Climate Change Justice and Responsibility: Theorizing From the Coast of Climate Change

On Friday, September 14th, Brooke Ackerly, a professor at Vanderbilt University, explained the effects of climate change on the country of Bangladesh and its people at the Mershon Center. She noted that the people of Bangladesh persist on creating clay walls for their major water ways, prohibiting water from flowing naturally. This creates flooding issues and other destructive acts to farms and other businesses in the region. The people have to keep replacing their water wells because each new one breaks, and their government does little or nothing to fix this problem, and many other problems. Many people have turned to shrimp farming because their houses that once sat on land now hangs above the river they farm on. Their houses had to be moved. The people rely on clay walls for their shrimp farms because concrete, a material that most Americans view as being strong and suitable for most environments, is not a feasible option. Construction has a two year warranty because the concretes erodes away at such a fast rate. If the people of this region of Bangladesh are not shrimp farming, they have other work somewhere close by, or work around the house. It is not feasible for these people to travel to other regions on the country to seek work at land farms or factories, so they adapt to make a living. Many of the farmers experience pirates along the river on a day-to-day basis. These pirates take one share of the farmers catch for the day, then give him a coupon showing other pirates that this farmer has already lost a share that day. Depending on the whether, inhabitants change the location of the door in their house. In response to trying to improve the quality of life due to effects from the climate, Ackerly spoke about grounded normative theory in respect to her focused region in Bangladesh. While I was not able to fully grasp the concepts of this theory, I thought that Ackerly’s argument was very intriguing. I was not aware at first that she would only be focusing her lecture on one region of the world, so it was interesting to see her take on how the changing climate affects an area of the world that most Americans rarely think about. She gave an excellent presentation that kept her audience engaged the entire time. Ackerly presented an in-depth explanation about how the rainy season and dry season both affect the people she studied, and how people can take what she learned from these studies and find a way to be responsible for actions that could lead to climate change. I thought this presentation would demonstrate ideas similar to what people think of as stereotypical climate change suggestions: recycle, use less water, ride a bike instead of driving, etc. However, Ackerly did not present these stereotypical ideas that Americans think of, but rather proposed better and more useful theories and ideas that would better improve the bigger picture of climate change: solving how climate affects the entire earth.

One thought on “Climate Change Justice and Responsibility: Theorizing From the Coast of Climate Change

  1. Savannah,

    Thank you for your post. I’m glad you enjoyed the Climate Change Accountability lecture. I learned a lot myself.

    -S

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