This post concludes our investigation into the possibility of the existence of the capitalocene as the definition of the new epoch following the angelocene. The transition from the Anthropocene to the Capitalocene proposes the idea of leaving the age of man in favor of the age of capital. The global superpowers exhibit late stage capitalist tendencies and the Capitalocene implies that humans themselves are no longer the major players in the health of the global environment. Rather it is the specter of capitalism that has the most influence. The existence of the capitalocene depends on the strength of the relationship between the amount of capital a country has and its environmental performance. Using the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) in (capitalocene-lab-1-10-22-18.html) we were able to see that countries classified by the World Bank as high income had a better EPI than countries classified as upper middle. Upper middle countries performed better than middle income countries and so on and so forth. The existence of this relationships works to support the existence of the capitalocene.
But proving the existence of the capitalocene is not a simply as the relationship between EPI and World Bank income classification. The World Values Survey (WVS) provides new ways to look into the capitalocene (capitalocene-lab-3-11-5-18.html). The main way being that it surveyed a large number of citizens about their opinions relating to their environmental ideologies. This allows us to look at the capitalocene from a bottom up perspective rather than the top down perspective we have taken in the past. Using the WVS we looked at one low income country, a middle income country, and a high income country (using the World Bank classifications). These countries being Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and the United States respectively. We looked at the question that asked whether individuals prioritized protecting the environment or economic growth. We hypothesized that our low income country would prioritize economic growth, middle income would be somewhere in the middle and high income would prioritize the environment the most. We found that our high income country prioritize the environment the most and out middle income prioritized the environment the least, with our low income somewhere in the middle. This did not fit with our hypothesis. In conclusion the existence of the capitalocene is much more of a multifaceted issue than we originally thought. While there is a general relationship between the amount of capital a country has and its environmental performance the EPI tends to generalize for the income groups. Our WVS data supports that. Looking at the data from the top down it appears that the capitalocene must exist because of how strong the relationship looks but using the WVS data to investigate form the bottom up the environmental preferences based on income the relationship is not that simple. Drawing upon all the evidence we gathered during our capitalocene labs the evidence shows to be inconclusive. The capitalocene as an idea is far too complex to be assessed over the course of a month or so. In order to have a more conclusive answer more data must be collected and assessed.
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Rose Mayer & Mason Kirkpatrick Background Rose and myself are investigating what we call the “anglocene,” which we define as the influence of Judeo-Christian based religions and Anglo Saxon influences on environmental philosophy, through the lens of Lynn White’s “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Our situated study is centered in South Korea, which does not have a prominent Anglo Saxon population, but nearly a third of South Korea’s population identifies as being of a Judeo-Christian faith. The question that encompasses our research is “how did South Korea, a country without a prominent Anglo Saxon population, develop such a large community devoted to Anglo Saxon theologies?” At face value this situating question seems to be quite detached from environmental philosophy but, it begs the question that if Anglo Saxon theology can be established in a non-Anglo Saxon nation what other philosophies were brought along with it? Procedure In order to support our project, we needed articles to understand the Christian presence in Korea as well as investigate White's claim of environmental degradation linking with Christian belief. To do this, we used Google Scholar to research the history of Korea's religious affiliation as well as the relationship between ecological health and Christianity. To research Korea's religious history we used keywords such as "missionary presence", "religion", "religious colonization", and "christianity" in relation to Korea to discover writing that situates our project. To research White's argument we searched with keywords like "ecology and religion", "religion and development", "religion and nature", as well as review pieces of White's writing. After we had found pieces that effectively frame and situate the subject of our project we used the Zotero plugin to add the material to our own group dedicated to the project. After uploading our documents onto Zotero we added the abstracts, some of which were supplied by the author, as well as an annotation on how these pieces were related to our project. Finally, we organized our pieces by adding tags that quickly identify whether the piece was situating or framing. Our Zotero library can be found below. www.zotero.org/groups/2255227/mason_and_rose_situation_research Discussion Finding these resources made me feel incredibly confident about our project since it solidified our hypothesis on the connection between religion and ecological health. I have grown to realize the extent to which religious colonization has shaped Korea as a nation through history and how it has affected Korea as we know it today. The bibliography lab has given us an abundance of context that is useful for the coming steps of this project like the situating and framing questions. By understanding the religious history of Korea alongside the environmental history of religion we have created a solid foundation for further research. Our next steps in this project is to find a way to adequately and informatively connect these two concepts in a way that accurately depicts the geological epoch Group
Mason Kirkpatrick Background As the final instalment of our investigation into the capitalocene we looked at air toxin concentration in the Portland area through the lens of environmental justice. More specifically looking at air toxin concentration as it relates to income levels throughout neighborhoods in Portland. Environmental justice, in general, is the concept of assessing how certain environmental factors threaten groups of people, most specifically the poor. Environmental justice acts as a force by which to rectify the injustices that primarily target the poor and people of color. By combining our investigations of the capitalocene with environmental justice we could possibly derive a relationship between economic standing and air toxin risk. Procedure First we read and discussed the PATS summary which details the air pollutants in the greater portland area. We then read the environmental justice analysis to see how it corresponds with the PATS summary when it comes to air toxins. Next, we uploaded the ACS census data into ArcGis as well as the DEQ PATS data so we could have all of the information needed displayed on one map. We then uploaded both the PATS polygonal and point shapefiles and decided that we want to look at households who made less than 50,000 dollars a year vs. households who make more than 50,000 dollars a year and their relationship to air toxin concentration. We created a two new fields, being income > 50,000 and income < 50,000 respectively. We then displayed them on our map with the heat map of all air toxins over it so that we could see where the toxins were concentrated relative to the income of that area. Results From our map there seem to be no direct relationships between the income level being greater or less than 50,000 a year and proximity to air toxin concentrations. Outside of the urban area, where there is a higher concentration over high income households, there is a much lesser concentration of air toxins. This is less likely to be tied to environmental justice than it is to the fact that these wealthy neighborhoods are further outside the city were the air toxins are. In the heart of the city there is more diversity when it comes to income but each of these income groups are in areas of high concentrated air toxins. The 21st annual Environmental Affairs Symposium was themed around crossing boundaries in order to facilitate a progressive and productive dialog between groups that traditionally do not get along. The keynote speaker for this event was Daryl Davis. Davis is a Grammy award winning pianist but is most recently in the news for befriending members of the Klu Klux Klan. As an African American, Davis believes that most members of the KKK hold the beliefs that they do because they have little to no experience with members of the African American community. Davis befriends members of the KKK and has successfully converted around 200 members of the KKK to leave the Klan. While he has had great success with his efforts to convert Klan members, he still receives a large amount of criticism for his action. The main idea behind the criticism that Davis faces is that many feel that Davis should not be providing these kinds of people platforms to spread their ideologies because they are so outlandishly disgusting. Davis feels that while this criticism is valid the only way to effectively change the way these kinds of people feel is to open a healthy and productive dialog with them.
This can be linked to what we do in ENVS 220 because it goes to show how effective crossing boundaries can be. After hearing Davis speak, reaching across the aisle to engage with those who hold different views about the environment than myself seems much more reasonable. I definitely believe that this feeling was the desired result for getting Davis to speak at the Symposium. If Davis can find common ground with members of the Klan and work with them to respectfully challenge their beliefs and understandings in such an effective manner then I feel like I could use that lesson to better communicate in disagreements about the environment. Another key aspect that Davis referenced in his talk that I found important was the idea of having a mutual respect for the person you are trying to. Davis asserted that if you don’t approach these types of situations from a place of respect for the other party then your ability to have a healthy discussion will be largely impaired. Additionally, the lack of respect for the other party inhibits your ability to fully empathize with your opposition. If you approach a situation or conversation in a confrontational or aggressive manner the other person is much less likely to want to engage with you or even engage at all. The main takeaways that I got from Daryl Davis’ speech at the Symposium were that preaching to the choir is not an effective method of engagement and does little to nothing to generate dialog or change. Also, approaching conversations or interactions with individuals of opposing viewpoints must be done in a respectful manner as not to invoke a fight or flight response. Lastly, one must go out of their comfort zone in order to actively facilitate change and change peoples minds about issues. It is not the easiest thing to do but it must be done to create change and move forward as a society. Group Mason Kirkpatrick & Rose Mayer Background This lab continues to build off the themes of exploring the possibility of the capitalocene that we have looked at in the first two labs. This being said, the World Values Survey (WVS) does provide new ways to look into the capitalocene. The main way being that it surveyed a large number of citizens about their opinions relating to their environmental ideologies. This allows us to look at the capitalocene from a bottom up perspective rather than the top down perspective we have taken in the past. Procedure The first thing we did was we selected three different countries that varied by income group. We chose Ukraine for our low income, Azerbaijan for our middle income, and the United States for our high income. We then moved the responses of these countries from the main WVS sheet onto a new one so that we could have them more readily available. From there we were able to create a histogram of the variable that we chose, being whether individuals prioritize the environment or economic growth. Next we calculated the mean and mean standard deviation for each countries responses, making sure that we excluded responses that were outside of the binary. From there we graphed each to compare how each country we looked at felt about this issue. Finally we performed T-Tests to assess the statistical significance of the difference between the means of each country and since the p was so small we were able to determine our results were statistically significant. Results Before we began we hypothesized that as we moved up the income groups countries would began to prioritize the environment over economic growth. After looking at our completed graphs we were able to see that this was not totally the case. While they do not disprove our hypothesis, the fact that Azerbaijan, a middle income country, favors economic growth more than Ukraine, a low income country, contradicts our hypothesis. That being said, the United States, a high income country, favors environmental protection more than the other two so that supports our initial hypothesis. When confronted by these results we were curious as to why a country like Azerbaijan would be so interested in economic growth when it was already in fair economic standing. After a little research we noticed that Azerbaijan was a very small oil rich nation, so their prioritization of economic growth may be tied to their ability to use their natural resources for large scale financial gain. Discussion
The WVS data that we observed allowed us to view evidence of the capitalocene on a personal basis rather than on a governmental scale. Looking at these issues on a personal scale lets us see how the populations of different countries feel about certain issues. The data we have looked at in the past capitalocene labs were much more all encompassing and generalized based on governmental factors rather than the personal opinions of the populations these governments look after. When comparing countries as a method of assessing the capitalocene it seems that only using either World Bank Data or WVS data to assess it would fail to provide the necessary amount of context or information. The best way to do this would be to look at both sources of information and data to most accurately come to a conclusion relating to the existence of the capitalocene. |
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