environmental justice – Page 2 – Environmental Social Work

A Poem; Not Advocacy

By: Gabrielle Francis Conrad-Amlicke, MSW September 26, 2019

Uncategorizeddeep ecology, environmental justice, environmental racism, environmental social work, environmentalblog, environmentaljustice, poem, politicalpoetry, socialwork, systems of oppression, youthLeave a Comment

Envy is what drives us and to surrender to emotions that mute us — envy results in suspending the mind from movement. Without movement, we are silent observers.

Envious of what the earth could be. Dreamers dream; far from pollution- the rising toxicity of their environment. They envy those who are now dead, those who lived free from contamination.

The materials which assisted in their birth are now their demines.

More born, more educated, more rapid human progress… only now it comes to light, we are our demise.

The platforms I see you on, venting frustration; you seem to live in hate at the moment. It is not hate; you know this. It is envy. The dawn of logical and scientific progress is that which triggers hysteria; present day.

If not for science, where would we be. If not for development where would we be?

What results would come too if nothing had occurred and we stay suspended?

Would the earth be “clean” “green” “sustainable”? See language is a tool.

But we live life without a guide. If we killed god.

Or maybe we are the same in one-

You can not remove the riptide wave from the ocean; a wave cannot be conceptualized as a single entity. Are we all one on this planet?

Science tells us that we are all one and the same; the natural environment and the body are the same materials. Movement is constant; feedback loops persistent.

Movement was not made by hands seeking doom. The movement was made out of envy and questioning how life could be.

The scientific method without a guide.

We question or hypothesize and seek solutions. The human condition is intersected by the light human hand time and time again.

The new hands will find solutions. Once the “environment” “earth” or “natural world” what have you become a deity will we follow it, serve it, surrender to it.

Do we envy the idea of a world where the planet is our god? Surrendering to multiple gods.

We must consider that civilizations that lived in this way serving multiple nature-oriented gods.

…they all still came to their demise.

Envy drives wars. There is always a winner or loser. AS we take back the earth, we’ll wash the blood of thousands off our hands.

Unless those in power now are thought of as vulnerable. The plastic producing plant shuts down- each worker has a family- each family member is now a casualty.

Our oceans grew hot, so we made them run red.

How Did we Come to Regulate Almost Every Aspect of Life Through Policy, Yet, Fail to Properly Politicize the Earth’s Raw-Resources? (sigh)

Bill Clinton could have elaborated, “It’s the political economy, stupid!”
Czech, 2013

The more resourceful humans became with piles of earth capital the longer we survived and the uptake of recourses followed suit. My claim is not irrational and out of it I percive the following–

Expansion of ancient civilizations is the same expansion we see today, however, present-day economics and social structures never imposed a limit to expansion. Or have we? Modern civilization is based on a network of limits imposed upon us through the way we partake in political/social engagements. You stop at a stop sign because you were conditioned to limit your actions through the establishment of rules, which come to us in the form of policy. Our lives, the lives of our clients, are ruled, directed, and governed by policy.

Piles of earth outputs were harvested and capitalized upon from day one. I would argue that earth’s first people did not intend to abuse this capital as they lived so closely with the land that the raw resources sourced from the earth were honored and widely recognized as “sacred” to early civilization(s).

It’s hard to perceive how we came to regulate almost every aspect of our lives through policy but failed to properly politicize the earth’s raw resources.

Recycling can’t represent a 100 percent efficiently working cycle, “pollution is inevitable, and all else equal, more economic production means more pollution. These findings may seem like no-brainers to many, yet neoclassical growth theory has led to wild-eyed optimism regarding “green growth” and “closing the loop” by turning all waste into capital. Such fantasia cannot be soundly refuted without invoking the entropy law.” (Czech, 2013)

A dollar bill is made out of 75% cotton and 25% linen, symbolizing the craft of pure human intelligence, hence we have natural resources made into a sacred artifact. If you had the option of taking a one-hundred-dollar bill or the equitable mass in cotton and linen it seems true that one would opt for the bill. If you had to burn the bill or burn the cotton and linelogically one would burn the latter.

We enforce policy… on that which serves the economy, but WHY regulate the bill and not the natural resource(s) (Cotton and Linen) which make it up.
You can quote me

Remember social workers!

Mainstream economics fails to recognize environmental limits to economic growth
Czech, 2013

“Keney Park” Never Heard of it? Blame Environmental Racism and Systems of Oppression.

By: Gabrielle Francis Conrad-Amlicke, MSW June 14, 2019June 15, 2019

Uncategorizedcentral park, Connecticut, emerald necklace conservancy, Environmental, environmental justice, environmental racism, environmental social work, Keney park, social work, social worker, systems of oppressionLeave a Comment

The most renowned parks in America have a discarded counterpart: “Keney Park” in Hartford, CT -all designed by Fredrick Olmsted- better known for NYC’s “Central Park” Boston’s “Emerald Necklace Conservancy”

Frederick Olmsted, an American Landscape designer best known for Central Park (New York, NY) and The Emerald Necklace (Boston, MA), also created Keney Park (Hartford, CT). Keney Park runs vertically up and down the west half of Hartford’s Northeast neighborhood. The northern areas of this city are where the highest rates of crime and vacancy are reported among a predominately African American population (Demographic report, 2014). The decaying aspects of the physical environment contextualize an aspect of loss, both for the community members and potentially for the general public. Little has been done to improve the death rates produced by crime which has been intertwined into the community narrative. Fear pushes even those who live in the Northeast neighborhood to seek out other community parks. Failed attempts to stimulate the park are common. Renowned natural spaces have the ability to stimulate individual growth and serve as a useful resource to stimulate economic growth.

Why then is Keney Park who sits almost directly between NY’s “Central Park” to the south and Boston’s “Emerald Necklace” park system to the north less renowned than it’s counterparts?

The answers are likely entrenched in the socioeconomic makeup of the geography as a result of historic systematic racism which inadvertidly produces environmental racism.

For the Social Worker, we may see the oppression occurring but what do we do with our knowledge? For myself as a macro social worker I simply start conducting research to see if data backs the presence of what I believe to be occuring. Below is a map of the racial makeup found around Keney Park.

Keney Park is an extraordinary neighborhood asset, but because it is poorly maintained and offers little programming, security concerns keep residents from regularly using it. Residents tend to cluster along ethnicities, and so the Northeast neighborhood is comprised of West Indian niches, Latino areas, and Black American neighborhoods.
Trend Analysesprepared by Connecticut Economic Resource Center, Inc. – October, 2012

So how do we fight environmental justice found in areas around us? We can Frame our practice around supporting the individuals in the community, participate in community organization, or seek changes within the system. The beauty of the micro, mezzo, and macro, social work practice is the ability to serve at varrying levels.

The Micro Social Worker: they could support the individual client in understanding their emotions or teaching interventions, such as coping skills, to deal with the client’s personal experience.
The Mezzo Social Worker: the occurrence of crime within the park leads to a fear about using the park and therefore an inability to utilize the community location. The Mezzo social worker can complete their type of social work by creating a group to cope with the concept of fear and danger.
The Macro Social Worker: they can develop interventions that can be made at the policy level to combat environmental oppression.