Behind the Mask of Sustainability

Whenever I hear about a city that's moving forward with some large "green" or "sustainable" initiative, it is inevitably about some new "green" technology: solar installations, or xeriscaping,  or some innovative recycling or composting service in a particular neighborhood.  Most of the time, the stories that seem to get the most attention are about greening efforts within relatively upper-middle class or high-income neighborhood areas or corporate spaces.  And if you think about this it sort of makes sense that the nicer areas seem to be the ones getting this attention.  From a "come visit our city" perspective, it makes a lot more sense to advertise your city's green efforts by showing pictures of neighborhoods and homes that use the latest and greatest high tech sustainability solutions.

 

Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs (click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

The other side of the same coin is that people who live in these more well off areas typically have more money to invest in green solutions and, as a result of their socioeconomic position, have generally made it to a higher point on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  As a result I would suggest that they have more freedom to concern themselves with bigger picture issues like sustainability and protecting the environment, if they are so inclined, because their more basic needs are easier to obtain and sustain.  So it follows that they would have more opportunity and a higher likelihood to lie more toward the upper right area of the Human Perspectives chart (as detailed in Limits to Growth), where they can see a bigger picture perspective, because they are more secure and stable when it comes to more immediate closer to home concerns.

Based on this, it's not really much of a leap of logic to see the path towards environmental injustice.  Those who are less well off, don't have the luxury of caring about "the greater good" and "future generations" when they don't even have the security of knowing that the basic needs of them and their family will be met from day to day.  For the same reason the less fortunate end up living in cancer cluster or highly polluted areas because it is cheaper and affords them the ability to spend more of their money on a greater number of other life necessities than if they lived in more sustainable, green, and often more expensive communities.

Now I'm not saying that new, innovative and expensive technology is bad; far from it.  But if we only "green" areas of our global community that can afford to pay for the latest and greatest technological innovations, all we're going to end up with is a few model communities that look great and try to adhere to an ideal philosophy but are just small islands of environmental and sustainable progressiveness in a huge sea of rising temperatures, pollution and environmental injustice.

Phoenix, AZ is a great example of a community that is suffering from this.  While there is plenty of public talk on it becoming a green community, it still suffers from this problem of environmental injustice for lower-income areas of the the city.  "The Dark Side of The 'Green' City," an Op-ed piece by the New York Times is an interesting read and speaks to the situation in Phoenix a bit more.

So what's my point?  Well I guess it is that obviously all socioeconomic strata needs to begin a move towards sustainability, and that it needs to happen in a way that doesn't push disproportionate hardship down to lower-income levels where the population is least resilient to it.  Grassroots movements that push for this are great, but as Robert Bullard talked about in "People-of-Color Environmentalism" from Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality, everyone doesn't have the time, money or interest to participate in grassroots initiatives.  This change needs to be policed and promoted by the powers that be: those people who are in a position to see the big picture, have the power and influence to do something about it, and are frequently tasked, as part of their professional position, to be the ones who create the policies that further that goal.  Referring again the above charts, those at the top of both charts are relatively few, but in a lot of cases they are the same people with the best means to make the largest difference for the multitudes still at the lower areas of the chart.

People and companies with money seldom have difficulty being heard.  An effective government is one that should represent the interests of all of its peoples, in all issues, sustainability and environmental justice included.  We have one world and all breath the same air, eventually.  It's unfortunate that doing what's best for the entire world and everyone in it isn't just a foregone conclusion.  If it were, we'd be much further down the road to a sustainable (in every way) Earth.