POL S 384 Lec 141 Transnational Grassroots Action for Ecology & Justice: A Global Immune System? Beyond environmental treaties Contentious transnational politics Sustainability & justice Indigenous people’s issues Large dams & water A global immune system?

. POL S 384 Lec 14 2 The zone of environmental treaties Transboundary & global commons issues –Privileges territorial sovereignty –Most environmental degradation occurs locally, but has transnational social causes Authoritative, stabilized knowledge base –Privileges universal scientific rationality –“Other knowledges” are marginalized Nation-states and their institutional constructs are the ultimate authorities –Social movements, NGOs & industry vie for influence

. POL S 384 Lec 14 3 Destabilization of knowledge Zone of international regimes Deterritorialization of nature Hybridization of authority Interstate regimes as a subset of institutional forms

. POL S 384 Lec 14 4 Contentious transnational politics Complex issues, knowledge bases & authority structures –Intersection of human rights, environment –Multiple knowledges, diverse stakeholders –Local degradation with transnational causes –Political engagement beyond the nation-state Environmental governance as protecting places and people rather than managing transboundary pollution & global commons –Watersheds & water supply Dams, safe water access, industry practices –Conserving biodiversity –Ecosystems Forests Deserts High mountains

. POL S 384 Lec 14 5 Sustainability Of what? –Decoupling economic growth from throughput –Renewable vs. nonrenewable resources –Organisms, species, ecosystems, life support systems There is no “away” …and people live there. For whom? –People? Which ones? Whose “common future?” For how long? –Future generations & the futurity problem

. POL S 384 Lec 14 6 Elements of Justice Distributive –Equity –Custom –Desert Procedural –Civil liberties & participation Justice as fairness –Rawlsian justice: veil of ignorance Ecological justice? –Beyond anthropocentrism

. POL S 384 Lec 14 7 Environmental Justice & Indigenous Peoples The “Fourth World” –Globalization on the periphery of the periphery –15% of population have traditional claims to 25% of world’s land & resources –6,000 cultural groups Most will be extinct by 2050 Human rights-environment link –Oil, mining, dams, hunting & fishing rights –Cultures as systems of knowledge Cultural survival & sustainability

. POL S 384 Lec 14 8 Large Dams: The Narmada Nehru: dams as “modern temples” of India –Green revolution: irrigation 4-fold increase in food production since million displaced by dams –Peasants, dalits, adivasis Adivasis: 40% of displaced, 8% of pop. Tribunal Award: “land for land” Narmada River divides North & South India –30 large dams planned

. POL S 384 Lec 14 9 Popular resistance to Narmada Dams Narmada Bachao Andolan –Started 1985, all volunteer, women-led –Medha Patkar: main leader –Satyagraha, fasting, “stand-ins” Transnational alliance –Multilateral Development Bank Campaign –International Rivers Network –Patkar testified to Congress in 1989 –World Bank reform movement WB withdrew in 1993, began environmental reforms

. POL S 384 Lec Water Privatization Problem: 40% of world’s people lack safe water World Bank solution: markets Private investment, raise prices Trained 10,000 professionals in DCs All IMF loans since 1998 require water privatization People on private water –From 40 million (1955) to 500 million (2000) Cochabamba & Latin American populism –Symbolism of water Michael Goldman, Imperial Nature Ken Conca, Governing Water

. POL S 384 Lec A global immune system? “The purpose of a global immune system is to identify what is not life affirming and contain, neutralize, or eliminate it.” –Is this a good metaphor for the global sustainability movement? “We will either come together as one, globalized people, or we will disappear as a civilization. … [We must] reclaim our role as engaged agents of our continued existence.” –Is this true? What happens to individuality under this view?