Essential to environmental justice is the understanding that nature is not limited to pristine places like national parks that we go and visit and recreate in for their spectacular beauty and grandeur--nature is also where we live and work. We are always a part of nature, embedded within it; when we turn on a faucet or eat a sandwich, no matter how many degrees of separation our society has placed between us, we are interacting with ecosystems. The quality of our environment always directly impacts the quality of our lives, and the patterns of consumption and resource use that define our individual and cultural ways of life have direct impacts on the environment, often in ways that are further removed from us in space and time, but should nonetheless demand our attention and mindfulness.
So what does this mean for the Salton Sea? From the environmental justice perspective, I think the reason the Salton Sea is so fascinating to me and others is that it is a land of contrasts--to really understand the Salton Sea you have to grapple with its contradictions and its multiple dimensions. It is neither strictly beautiful nor ugly, happy nor depressing, pristine nor toxic and dying--it is all of the above and much more, all at the same time.
We are always a part of nature, embedded within it; when we turn on a faucet or eat a sandwich, no matter how many degrees of separation our society placed between us, we are interacting with ecosystems.
Angela Hessenius graduated in 2017 with a degree in Interdisciplinary Humanities and minor in Environmental Studies. She was the Ann Clark Environmental Fellow in NRDC’s Northern Rockies Office in Bozeman, Montana this summer. Her next work assignment will take her back to Cambodia where she will be the Program Intern for the School for Field Studies’ Center for Mekong Studies.