special report
8 Obiter Dicta
A Healthy Environment and Healthy
Communities Go Hand-in-Hand
zach d’onofrio › contributor
W
ith present concerns over the ongoing strike at York University, it’s easy
for the environment to take a back seat
on our list of priorities. However, rather
than making us forget the importance of environmental protection, the labour disruption should
remind us of that issue.
The labour movement started about a century
before the modern environmental movement, but
the two phenomena have followed similar paths and
stand for similar principles. Both are premised on the
idea that people should be treated fairly, and that the
rights of less powerful members of society should not
be trodden on by the social elite. The labour movement seeks to guarantee workers’ rights by securing
fair wages and reasonable working hours. The environmental movement seeks to protect another right
that each and every one of us deserves: access to a
healthy environment.
While it is certainly true that no one can flourish under poor working conditions or on a wage that
places them below
the poverty line,
it is equally true
that a clean environ ment is a n
essential component to a healthy
lifestyle. The struggle that people all over the world
are waging to ensure that local environments stay as
healthy as possible is aimed at protecting that essential
component for all of us and for future generations.
While environmentalism is often seen as a pastime
for the wealthy, we must remember who suffers most
because of environmental degradation. Members of
poor communities in developing countries often work
in close contact with hazardous waste to earn a living.
Coastal communities without the resources to mitigate the effects of climate change will likely be wiped
out due to rising sea levels if nothing is done to stop
global warming. These types of disadvantaged communities are positioned to feel most keenly the negative impacts of a lack of environmental protection.
As new technologies are developed and policy
ideas floated to accompany them, there is growing
evidence that the social and environmental health of
communities are deeply intertwined. Green energy
technologies can help disadvantaged communities
to access electrical power even when they are not
connected to national energy grids. There is money
to be made in performing environmental cleanups,
thereby preserving sensitive habitats and supporting
local economies.
The preservation
of natural landscapes is beginning to be seen as
more valuable in
terms of tourism
dollars than for resource extraction. All these recent
developments point to the fact that social and environmental values can be championed simultaneously.
“... social and environmental
values can be championed
simultaneously.”
ê Photo credit: Creative Commons / Creative Action Network
While it is still widely believed that the exploitation
of the environment is required for economic growth,
the trends described above (and others) contest that
assumption. There are many cases in which the goods
of society and of the environment are in fact intertwined, and in which initiatives can be developed to
support both. Let the current labour disruption, the
result of a movement seeking to protect the right of
workers from being exploited, serve to remind us that
the environment deserves protection as well. u
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