{"id":9373,"date":"2017-07-05T07:10:26","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T12:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=9373"},"modified":"2017-07-05T07:28:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T12:28:12","slug":"inequality-and-environmental-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2017\/07\/05\/inequality-and-environmental-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Inequality and environmental crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of its Ford Foundation supported Inequality Project<\/a>, The Guardian<\/a> is providing a provocative\u00a0glimpse of Oxford geographer Danny Dorling’s<\/a>\u00a0important research<\/a> into inequality and the environment. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the complexities surrounding causes and potential solutions to the environmental crisis. Read the article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No surprise that the US comes out worst on practically all counts — worst levels of inequality, worst levels of overconsumption, waste, and per capita carbon emission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A few excerpts:<\/p>\n

“In economically unequal countries the pressure to buy items to keep up with your peers, with \u201cpeople who count\u201d, is enormous, especially when it comes to clothes, fashion, new cars and other status symbols. We are encouraged to be aspirational, to better ourselves, not for the greater good, but for selfish reasons \u2013 ultimately to be able to get all that stuff. A good job is no longer one which benefits society, but one that pays you well.”<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

“Everything is connected. People are fatter in the US because they eat more food; because they sit in cars more often and for longer; because they are exposed to more advertising and eat more and buy more cars as a result; because they live in greater fear of crime and so are afraid of not driving; and because they are surrounded by other obese people and therefore don\u2019t feel so unusual if they are also fat.<\/p>\n

“But behind all of these factors lies the basic difference in how human beings are ranked. Rank them sky high by paying them many times more than other people, and they can become so conceited that they more easily treat others who are less well-off poorly, with no respect and with little empathy. When pay differentials are less and no-one\u2019s income is out-of-this world, people realise they have far more in common with others. They then argue for cycle routes, pavements, good public transport, and to be able to afford to live near where they work.”<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

“It is only since the late 1970s that the 25 rich countries focused on in this article have begun to diverge widely in their levels of economic inequality. Because they have done so, a set of natural experiments has been set up which today allows research into the effects of these differences.<\/p>\n

“The preliminary conclusion, based on these natural experiments, is that the more economically equitable countries tend to perform better across a wide range of environmental measures. Once we know what the driving forces are, and become fully aware of the damage that is done by inequality in environmental as well as social terms, we will know how necessary it is to embrace change.”<\/p>\n

Of course, all the correlations studied by Dorling are complex, and the causalities uncertain. The article discusses\u00a0a few\u00a0of the complexities;\u00a0the charts<\/a>\u00a0show others. Critics<\/a> will no doubt reveal more.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most important, in terms of its public impact, is that Dorling’s work is ultimately optimistic<\/a>: as societies become more equal, he suggests, environmental problems become easier to grasp. That the trend has been otherwise for the last 40 years is a reminder that we need to figure out\u00a0what has been most definitive of\u00a0these last four decades.<\/p>\n

Some<\/a> would say<\/a> the answer to that is easy: neoliberalism<\/a>. But which of its forms<\/a> specifically<\/a>? And how best to challenge them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of its Ford Foundation supported Inequality Project, The Guardian is providing a provocative\u00a0glimpse of Oxford geographer Danny Dorling’s\u00a0important research into inequality and the environment. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the complexities surrounding causes and potential solutions to the environmental crisis. Read the article here. No surprise that the US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[196,691215],"tags":[455057,455053,16149,123531,455055,455056,455054,25060,16843],"class_list":["post-9373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecoculture","category-politics_postpolitics","tag-causes-of-environmental-crisis","tag-danny-dorling","tag-economics","tag-environmental-crisis","tag-environmental-economics","tag-equality","tag-global-justice","tag-inequality","tag-neoliberalism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2rb","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12144,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/09\/22\/thoughts-on-an-equinox\/","url_meta":{"origin":9373,"position":0},"title":"Thoughts on an equinox","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Marking the passage of the seasons from summer to winter and back again is something people have done for millennia. Seasons are reliable -- anyone living outside the equatorial band will continue to have colder and warmer seasons, probably for the rest of our lives. 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As the most far-reaching statement by the single largest (relatively united) religious denomination\u00a0on the planet, it is likely to have an immense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11559,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/01\/29\/eco-humanities-seminar\/","url_meta":{"origin":9373,"position":3},"title":"Eco-humanities seminar","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I will be making parts of my \"Advanced Environmental Humanities\" course open to the EcoCultureLab community and a limited broader public. Technical details remain to be worked out, but I'd like to make our readings and discussions open, so as to include interested participants from outside the university community. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/02\/Juxtapoz_Marzorati1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8785,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/06\/08\/state-of-the-eco-humanities-take-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":9373,"position":4},"title":"State of the Eco-Humanities, Take 1","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This post is the first of a series of reflections on the state of the Environmental Humanities, or Eco-Humanities, and of where this interdisciplinary field might be headed. 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