Thursday 3 April – paper sessions
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From Law13: 121-2:
"The interest in “fuzziness” signaled by the Common Knowledge symposium suggests an increasing willingness to face up to and articulate the realities of noncoherence. As the will to purity loses its power, it becomes easier to talk about how to do syncretism well and then to act accordingly. Purity is not the only way we hold together normatively or politically. The puzzle is why we are so often scared of the thought of a world that is noncoherent. Why do we feel ourselves at a disadvantage when we are told that, unless we buy into general moral and political principles, we have abandoned all possibility of a moral or political position? Perhaps we are still partially beholden to the modernist redesign that leads to straight lines and curves, rather than to the jury-rigged boxes and wires, ambiguities, tensions, and messy social arrangements of impurity—beholden to the idea that the opposite of coherence is incoherence rather than noncoherence. But then again, perhaps things are changing. If we are able to talk of fuzzy logics and heterogeneities, then perhaps the will to purity is starting to lose its grip.
"In its religious context, the term syncretism has been understood both as negative and positive. Negatively, it has been taken to connote sloppiness: a failure to be clear. It has been treated as a theologically and intellectually suspect eclecticism, as an attempt to throw everything into one pot. But positively, it has been understood as an expression of vitality, tolerance, and inclusiveness—as an indication of a fluid willingness and ability to draw on the power of many traditions by finding ways of holding them together. Religious syncretism has sometimes been accomplished hegemonically; notoriously, for instance, the early Christian church located its houses of worship on sites of pagan significance in order to tap into and domesticate the indigenous gods. But as we have seen, hegemony is not the only syncretic mode available. We need to explore the different ways in which these modes work and transmute them into a resource for thinking about how to do noncoherences well. There will be no analytical or normative guarantees, but then we have never been modern, and the guarantees that we once believed we had were always empty. There is no need to be scared, for if noncoherence is not incoherence, then neither is incomplete success a failure."
Warren Hedges, Immanent Domain & EMDA @ SOU
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Considering compassion, outcomes, transformations, moral outrage, social movements, urgency, privilege in many meanings: having it, using it, giving it up, alternate meanings in feminist theory and its histories and activisms....
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From Friends of the Earth International:
http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/water/latest-news/why-we-need-climate-justice-the-climate-crisis-is-an-environmental-justice-issue
On March 31, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its report on the latest scientific understanding of climate change impacts.
Why we need climate justice: the climate crisis is an environmental justice issue
The report's findings draw our attention to the many reasons why the climate crisis is an environmental justice issue.Climate change is hitting the poorest people and the poorest countries hardest, despite these being least responsible for causing it. These examples from the UN report exemplify why the climate crisis is an environmental justice issue:
1. The poorest are already most affected by climate change
Extreme weather can destroy homes and infrastructure, and changing weather patterns can reduce crop yields and make some conditions unworkable. While richer people and richer countries may be positioned to adapt to these new circumstances, poorer countries and poorer people are already struggling with higher food prices and reduced crop yields.
2. Poverty and extreme weather
Countries and districts lacking essential infrastructure and quality housing are simply less able to cope with extreme heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones and wildfires. Water scarcity and lack of access to food following extreme weather is also a greater problem for poorer countries and poorer people in richer countries.
3. Access to food
Essential crop yields, such as wheat and maize, have already been negatively affected by climate change. Further change could mean the breakdown of food systems and supply chains in vulnerable areas. Once again it is the urban and rural poor who are worst hit.
4. Health impacts
Delivery of basic medical services will suffer in some particularly vulnerable areas, exacerbating existing health complaints and leaving preventable conditions unchecked. As the twenty first century rolls on, climate change is expected to lead to increases in ill-health.
5. Fishing and coastal communities
As climate change causes the loss of marine ecosystems and damages others, the impact on already fragile fishing communities could be catastrophic. Changing marine migration patterns are vastly unpredictable. Meanwhile, storm surges, coastal flooding and rising sea-levels are likely to disrupt livelihoods and cause injury, ill-health and death in coastal regions.
6. Poverty reduction efforts will be set back
With the erosion in food security comes the likelihood that efforts to reduce existing inequalities will be scaled back. Economic growth is likely to decline. Poverty reduction will be more difficult and less effective.
The impacts of climate change are already being felt, particularly by the poorest. Further climate change brings substantial risks to human well being, again particularly the poorest, as well as to ecosystems.
Coping with the effects of climate change will require rapid and significant reductions in emissions from the wealthiest people across the world and from the wealthiest countries.
It will also require significant financial and technical assistance to help poorer countries and regions to adapt and develop low-carbon economies.
But there is also an urgent need to reduce vulnerability to climate change by reducing inequalities between and within countries.
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