11.1: Introduction - Core Environmental Concerns

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Understand the key environmental challenges our planet faces today
• Recognize the relationship of these challenges to each other and how they reflect both local and global processes

Introduction

When you throw something away, do you know where that “away” is? If you answered no, you’re probably like many individuals who are disconnected from how their “stuff” is produced, transported, and ultimately, disposed of. Don’t feel bad just yet, as this disconnection is by design, both systemically and politically. As a system, most modern municipal waste management services are efficient and convenient. Simply sort your waste, put it in the proper receptacle outside, and presto, your garbage is “taken care of.” However, while your waste may disappear from the garbage bin, its story has only begun. As we will see in this chapter, the journey one’s waste takes, like many global environmental challenges we face today, is a consequence of numerous economic, ethical, and political decisions that we and our leaders make every day.  

For instance, the out-of-sight, out-of-mind, mentality associated with municipal solid waste management keeps modern economies moving. When one doesn’t have to think twice about the amount of waste they generate, where it ends up, or its environmental impact, their waste’s environmental and societal costs are external to what they pay as consumers. This maintains one’s distance from the impacts of their choices as consumers, allowing them to overlook their associated ethical implications. In other words, these variables have little impact on consumer’s cost-benefit calculations, making it easier to generate more waste while many of the environmental costs are sent down one’s waste stream. However, once one starts to examine and connect with their waste stream, important environmental, political, and ethical questions begin to emerge. Indeed, take a close look at your waste bin and you might wonder: How are my recyclables recycled? Why are only certain items recyclable? Who designs all these products with such a short lifespan? What impact is this having on the environment? How much are we wasting as a society? Where does all that waste go and who is responsible for dealing with it? While answering all these questions is beyond the scope of this chapter, they tie into a larger related question central to it: how do individuals, communities, private sectors, and governments decide how to manage global environmental challenges, like waste disposal, and what are the key political and ethical questions they must confront in doing so?

Waste Management

The amount of waste humans collectively generate is one of the several Twenty-first Century environmental concerns that will be explored in this chapter and that will help us to understand the connections between global and local processes. Globally, we produce 1.3 billion tons of waste a year, a figure expected to reach 4 billion by 2100 (Simmons, 2016). Although humans have always generated waste, historically much of this waste has been biodegradable, such as plant-based materials, that could theoretically break down through natural biological processes, allowing humans to live in relative balance with their natural environment. However, due to changes in the content of our waste stream over time (e.g., chemicals and plastics) and the increasing amount humans generate, sustainably managing waste is increasingly expensive and problematic. Indeed, the inability to successfully reduce and manage waste is linked with disease, the destruction of wildlife habitat, and an exacerbation of our biodiversity and climate crises.

Figure 11.1.1: A mountain of garbage in India, 2019 (CC-BY-SA-4.0; Mumtahina Rahman via Wikimedia)

Additionally, waste processing facilities are disproportionately located near communities of color and low socio-economic status, unjustly subjecting them to the waste’s associated health and environmental burdens. For instance, in 1987, a landmark study found that the proportion of people of color living in neighborhoods that hosted hazardous waste facilities was twice that of non-host neighborhoods and that this applied to 90 percent of states in the United States (Chavis and Lee). A follow-up study 20 years later found that despite this revelation, it is still an ongoing problem (Bullard, et al., 2008). To mitigate this, environmental organizations have been active in persuading us to, amongst other things, reduce, reuse, and recycle. Environmental organizations like Greenpeace are part of a broader movement that seeks to improve the quality of our air, water, and soil, and reduce the impact human production and consumption practices, like waste generation, have on the world’s natural environment. Yet, addressing the racial and socio-economic issues associated with environmental degradation is something many prominent environmental organizations like Greenpeace continue to struggle with (Cauchon, 2018). Although U.S.-based environmental organizations have had success stopping the construction of new landfills and trash incineration facilities next to marginalized communities, their success has unwittingly pushed many of the U.S.’s waste issues to other marginalized communities abroad, making waste disposal a global environmental justice concern (Pellow 2007).

Given that Twenty-first Century environmental challenges like waste management are increasingly transnational, it is difficult to disentangle them from the cultural, political, and economic variables that underpin them. The global studies perspective we employ in this book can nevertheless help us understand how these elements are interconnected from the local to the global. As we will see by the end of this chapter, simply inspecting one’s waste is an invaluable first step for appreciating how individuals, communities, the private sector, and governments can help address the environmental damage associated with past practices and critically engage in alternative paradigms more conducive to a just, clean, and sustainable future. But first, let’s explore some of the major environmental concerns beyond waste facing our planet.   

Water Quality

Easy access to drinkable water is something many take for granted. However, one in nine individuals globally still lack such access. Due to insufficient sanitation practices, agricultural/urban run-off, and the industrial discharges associated with modern production practices in many parts of the world, every day 2 million tons of sewage drain into global water supplies (UNESCO, 2023). The consequence of this pollution threatens human health and freshwater ecosystems. Like waste management, lack of access to potable water is a social and economic problem not evenly distributed around the world. The availability of clean drinking water is often dependent on adequate infrastructure, including water treatment plants, pipelines, and distribution systems. Many less developed countries (LDCs) lack the financial resources and technical capacity to build and maintain such infrastructure. Yet we can also look at Flint, Michigan’s struggle with dilapidated lead pipes, primally contaminating communities of color, to understand how such injustices also exist in nominally more developed countries (MDCs). Even though droughts and water pollution may seem like local problems, the ability to overcome such injustices often depends on global movements bringing attention to the common socio-economic variables. 

Figure 11.1.2:  Raw sewage dumping into a river in Bangkok, 2006. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; Trey Ratcliff via Flickr. Figure 11.1.3: Drinking water pipes, Flint, Michigan, 2017 (CC BY-NC 2.0; Capital News Service via Flickr)

For instance, inadequate regulation and weak governance can lead to inefficient and inequitable water management. Because of the relationship between access to fresh water, food production, and economic growth, water allocation decisions often prioritize the needs of powerful industries or urban centers over the needs of rural and/or disadvantaged communities. In the case of Flint, General Motors was able to secure access to non-contaminated water (Flint water was corroding engine parts) almost a year before the public was notified about lead poisoning their drinking water (Hanna-Atttisha, 2018). This outcome is not uncommon when affected communities are excluded from the decision-making processes related to water management, leading to a lack of representation, an exacerbation of existing inequalities, and even conflict. Water scarcity and pollution are thus deeply embedded in questions of power, equity, and justice that often transcend local environmental and political dynamics. Indeed, when we recognize that water resources often cross national borders, promoting international cooperation and agreements for the sustainable and equitable management of shared water bodies becomes essential. 

Air Quality

Like water, the concern over air quality is a perennial environmental concern as it is essential for human health, biodiversity, and the overall well-being of the planet. Like our waste streams, air quality was cleaner during pre-industrial times when most economies were primarily agrarian-based. However, in the late Eighteenth Century, the Industrial Revolution brought about a significant increase in human-made pollution due to the expanding use of coal as a primary source of energy for factories and transportation. Because the industries associated with this revolution were often located in urban centers (e.g., Manchester and Birmingham in the UK), workers and nearby residents experienced severe air pollution from coal combustion, leading to smog and other public health issues. As industrialization spread around the world, compounded by the automobile boom of the Twentieth Century, the ills associated with air pollution continued to grow. 

When harmful pollutants related to fossil fuel combustion are released into the atmosphere, such as particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), it has adverse effects on human health. Indeed, high PMs are responsible for 6.4 million deaths every year (e.g., heart disease, stroke, lung cancer), with roughly 95 percent of these deaths occurring in developing countries (WHO, 2021). Nevertheless, less than one-third of countries have a legal definition for what constitutes air pollution, require national air quality monitoring mechanisms, or have legally enforceable air quality standards (UN, 2021). The fact that air pollution does not respect national borders makes domestic efforts and international cooperation even more challenging, a matter we will return to when we explore the relationship between fossil fuel emissions and climate change.  

Chemicals and Energy 

Many of the environmental problems associated with waste management, air, and water quality are linked to how societies use chemicals, such as fertilizers and pesticides. While chemicals play crucial roles in various industries, including agriculture, medicine, manufacturing, and technology, many are hazardous, posing risks to human health and ecosystems. For instance, in addition to the air and water contamination mentioned above, improper disposal of hazardous waste, pesticides, and heavy metals can lead to soil and land contamination, affecting plant growth, harming beneficial microorganisms, and poisoning food chains. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), often associated with certain pesticides and industrial chemicals, can bioaccumulate in the tissues of organisms. As they move up the food chain, their concentration increases through a process called biomagnification. This can lead to high levels of toxic substances in top predators, which is linked to developmental issues, reproductive problems, and damage to organs and tissues. The potential loss of biodiversity can disrupt ecosystem functions, reduce resilience to environmental changes, and lead to cascading effects throughout food chains. 

Like the use of chemicals, our ability to generate reliable energy using fossil fuels (e.g., coal, oil, and natural gas) has come with significant environmental costs. While these fuels have been crucial for economic development, their combustion releases not only PMs detrimental to human health, but also greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide (CO2). Followed closely by agriculture, electricity, and heat production are the biggest contributors to climate change (EPA, 2023). While we address the well-documented connection between greenhouse gases and climate change below, what is lesser known is that globally, more than a billion people still lack access to electricity while 3 billion still depend on relatively cheap, yet dirty fuels, such as charcoal and animal waste, for cooking and heating (Rosner, 2020). As we saw in Chapter 10, while more MDCs continue to focus on expanding the adoption of renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal power, as a means in combating pollution and climate change, this transition entails significant economic costs that LDCs are not always able to assume on their own. Once again, we can see how Twenty-first Century environmental challenges are difficult to disassociate from issues of justice and equity.   

Biodiversity and Natural Resources 

Chemicals and the byproducts of human transportation, energy production, and consumption also negatively impact biodiversity. Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth, encompassing the wide range of different species of plants, animals, microorganisms, and ecosystems that coexist and interact with one another. Pollution of rivers and lakes with chemicals and toxins can harm aquatic ecosystems, leading to the decline of fish populations, disrupting food webs, and thus negatively impacting aquatic biodiversity (Dudgeion, et al. 2016). This is problematic as a rich diversity of living organisms, and the ecological systems they form, sustain life on our planet in ways we have yet to fully comprehend. For instance, diverse ecosystems are more resilient to disturbances like natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and climate change as they enable some species to adapt and survive in challenging conditions, thus maintaining ecosystem stability. Thus, the loss of biodiversity can disrupt ecosystem functions, reduce resilience to environmental changes, and lead to cascading effects throughout the food web. 

Moreover, deforestation, the process of clearing substantial portions of forests for agriculture, logging, and urban expansion, has led to a significant reduction of the natural resources that make biodiversity possible. Natural resources are materials that occur naturally in the environment and have economic value and utility for humans. A key environmental dilemma we face is that while access to natural resources is fundamental to economic growth and prosperity, not all natural resources are renewable. For example, unlike solar and wind energy, which are renewable and have relatively smaller chemical and pollution footprints, the world continues to rely heavily on non-renewable, and often dirty natural resources, such as fossil fuels. Non-renewable resources are finite and have a limited supply that cannot be replaced within a human lifetime or on a timescale relevant to human society. Once these resources are depleted, they cannot be regenerated. Indeed, while natural resources like forests and freshwater are theoretically renewable when they are not managed sustainably, they can disappear if not rendered unusable.

Figure 11.1.4: Deforestation in Riau province, Sumatra, to make way for an oil palm plantation, 2007 (CC BY 2.0; Hayden - Oil Palm Concession via Wikipedia)