Chapter Thirteen: Environmental Conflict
Part Two: Environmental Conflict Processes
Readings:
Baur, D., & Schmitz, H. P. (2012). Corporations and NGOs: When accountability leads to co-optation. Journal of Business Ethics, 106(1), 9-21.
Dilemma for Part Two:
Environmental policymakers use conflict resolution processes to find consensus between those who profit from environmental destruction, and those who want to stop these practices. Unfortunately, the result of such a consensus ensures that those who profit from environmental destruction, get some of their interests validated and met. Doesn’t this result mean that conflict resolution becomes a tool for putting a happy face on continued environmental destruction?
Example to help us work through this dilemma:
A study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, suggests, among other ideas, “decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements and transformed social values.” (Reported in The Oregonian, Wednesday, August 8, 2018) In the face of these planet-saving mandates, how can a conflict worker be unbiased when facilitating a conflict between a polluter and a government agency trying to limit pollution?
Questions:
1. What is the dilemma of facilitating environmental conflicts, while coming to grips with ecocide?
This is a dilemma that examines the possibility that environmental mediators or facilitator may do more harm than good.
A facilitation process between a polluting business and a government regulator must be framed as: “How are we going to reduce pollution in a way that doesn’t destroy the polluting company, but adequately responds to environmental concerns and the mandates of the government agency?” A facilitator is in charge of the process, so that a decision can be ultimately made that satisfies all of the disputants. This may take some time, but the facilitator does not control the outcome, rather the facilitator controls the process, so that an authentic collaboration can take place.
By framing the facilitation process as strategizing to find a solution that helps address an environmental concern, there is no tension around whether to address the concern or not. However, the facilitator may sense that the company is not serious about taking measures to reduce pollution, but is using the facilitation process to delay taking any pro-environmental action or using the facilitation as a way of delaying a court outcome that will force the polluter to meet an environmental standard. The facilitator may also sense that the governmental agency is not seriously pro-environment, and is in collusion with the company to delay any reduction of environmental impacts. In these cases, when the facilitator senses that the facilitation is not authentic, but is being used as a delaying tactic, the facilitator needs to stop the facilitation because it is not what it purports to be. The worry, of course, is that another facilitator might not share this ethic, and will take the facilitation for the money to be earned.
Ongoing Dilemma: The dilemma of facilitating conflict practices is how to think about the goals of the disputants. Are they using the collaborative process for unethical ends? This difficulty is in how a facilitator is able to discover the true disputant goals. And if the facilitator discovers unethical goals during the conflict process, what should the facilitator do to address them?
Personal Story: I was asked to facilitate a collaborative process that involved personal property damage caused by the Portland area, February, 1997, flooding. A cabin, on a local river, was washed away in a landslide caused by a failed road that was not properly maintained by a County. This negligence was verified by a landslide geologist as Portland State University. The process was between the friend and neighbor of the cabin owner and a County governmental attorney.
It was a short process because the attorney wanted to force the dispute into court, knowing that the cabin owner could not afford to go to court, thus preventing the cabin owner from receiving any compensation for lost personal property—the cabin and its contents. The attorney used the meeting, for a proposed facilitation, to let the cabin owner know that the owner’s case was going nowhere, regardless of any moral imperative to compensate the victim. The attorney’s role was simply to reduce any financial burden for the County.
Neither I, nor the owner’s representative charged any fee for trying to find an out-of-court settlement given that the owner was nearly destitute, so there did not seem to be anything unethical for trying to have a collaborative process. But, if we were charging a fee, we might be accused of trying to earn money for what would ultimately have been a futile dialogue.
2. Is there a democratic solution to ecocide, or will we need to turn to authoritarianism?
International environmental treaties, such as the 1992 Earth Summit treaty and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, are encouraging in that they take seriously the impending catastrophe of runaway greenhouse gases.
However, these treaties can be discouraging in that certain powerful countries, like the United States, are resistant to the way these treaties are likely to undermine economic growth, and therefore their limits on greenhouse gas emissions are difficult to enforce. In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey of eighteen countries (including China, United States, and India), the median level of public support for limiting greenhouse gas emissions as a part of an international agreement was 78%, and the median level of public agreement that global climate change is a very serious problem was 54%.
So, a truly democratic decision amongst these countries would mandate limitations on the most polluting countries in the world. That this has not happened suggests that delays in enforcing limits is the result of governmental reluctance, which might be driven by economic worries promoted by big corporations and the wealthy elite. Therefore, it can be argued that undemocratic forces are delaying greenhouse gas reductions, where democratic opinion favors speeding up these reductions.
In other words, we are in the grips of authoritarian rejection of limits, where democratic action is being stifled. Strengthening international democratic action, through nonviolent teach-ins, boycotts, protests, occupations, and civil disobedience, seems like the only route to take to effectively address ecocide and prevent the catastrophic effects of runaway greenhouse gases.
The dilemma here reflects the power-over vs. power-with debate. Power-over is authoritarian, and power-with is democratic. When democratic means to not produce a solution to ecocide, must we turn to authoritarian, even violent means to pull back the processes of ecocide? Hopefully, there is space between power-over and power-with, where nonviolent force (which is neither violent, nor fully democratic) can be used as a tipping point toward halting ecocide.
3. What is morally wrong about culling endangered species to keep their gene pool diverse?
The dilemma here is whether it is appropriate, or not, for humans to kill members of a threatened species, in order to preserve a diverse gene pool. The goal in strengthening a diverse gene pool is to help the species respond to changing environments with a diversity of genes that ensure a broad possibility of adaptations to a particular environmental change.
On the other side of the dilemma, there are environmental advocates that are suspicious of any human intervention in species survival. Their question is: “How can we know what kind of gene configuration will be the best to adapt to future conditions. We are supposing that a diverse genetic pool is best, whereas a specific gene set might be what the species would evolve toward on their own lights—not ours. The question here is: Who is the best designer for future survival? Us? Or the species itself?
Furthermore, the process of diversifying the gene pool means those individuals with duplicative genes would be killed to keep their genes from dominating the gene pool of the species. Can we justify this species murder? Especially since we are responsible for the acute reduction of the species through our industrial and agricultural transformation of the global nature-scape.
4. How can we navigate this dilemma?
This dilemma has the following crucial feature. First, should we trust science, which generally takes the position that humans are the most, if not the only truly, intelligent species on earth. Or, second, should we believe that other species have their own intelligence that governs their behavior, and can lead to positive adaptations without our intervention. This brings up the “fundamental worldview conflict” addressed in Week 8, concerning the conflicting worldviews between indigenous people and civilized people.
In resolving this dilemma, we need to first address the “fundamental worldview conflict,” which itself is a challenging dilemma. Using the conflict resolution strategy that I propose, we need to create a space between modern Western science and the beliefs of indigenous people, who claim more direct knowledge of animals and nature because of their ongoing, tradition-based, conversations with animals and nature. In creating this space, we have room to navigate between the complexities of each side, rather than getting into a polarizing dispute between two fixed positions.
Creating a space between modern science and indigenous wisdom requires that both sides of this conflict acknowledge that they both base their knowledge on contradictory beliefs. Science, in its commitment to evidence-based research, claims the higher ground against indigenous beliefs and experiences that are not evidence-based. However, the construction of scientific evidence is based on the assumption that the only things that exist must be empirically measurable. This assumption cannot be proved empirically. And it can only be proven logically, if you already assume that it is true (circular reasoning: If A, then A). Therefore, if it is true that both empirical science and indigenous wisdom are based on non-empirical beliefs, neither belief can assume that it is superior to the other belief.
My personal belief is that the consequences of native beliefs are often morally superior to the consequences of modern science because native beliefs are more respectful of nature and protective of human community. And modern science generally approaches nature as a resource, and as having only instrumental (means to an end) value, rather than intrinsic (worth-in-itself) value. Furthermore, science is saturated with a form of individualism that is apathetic toward ongoing community commitments.
However, these are generalizations and do not give science credit for many positive discoveries, including public health remedies and sound environmental philosophies, policies and practices. If we are going to construct a space between these two belief systems, we must ignore my personal belief (above), except to view both belief systems as having positive consequences to consider.
5. Do environmental scientists offer a space to blend western science with indigenous beliefs and practice?
Of course, environmental scientists have beliefs across a spectrum, just as Native Americans identify as traditional and non-traditional, and everywhere in-between. That said, my reading of environmental texts and Native American texts demonstrates that there is much common ground between these two groups. And as time progresses, it seems that they are coming closer together.
I think there is hope for resolving the worldview dilemma when space is created for mainstream scientists to respect environmental scientists, who respect Native American beliefs and practices.
6. Is this respect between these three groups happening?
In regards to environmental issues, the three groups agree that humans need to live more sustainably within the context of nature. As reported in the New York Times, February 14, 2019, “For every human being, there are over 1,000 tons of built environment: roads, office buildings, power plants, cars and trains and long-haul trucks. It is a technological exoskeleton for the species.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/opinion/green-new-deal-ocasio-cortez-.html
Humans have created a vast nest of artificial material, chemicals, and gases. On the other hand, humans form a small part of life on earth, as illustrated in the following link:
