economically stratified countries push the impact of the crisis onto the less fortunate, it will effect all of us at some point, which emphasizes your claim that the environmental crisis is a world problem, not a national problem. Can’t wait to hear more from you!