Green Options » sustainability theory

Sierra Club Applauds and Echoes EPA on Green Diversity

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:30:16 +0000

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called on minorities to be a bigger part of environmentalism in a speech to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council on Tuesday. Sierra Club showed their appreciation for the EPA’s remarks and highlighted their own commitment to diversity on the same day. “We applaud Administrator Jackson’s call for the environmental movement to better reflect the diversity of all Americans, and we are proud that Sierra Club has such successful diversity programs already established,” said Sierra Club President Allison Chin.

Sierra Club went on to highlight its own diversity related programs, also pointing out that Allison Chin is the first Asian-American president of the organization.

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EPA Calling for More Diversity in Environmentalism

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:31:37 +0000

In another effort to bridge the sustainability gaps in our society today, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called for more diversity in environmentalism yesterday. Speaking to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, she stated clearly that low-income and minority groups are often hit the hardest by environmental problems. “The place where I grew up is like other places in this country. Places where the burden of pollution and environmental degradation falls disproportionately on low-income and minority communities – and most often, on the children in those communities.”

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NAACP Supports Climate Change Legislation

Zachary Shahan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:58:27 +0000

At the 100th annual convention (or “Centennial Convention”) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on July 14th, the powerful organization passed a resolution to support climate and energy legislation. Despite the great likelihood that African Americans will bear more, as a percentage of their household incomes, than caucasians for clean, green energy, the NAACP recognized the importance of this great matter and stood in support of green climate legislation.

In addition to the fact that African Americans are increasingly in support of climate protection and action for its broader importance, the organization said that climate change would have a more severe effect on African Americans and is, therefore, an especially important matter for their members. It is an important matter globally and a possibly even more important matter for African Americans.

Important issues the NAACP also address in the resolution are that the climate legislation needs to do its best to make sure that low- and moderate-income families bear as little as necessary and gain as much as possible from such legislation. This is an important aspect of sustainable legislation and is something other groups, such as Public Citizen, are justly pushing for.

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Personal Happiness and the Economy: A Sustainability Link

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:14:24 +0000

In my previous post, I brought up the sustainability prism and the link between personal happiness or peace and the other three, traditional components of sustainability theory — economy, equity, and ecology. In this article, I explore the link between personal happiness and the economy in greater depth. Of course, this is just a taste of the full connection between the two since there are enough layers here to write a book on it all, but here is a start and there is plenty of comment space below!

Economy is at the forefront of society’s consciousness these days. It is always a, if not the, major societal issue for most people. With the current economic crisis, it has stepped up even another level of importance. We all have to wonder, these days, if we will be able to return to the affluence of just one or two decades ago, or, if, on the other hand, the whole economic system of America, and the world that depends on it, will collapse as a house of sand built on a thin board of wood on the ocean’s waves.

We can look to the specific failures of banks and immoral business practices to explain all of this. But these failures, and much more, were built on much more widespread and much less questioned norms than these.

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