Blog 1 Environmental Inequality

Alex Clute
January 14, 2011
1730 EST

As my blog topic I would like to look at social inequality and issues of environmental destruction and use. Images of poverty are often depicted in the media accompanied with the plucking of heartstrings but very little in the way of analysis. We are shown starving, desperate people around the world and then vaguely told this is the result of war, famine, or government corruption. It is not mentioned that people around the world have been displaced from their homes and lost their livelihoods to, say, cash crop production or in order to build a resort. There exists a fundamental disconnect between notions of economic "development" and the consequences of inequality and environmental degradation.

One of the first topics in the news that made me aware of the correlation between social inequality and issues of the environment were the Somali pirates that flooded the news outlets in 2009. While at present we hear little to nothing concerning Somalia, but the Pirates of Somali are still active. Reuters reported on the 14th that shipments of grain are having to be diverted around Africa to avoid the pirates, who have been extending their operations further east. This is causing insurance companies to raise premiums which are in turn cause the price of food to go up in African markets. This only serves to compound the problem of already high food costs be experienced in Tunisia.

In 2009, I watched an interview with Mohamed Abshir Waldo, author of the report The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the world ignores the other, on Democracy Now in which he stated that Somali piracy had at its root illegal fishing in Somali waters by large companies based out of Western nations. These commercial fishing vessels, having exhausted fisheries closer to home, have been fishing off the coasts of poorer countries where people depend on small-scale fishing for subsistence. According to Mr. Waldo, such is the case in Somali where Somali fishermen have had their boats run over and claim to have been shot at by the crews of commercial vessels. In addition to illegal fishing, Mr. Waldo has also accused Western countries of dumping toxic wastes off the coast of Somali. It is because of these crimes that Somali pirates claim that they have decided to hijack foreign ships.

Many issues can be seen within this story. There is the depletion of global fisheries by commercial fleets hailing from Western nations, which have turned in traditional colonial-style to taking from those who are unable to stop them. There are the angry and desperate people, living in poverty, lashing out in one of the few ways open to them, being labeled as the problem. And then there is the silence of the global media corporations that claim to be non-biased while a story of good and evil is wrought, where the money of the US taxpayer will be used to deploy the Navy against the evildoers. Stories like this abound today, with people being displaced from their traditional ways of life to make way for cash crop production or to build resorts for the wealthy. It is imperative that we begin to see the interconnected nature of our existence on this planet in order for us to make sound decisions. We must begin to see that the root of both poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction are inseparable.