Environmental Problems Part 3-Land Pollution

Environmental Problems (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Over the past 50 years, humans have altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other comparable period of time in history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). As a result, humans have created environmental problems, including depletion of natural resources; air, land and water pollution; global warming and climate change; environmental illness; threats to biodiversity; and light pollution. Because many of these environmental problems are related to the ways that humans produce and consume energy, we will begin with global energy use.

Land Pollution

About 30 percent of the world’s surface is land, which provides soil to grow the food we eat. Increasingly, humans are polluting the land with nuclear waste, solid waste and pesticides. In 2013, 1,320 hazardous waste sites in the United States (also called Superfund sites) were on the National Priorities List (EPA 2013a).

Solid Waste

In 1960, each U.S. citizen generated 2.7 pounds of garbage on average every day. This figure increased to 4.4 pounds in 2011 (EPA 2013b). This figure does not include mining, agricultural, and industrial waste; demolition and construction wastes; junked autos; or obsolete equipment wastes. Just over half of this waste is dumped in landfills; the rest is recycled or composted. The availability of landfill space is limited, however. Some states have passed laws that limit the amount of solid waste that can be disposed of; instead, they require that bottles and cans be returned for a deposit or that lawn clippings be used in community composting programs.

Solid waste includes discarded electrical appliances and electronic equipment, knows as e-waste. Ever think about where your discarded computer, cell phone, CD player, television, or other electronic product ends up when you replace it with a newer model? Most discarded electronics end up in landfills, incinerators, or hazardous substances, such as lead, cadmium, barium, mercury, PCBs, and polyvinyl chloride, can leach out of e-waste and contaminate the soil and groundwater.

Pesticides

Pesticides are used worldwide for crops and gardens; outdoor mosquito control; the care of lawns, parks, and golf courses; and indoor pest control. Pesticides contaminate food, water, and air and can be absorbed through the skin, swallowed, or inhaled. Many common pesticides are considered potential carcinogens and neurotoxins (Blatt 2005). Even when a pesticide is found to be hazardous and is banned in the United States, other countries from which we import food may continue to use it. In an analysis of more than 5,000 food samples, pesticide residues were detected in 43 percent of the domestic samples and 31 percent of the imported samples (Food and Drug Administration 2013). Pesticides also contaminate our groundwater supplies.

Sources

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Washington. DC: Island Press.

EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). 2013a National Priorities List (NPL), Available at www.epa.gov/superfund/sites

EPA, 2013b. Municipal Solid Waste in the United States: 2011 Facts and Figures. Available at www.epa.gov

Blatt, Harvey. 2005. America’s Environmental Report Card: Are We Making the Grade? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Food and Drug Administration. 2013. Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program Results and Discussion FY 2009. Available at www.fda.gov

Environmental Problems Part 2-Air Pollution

Environmental Problems (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Over the past 50 years, humans have altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other comparable period of time in history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). As a result, humans have created environmental problems, including depletion of natural resources; air, land and water pollution; global warming and climate change; environmental illness; threats to biodiversity; and light pollution. Because many of these environmental problems are related to the ways that humans produce and consume energy, we will begin with global energy use.

Air Pollution

Transportation vehicles, fuel combustion, industrial processes (such as burning coal and processing minerals from mining), and solid waste disposal have contributed to the growing levels of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, nitrogen dioxide, mercury, dioxins and lead. Leaded aviation gasoline is one of the few fuels in the United States to still contain lead, and it’s the single largest source of lead emissions in the country (Kessler 2013). Air pollution, which is linked to heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma, kills about 3 million people a year (Pimentel et al. 2007). In the United States, 42 percent of the population lives in areas where they are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution (ozone or particulate pollution) (American Lung Association 2013).

Destruction of the Ozone Layer

The ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere protects life on earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. Yet the ozone layer has been weakened by the use of certain chemicals, particularly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and spray cans. The ozone hole over the Antartic in 2012 was, at its peak, slightly smaller than the area of North America (Blunden & Arndt 2013). The depletion of the ozone layer allows hazardous levels of ultraviolet rays to reach the earth’s surface and is linked to increases in skin cancer and cataracts, weakened immune systems, reduced crop yields, damage to ocean ecosystems and reduced fishing yields, and adverse effects on animals. Despite measures that have ended production of CFCs, the ozone is not expected to recover significantly for about another decade because CFCs already in the atmosphere remain for 40 to 100 years.

Acid Rain

Air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, mix with precipitation to form acid rain. Polluted rain, snow and fog contaminate crops, forests, lakes and rivers. As a result of the effects of acid rain, all the fish have died in a third of the lakes in New York’s Adirondack Mountains (Blatt 2005). Because winds carry pollutants in the air, industrial pollution in the Midwest falls back to earth as acid rain on southeast Canada and the northeast New England states. In China, most of the electricity comes from burning coal, which creates sulfur dioxide pollution and acid rain that falls on one-third of China, damaging lakes, forests, and crops (Woodward 2007). Acid rain also deteriorates the surfaces of buildings and statues. “The Parthenon, Taj Mahal, and Michelangelo’s statues are dissolving under the onslaught of the acid pouring out of the skies” (Blatt 2005, p. 161).

Sources

Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht, Caroline 2015. Understanding Social Problems. Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Washington. DC: Island Press.

Kessler, Rebecca. 2013. “Sunset for Labeled Aviation Gasoline?” Environmental Health Perspectives 121(2): A54-A57

Pimental, D., S. Cooperstein, H. Randell, D. Filiberto, S. Sorrentino, B. Kaye, C. Nicklin, J. Yagi, J. Brian, J. O’Hern, A. Habas, and C. Wenstein. 2007. “Ecology of Increasing Diseases: Population Growth and Environmental Degradation.” Human Ecology 35(6): 653-668.

American Lung Association. 2013. State of the Air: 2013. Available at www.lungaction.org

 Blunden, Jessica, and Derek S. Arndt. 2013. “State of the Climate in 2012.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 94(8): S1-S258

Blatt, Harvey. 2005. America’s Environmental Report Card: Are We Making the Grade? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Woodward, Collin. 2007. “Curbing Climate Change.” CQ Global Researcher 1(2):27-50. Available at www.globalresearcher.com

Empathy and the Election

Election years are always difficult times as it seems everyone is on edge and filled with anxiety over the high stakes. However, this year has proven to be one of the most difficult in my memory. As I reflected and observed the last couple of days, everyone seems beaten down by this process (on both sides of the fence). There appeared to be more talk and less listening, combined with more hate and less empathy. Supporters of each candidate had an incredible fear of what would happen if their candidate did not win. That is a very polarizing effect and does not leave much room for open and educated dialogue.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2016), the simple definition of empathy is the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else’s feelings. From my observations, there is a major lack of empathy in our society at this time. We would rather judge, insult, belittle and demean others than listen to their stance or their knowledge. We blame victims rather than hear their story. We categorize people and dismiss their experience if it is not our own. We don’t believe them when they tell us what it is like to walk in their shoes.

Now, I am not calling anyone out with this discussion except maybe myself. This is not a self-righteous stance to condemn anyone other than me. I consider myself an open and educated person, however I have a long way to go as well. I studied Sociology and Community Services throughout my undergrad and graduate career and have been educated and aware of many issues for years (police brutality, discrimination, white privilege, environmental problems, income/wealth inequality, incarceration, etc.). Unfortunately, I cannot say I have done much to act upon eradicating these issues. I have worked in non-profits and mental health settings as my career and felt that was my way to contribute. However, I do not feel that is enough. I started my blog and have become more active on social media, but that is very unsubstantial. I have participated in some rallies and marches for various causes, but have not broadcasted it well. By staying quiet, I am part of the problem. Today, I am vowing to not be a bystander any longer. I am vowing to not leave anyone out. I care, I can help, I can make a change. I will stand up for what is right.

At this moment, half the country is elated, while the other half is in mourning. Yet, there are no winners if we do not learn how to collaborate. No one wins if we do not listen and develop empathy for others. No one wins if we refuse to educate ourselves and chose to make uninformed decisions. Let’s take action and change that. Educate. Empathize. Act.

"Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering Not a career. Not wealth. Not intelligence. Certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity."   -Audrey Hepburn

Environmental Problems (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Over the past 50 years, humans have altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other comparable period of time in history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). As a result, humans have created environmental problems, including depletion of natural resources; air, land and water pollution; global warming and climate change; environmental illness; threats to biodiversity; and light pollution. Because many of these environmental problems are related to the ways that humans produce and consume energy, we will begin with global energy use.

When Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast United States in 2012, 8.5 million people from Indiana to Maine experienced power outage. Until we experience a prolonged power outage, most of us take the availability of electricity for granted, and don’t think about how dependent we are on energy. Being mindful of environmental problems means seeing the connections between energy use and our daily lives:

Everything we consume or use-our homes, their contents, our cars and the roads we travel, the clothes we wear, and the food we eat- requires energy to produce and package, to distribute to shops or front doors, to operate, and then to get rid of. We rarely consider where this energy comes from or how much of it we use-or how much we truly need. (Sawin 2004, p. 25).

Humans have used more of the earth’s natural resources since 1950 than in the million years preceding 1950 (Lamm, 2006). In 1961, humanity used only about two-thirds of earth’s natural resources; in the early 1970s, human demand for resources began exceeding what the planet could renewably produce (Global Footprint Network 2013). Currently, the environmental footprint exceeds the earth’s biocapacity-the area of land and oceans available to produce renewable resources and absorb CO2 emissions-by more than 50 percent, meaning we currently use 1.5 planet earths to support our consumption. Rich countries that consume more goods and produce more carbon dioxide have much larger environmental footprint than poor countries. If every person in the world lived like an average resident of the United States, a total of four earths would be required to support humanity’s annual demand on nature. If the current global patterns of consumption continue, we would need the equivalent of 2.9 planet earths to support us by 2050 (WWF 2012).

Every year the Global Footprint Network identifies Earth Overshoot Day- the approximate date on which humanity’s annual demand on the planet’s resources exceeds what our planet can renew in a year. In 2013, Earth Overshoot Day was August 20, meaning that in less than eight months, we used as much natural resources as our planet can renew in a year (Global Footprint Network 2013).

Population growth and consumption patterns are depleting natural resources such as forests, water, minerals, and fossil fuels. About 1.2 billion people- nearly one-fifth of the world’s population-live in areas of physical water scarcity, which occurs when there is not enough water to meet demand (Kumar 2013). Water supplies around the world are dwindling, while the demand for water continues to increase because of population growth, industrialization, rising living standards, and changing diets that include more food products that require larger amounts of water to produce: milk, eggs, chicken, and beef. With 70 percent of freshwater use going to agriculture, water shortages threaten food production and supply.

The world’s forests are also being depleted due to the expansion of agricultural land, human settlements, wood harvesting, and road building. The result is deforestation-the conversion of forestland to non-forestland. Global forest cover has been reduced by half of what it was 8,000 years ago (Gardner 2005). Between 2000 and 2010, the world’s forests shrank by an area roughly the size of France (Normander 2011). Deforestation displaces people and wild species from their habitats; soil erosion caused by deforestation can cause severe flooding as well as contribute to global warming (fewer trees=less oxygen in the atmosphere/more CO2). Deforestation also contributes to desertification or the degradation of semiarid land, which results in the expansion of desert land that is unusable for agriculture. As more land turns to desert, populations can no longer sustain a livelihood on the land, and so they migrate to urban areas or other countries, contributing to social and political instability.

Sources

Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht, Caroline 2015. Understanding Social Problems. Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.

Sawin, Janet. 2004. “Making Better Energy Choices.” In State of the World 2004. Linda Starke, ed. (pp. 24-43). New York: W.W. Norton.

Lamm, Richard. 2006. “The Culture of Growth and the Culture of Limits.” Conservation Biology 20(2): 269-271.

WWF (World Wildlife Federation). 2012. Living Planet Report, 9^th ed. World Wildlife Fund, Zoological Society of London. Global Footprint Network, and the European Space Agency. Available at www.panda.org

Global Footprint Network, 2013. “August 20^th is Earth Overshoot Day.” Press release Available at www.footprintnetwork.org

Kumar, Supriya. 2013 (March 13). “The Looming Threat of Water Scarcity.” Vital Signs World Watch Institute. Available at vitalsigns.worldwatch.org

Normander, Bo. 2011 (February 23). “World’s Forests Continue to Shrink.” Vital Signs. World Watch Institute. Available at vitalsigns.worldwatch.org

Discrimination Against Racial and Ethnic Minorties-Housing

Housing Discrimination and Segregation (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Before the 1968 Fair Housing Act and the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, discrimination against minorities in housing and mortgage lending was common. Banks and mortgage companies commonly engaged in "redlining"---the practice of denying mortgage loans in minority neighborhoods on the premise that the financial risk was too great, and the ethical standards of the National Association of Real Estate Boards prohibited its members from introducing minorities into white neighborhoods.

Although housing discrimination is illegal today, it is not uncommon. To assess discrimination in housing, researchers use a method called "paired testing." In a paired test, two individuals---one minority and the other nonminority---are trained to pose as home seekers, and they interact with real estate agents, landlords, rental agents, and mortgage seekers to see how they are treated. The testers are assigned comparable or identical income, assets, and debt as well as comparable or identical housing preferences, family circumstances, education, and job characteristics. A paired testing study of housing discrimination in 23 metropolitan areas found that whites in the rental market were more likely to receive information about available housing units and had more opportunities to inspect available units that did blacks and Hispanics (Turner et al. 2002). The incidence of discrimination was greater for Hispanic renters than for black renters. The same study found that, in the home sales market, white home buyers were more likely to be able to inspect available homes and to be shown homes in more predominately non-Hispanic white neighborhoods than were comparable black and Hispanic buyers. Whites were also more likely to receive information and assistance with financing.

In a study of housing discrimination in the Philadelphia area, Massey and Lundy (2001) found that, compared with whites, African Americans were less likely to have a rental agent return their calls, less likely to be told that a unit was available, more likely to pay application fees, and more likely to have credit mentioned as a potential problem in qualifying for a lease. Sex and class exacerbated these racial effects. Lower-class blacks experienced less across to rental housing than middle-class blacks, and black females experienced less access than black males. Lower-class black females were the most disadvantaged group. The experienced the lowest probability of contacting and speaking to a rental agent and, even if they did make contact, they faced the lowest probability of being told of a housing unit's availability. Lower-class black females also faced the highest chance of paying an application fee. On average, lower-class black females were assessed $32 more per application than white middle-class males.

Residential segregation of racial and ethnic groups also persists. Almost a quarter of all census tracts within the largest U.S. metropolitan areas are more than 90 percent white and 12 percent are more than 90 percent minority (Turner & Fortuny 2009).

Sources

Turner, Margery Austin, Stephen L., Ross, George Galster, and John Yinger. 2002. Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Massey, Douglas S., and Garvey Lundy. 2001. “Use of Black English and Racial Discrimination in Urban Housing Markets: New Methods and Findings.” Urban Affairs Review 36(4): 452-469.

Turner, Margery Austin, and Karina Fortuny. 2009 Residential Segregation and Low-Income Working Families. Washington DC: Urban Institute.

Discrimination Against Racial and Ethnic Minorities-Employment

In 2016, while many us do not feel personally racist, prejudiced or bigoted we are still encountering a great amount of discrimination in our nation. Whereas prejudice refers to attitudes, discrimination refers to actions or practices that result in differential treatment of categories of individuals.

Individual versus Institutional Discrimination (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Individual discrimination occurs when individuals treat other individuals unfairly or unequally because of their group membership. Individual discrimination can be overt or adaptive. In overt discrimination, individuals discriminate because of their own prejudicial attitudes. For example, a white landlord may refuse to rent to a Mexican American family because of prejudice against Mexican Americans.

In adaptive discrimination, the injustice occurs due to the discrimination of others. The landlord may refuse the Mexican American family due to the discrimination of other tenants and for fear that they would move.

Institutional discrimination refers to institutional policies and procedures that result in unequal treatment of and opportunities for minorities. Institution discrimination is covert and insidious and maintains the subordinate position of minorities in society. For example, when schools use standard intelligence tests to decide which children will be placed in college preparatory tracks, they are limiting the educational advancement of minorities whose intelligence is not fairly measured by culturally biased tests developed from white middle-class experiences. And the funding of public schools through local tax dollars results in less funding for schools in poor and largely minority school districts.

Employment Discrimination

Despite laws against it, discrimination against minorities occurs today in all phases of the employment process, from recruitment to interview, job offer, salary, promotion, and firing decisions. A sociologist at Northwestern University studied employers' treatment of job applicants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by dividing up job applicant "testers" into four groups: blacks with a criminal record, blacks without a criminal record, whites with a criminal record, and whites without a criminal record (Pager 2003). Applicant testers, none of whom actually had a criminal record, were trained to behave similarly in the application process and were sent with comparable resumes to the same set of employers. The study found that white applicants with no criminal record were the most likely to be called back for an interview (34 percent) and that black applicants with a criminal record were the least likely to be called back (5 percent). But surprisingly, white applicants with a criminal record (17 percent) were more likely to be called back for a job interview than were black applicants without a criminal record (14 percent). The researcher concluded that "the powerful effects of race thus continue to direct employment decisions in ways that contribute to persisting racial inequality" (Pager 2003, p. 960).

Workplace discrimination also includes unfair treatment and harassment. African American employees working for A.C. Widenhouse---a North Carolina---based freight trucking company---were repeatedly subjected to derogatory racial comments and slurs by employees and managers. These insulting comments and slurs included "n----r," "monkey," and "boy" (EEOC 2011). One employee was approached by a coworker with a noose who said, "This is for you. Do you want to hang from the family tree?" A company manager allegedly told an employee, "We are going coon hunting, are you going to be the coon?"

Sources

EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). 2011 (June 22). “A.C. Widenhouse Sued by EEOC for Racial Harassment.” Press Release. Available at www.eeoc.gov

Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht, Caroline 2015. Understanding Social Problems. Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.

Pager, Devah. 2003. “The Mark of a Criminal Record.” American Journal of Sociology 108(5):937-975

Discrimination Against Racial and Ethnic Minorities-Education

Discrimination against Racial and Ethnic Minorities

In 2016, while many us do not feel personally racist, prejudiced or bigoted we are still encountering a great amount of discrimination in our nation. Whereas prejudice refers to attitudes, discrimination refers to actions or practices that result in differential treatment of categories of individuals.

Individual versus Institutional Discrimination (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)

Individual discrimination occurs when individuals treat other individuals unfairly or unequally because of their group membership. Individual discrimination can be overt or adaptive. In overt discrimination, individuals discriminate because of their own prejudicial attitudes. For example, a white landlord may refuse to rent to a Mexican American family because of prejudice against Mexican Americans.

In adaptive discrimination, the injustice occurs due to the discrimination of others. The landlord may refuse the Mexican American family due to the discrimination of other tenants and for fear that they would move.

Institutional discrimination refers to institutional policies and procedures that result in unequal treatment of and opportunities for minorities. Institutional discrimination is covert and insidious and maintains the subordinate position of minorities in society. For example, when schools use standard intelligence tests to decide which children will be placed in college preparatory tracks, they are limiting the educational advancement of minorities whose intelligence is not fairly measured by culturally biased tests developed from white middle-class experiences. And the funding of public schools through local tax dollars results in less funding for schools in poor and largely minority school districts.

Educational Discrimination and Segregation

Both institutional discrimination and individual discrimination in education negatively affect racial and ethnic minorities and help to explain why minorities (with the exception of Asian Americans) tend to achieve lower levels of academic attainment and success. Institutional discrimination is evidenced by inequalities in school funding---a practice that disproportionately hurts minority students (Kozol 1991). Because minorities are more likely than whites to live in economically disadvantaged schools, which serve primarily minority students, receive less funding per student than do schools in more affluent, primarily white areas.

Another institutional education policy that is advantageous to whites is the policy that gives preference to college applicants whose parents or grandparents are alumni. The overwhelming majority of alumni at the highest-ranked universities and colleges are white. Thus, white college applicants are the primary beneficiaries of these so-called legacy admissions policies. About 10 to 15 percent of students in most Ivy League colleges and universities are children of alumni. Harvard University accepts about 11 percent of its overall applicant pool, but the admission rate is 40 percent for legacy applicants (Schmidt 2004).

Minorities also experience individual discrimination in the schools as a result of continuing prejudice among teachers. In a survey conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, 1,100 educators were asked whether they had heard racist comments from their colleagues in the past year. More than a quarter of the survey respondents answered "yes" (Hear and Now 2000). It is likely that teachers who are prejudiced against minorities discriminate against them, giving them less teaching attention and encouragement.

Racial and ethnic minorities are also treated unfairly in educational materials, such as textbooks, which often distort the history and heritages of people of color (King 2000). For example, Zinn (1993) observed, "To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves, unwittingly----to justify what was done" (P. 355).

Finally, racial and ethnic minorities are largely isolated from whites in a largely segregated school system. U.S. school in the 2000-2001 school year were more segregated than they were in 1970 (Orfield 2001). School segregation is largely due to the persistence of housing segregation and the termination of court-ordered desegregation plans. Court-mandated busing became a means to achieve equality of education and school integration in the early 1970s, after the Supreme Court (in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg) endorsed busing to desegregate schools. But in the 1990s, lower courts lifted desegregation orders in dozens of school districts (Winter 2003). And in 2007, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling, in a bitterly divided 5-to-4 votes, that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools. The decision jeopardizes similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricts how public school systems may achieve racial diversity.

References

Kozol, Joathan. 1991. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. New York: Crown.

Schmidt, Peter. 2004 (January 30). “New Pressure Put on Colleges to End Legacies in Admissions.” Chronicle of Higher Education 50(21): A1.

“Hear and Now.” 2000 (Fall). Teaching Tolerance, p. 5.

King, Joyce E. 2000 (Fall). “A Moral Choice.” Teaching Tolerance 18:14-15.

Zinn, Howard. 1993. “Columbus and the Doctrine of Discovery. “In Systemic Crisis: Problems in Society, Politics, and World Order, William D. Perdue, ed (pp. 351-357). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Orfield, Gary. 2001 (July). Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Civil Rights Project.

Winter, Greg. 2003. “Schools Resegregate, Study Finds.” New York Times, January 21. Available at www.nytimes.com