Social Justice Tag: Earth

Respond to the cry of the earth. Check out Mercy Sustainability Tips.

Short Article: Resources to Respond to the Cry of the Earth

More coming soon!

The Sisters of Mercy of the Americas has enrolled in the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Action Platform, joining the worldwide Catholic community in a seven-year journey toward more fully living Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’. This commits us to respond to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor, adopt sustainable lifestyles, practice ecological economics, nurture ecological spirituality and education, and engage in community resilience and empowerment.

The Institute Leadership Team recognizes that this Vatican-led initiative provides an opportunity to continue our transformation toward greater integrity of word and deed. It also supports our commitment to unmask and address the underlying causes of our Critical Concerns of racism, Earth, immigration, nonviolence and women, and the interconnections among them.

For more information about Mercy’s commitment to the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, contact laudatosi@sistersofmercy.org

Neo-Colonialism

Colonialism refers to the violent political and economic domination of much of the world by European countries for 500 years, beginning in the 15^th century. While most of the Global South had achieved independence from outside direct rule by the mid-1900s, these new countries often were left with ingrained patterns of exploitation by and trade with former colonial powers and the mindsets underpinning them. Now, transnational corporations and Chinese companies are increasingly replicating some of this colonial dynamic in their search for natural resources.

Capitalism

The extraction of natural resources can’t be separated from the economic model this process upholds. Excavating minerals, drilling for oil and gas, damming water to produce electricity, and cutting down forests for large agricultural plantations are all part of the churn for profits and continual economic growth. These raw materials and the products made from them aren’t usually for nearby communities but for export and trading in an international marketplace.

Racism

Much of the justification for exploiting communities for natural resources is rooted in the Doctrine of Discovery, a series of papal bulls issued in the late 1500s that encouraged the seizure of land from non-Christians. Europeans relied on this toxic blend of Christian superiority and domination to dispossess the original inhabitants of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, who were usually of darker skin color. That continues today as racial minorities and Indigenous peoples disproportionately experience harm from the extractivist economy.

Misogyny

Ingrained prejudice and violence against women have accompanied the arrival of extractive industries for centuries, going back  at least to when early European conquerors pillaged the lands of the Americas while also raping native women. Today, the mindset of male privilege and entitlement is seen in increased sexual violence near “man camps” at mining, oil and gas sites. Reports of human-rights abuses also include women promised mining jobs but instead finding themselves trafficked for sex and, in some communities, increases in domestic violence as traditional sharing of household roles gives way to growing power for male workers as they begin earning wages. 

Corruption

The “resource curse” is a phrase often used for communities rich in oil, gas, minerals and metals but that benefit very little from their extraction. Corruption—from corporate payments to secure the right to extract resources through governments’ use of the revenues generated— often contributes to that gap. Advocates worldwide have been calling for “publish what you pay” policies that require extractive industries to disclose payments to governments for the rights to explore, develop and extract resources. Such transparency holds governments accountable for their use of funds and equips local communities to better advocate for services they could be receiving from payments and revenues.

Campesino

“Campesino” is an encompassing term, including small- and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world.  More specifically, campesinos are rural producers who work small plots, with the family constituting most or all of the labor, and often do not own land. The food they harvest is traditionally for their own consumption and sale to the market, with both activities maintaining the life of the family as opposed to accumulating capital. [1]

[1] https://www.heifer.org/blog/a-word-about-the-word-campesino.html

Goals:

• To use tools of social analysis to unpack the systemic injustices that are part of the extractivism. 
• To more deeply understand the intersection of the Mercy critical concerns and extractivism. 

As we engage in a social analysis of the extractive development model and its intersection with  Mercy’s Critical Concerns, we place ourselves into a listening and learning stance. We will discuss what we have learned about the various impacts of the extractive development model (social, communal, political, economic, etc.) through the theological lenses and seek to understand how these impact our Critical Concerns.

At this stage of the process we continue to be cautious about any tendency to problem-solve or to make decisions about what should be done or what could be done. Instead, we must identify the areas of intersection with our Critical Concerns and encourage one another to ask the harder questions. The focus here requires us to ask Why? rather than What can we do?

Our analysis comes from a place of harmony and right relationship with the community of life. We remind ourselves that, as we  shared in our theological reflection, we as humans are within the dynamics of the planet. We are in a reciprocal, non-dominant relationship with the community of Earth. We can no longer take the view of subjugating Earth; rather, we are called to be responsible stewards.

When we engage in social analysis, we work to answer the question What is really going on in this situation? We continue to ask and answer  questions to understand and analyze the situation. Authors Joe Holland and Peter Henriot define social analysis as “the effort to obtain a more complete picture of a social situation by exploring its historical and structural relationships.”

Here in Mercy’s Theological Reflection Process, participants do not need to be experts in extractivism or extractive industries, but we must be confident and informed to use the right questions to uncover the systems that have made the extractive development model thrive. Recommended questions are framed below, and the answers to these questions should be developed in the experiences heard through our deep listening and seen through the various theological lenses that have been shared.

When we engage in social analysis, we review a situation through the following perspectives. Click on any of the topics to review questions specific to that area of focus.

ECONOMIC

Production/distribution/consumption. Patterns of ownership and decision-making about land, capital, technology, resources and labor.

• Who owns?
• Who controls?
• Who benefits?
• At whose expense does the economy benefit?
• Do Black, Indigenous Peoples, and Communities of Color have equitable access to economic resources and benefit?
• What role does a global economy play in the economic decision-making?
• Where do we see a recentering of relationships in community of life over profits? (Red Deal)
• How are the labor and needs of Black, Indigenous Peoples and Communities of Color centered in the predominant economic model at play? (Red Deal)

POLITICAL

Structure and health of country’s political system and individual politicians and their influences.

• Who has the power?
• Who is making decisions? For whom?
• Who has access to the governmental decision making?
• Who is prioritized in political decision making and policy setting?
• Who is accountable?
• What role does corruption play?
• How do outside political structures influence decisions?
• What role does judicial power play?
• How is judicial, police or military being used against human rights and land defenders? (Are human rights and land defenders criminalized for their protection efforts?
• Are popular and social movements’ demands heard?
• How is the current issue, policy, or program shifting power dynamics to better integrate voices and priorities of communities of color? (from https://multco-web7-psh-files-usw2.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/5%20Ps-%203-24-14.pdf)
• Are there legal barriers to racial equity at play?

ENVIRONMENTAL

Health of land, water, air and living species. 

• How are decisions impacting the land, vital ecosystems and species in the short term?
• How have decisions contributed to the climate emergency?
• Who has access to clean resources?
• Who is determining access to water?
• What priority does health of Earth have in decision-making?
• How is the worldview held on creation of just relationships between all beings in the community of life?
• How are Indigenous Peoples’ social, cultural and ancestral rights to land honored?
• Are corporate polluters and extractives industries held accountable for destruction and payment for remidiation?
• Do Indigenous Peoples have control over ancestral territories?
• What is environmental impact for communities of color?

MEDIA/PUBLIC INFORMATION

The flow of information to the people.

• Who controls the messaging within the community and to the wider public?
• Who owns the media or other information channels?
• Who benefits from the media messaging?
• How is messaging manipulated?

SOCIAL

How people relate to one another: ethnicity, race, class, age, gender

• Who is damaged?  What do they lose?
• Who is visible and valued to the decision makers?  Who is not? 
• What is the basis for inclusion?
• What is the basis for exclusion?
• What systems have reinforced the decisions of inclusion and exclusion?
• How do decisions reinforce white supremacy and colonialism?
• How are we meaningfully including or excluding people (communities of color) who are affected? What policies, processes and social relationships contribute to the exclusion of communities most affected by inequities? (from https://multco-web7-psh-files-usw2.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/5%20Ps-%203-24-14.pdf)
• Are Black, Indigenous and leaders of color integral to social system and planning?

By Sister Terri Bednarz

When I first heard about extractivism and its impacts in Honduras, I was already familiar with the impacts of extractivism in my own backyard; that is, in Louisiana. I decided to learn more about environmental racism and the impact of the petrochemical plants in the Louisianan parishes of St. John the Baptist and St. James.

In late 2020, I took a drive along the Mississippi River to see these petrochemical plants firsthand and to visit the communities located in the shadow of their toxic pollutants. The whole experience was unsettling: a cemetery surrounded by a petrochemical plant, industrial pipes leading to the Mississippi River, and flares burning toxic waste spewing from the processes. These images evoked critical concern for the communities that endured the stench, the pollution of toxins in the air, land and water.

On my return to New Orleans, I thought about the water-processing plant near my home and wondered how this plant filtered out the toxins flowing down from these massive petrochemical plants. So I decided to test my drinking water. The results stunned me. The test read, “Uranium … exceeds federal levels.”

I called a plumber, who said he would call the water-treatment facility to ask about disturbances in the water system since the facility had been undergoing major renovation. The  very next day, the water company had a contractor tearing up the street  in front of my house for the length of the entire block. Whether the contractor had already long planned to replace the waterline, and the whole thing was a consequence or whether the replacement of the waterline was in response to a report of uranium, I will never know.

But I did research the possible sources of uranium in drinking water. Critical environmental studies pointed out that the major culprit was likely phosphate fertilizers (runoff from farms engaged in monocropping). So how, in this case, does monocropping relate to extractivism? Phosphate mining occurs in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The plant produces by-products of acidic and gypsum waste, both known for contaminating water. And so, what I have learned about extraction industries has come full circle for me. Extractivism impacts not only the communities upriver in the vicinity of production but also downriver in my own backyard and into my kitchen sink.

By Sister Fran McManus, a Theological Reflection participant

“Didn’t used to be, didn’t used to be…,” they say.
“Thirty-year floods came just about on time;
now it seems every few years waters rage,
the angry brown swill testing the flood line.”

Grieving mother, nature reclaims her own,
old folktales and science facts agree:
sooner or later, we reap what we have sown.
We’ve pillaged the earth, fogged the air, fed our greed.

Black gold warmed our homes, smoldered in the hills,
filled our pockets, grayed the sky, invaded lungs;
once in mines, now in coughs and climate, King Coal kills.
Creeks rise, roads become streams, nature writes our wrongs.

The Susquehanna rages, then calms down;
we return to clean what’s left, mourn what’s gone.