The Niger Delta as a Cautionary Tale for Environmental Sacrifice Zones Worldwide
An Exxon Valdez-worth of oil has spilled in the Delta every year for about fifty years, poisoning fish, animals, and humans.
--Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything 305
The Niger River Delta may present a particularly painful history of the so-called "resource curse." But there are more and more places in the world that are being sacrificed to appease our demand for natural resources. Therefore, the Niger River Delta story presents a cautionary tale for the growing list of environmental sacrifice zones worldwide.
We are much too quickly reaching the limit of what our planet can handle, however. It is now time we find a way to reduce our continued exploitation of nature.
If what has happened in the Niger Delta is not enough, we can look at what is happening in the Alberta Tar Sands, the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, and the other fracking zones in the United States. For examples of environmental sacrifice zones around the world, take a look into the legal battle between indigenous Ecuadorans and Chevron over Texaco Petroleum oil spills in the Amazon Rainforest (Lahrichi) or spend some time with the Environmental Justice Atlas (external link).
Oil fueled the American Century, propelling the American Dreams of autonomy, prosperity, and mobility. But the data and the climate science suggest that the current rate at which we are burning hydrocarbons is no longer sustainable. We must curb our carbon and methane emissions. And the sooner the better.
Around the world, more and more movements are protesting extraction with the rallying cry of "keep it in the ground." This week, even the first family of Big Oil in the United States has joined the clamor to say,
There is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons. The science and intent enunciated by the Paris agreement cannot be more clear: far from finding additional sources of fossil fuels, we must keep most of the already discovered reserves in the ground if there is any hope for human and natural ecosystems to survive and thrive in the decades ahead.
--Rockefeller Family Fund statement explaining their divestment from fossil fuels despite being one of the first founding families of the Oil Industry
March 23, 2016
When we gas up our cars at the local gas station, how responsible are we for the injustices that have occurred to get that oil to that pump at that price? If the United States buys 40% of all Nigerian oil as Nixon reports (106), how much of that is in my gas tank? And how much of the rest comes from the Tar Sands? and from Ecuador? and from Iraq? and from Saudi Arabia?
Furthermore, what contribution does my carbon footprint make to the melting glaciers and the rising oceans that are threatening so many island communities as you read this?
Rob Nixon argues that climate change is a prime example of the type of slow violence that our neglect of the environment is causing, but that we have a tough time in getting our imaginations around. Writers like Saro-Wiwa, Ifowodo, Nixon, Klein, and the writers contributing to this site are trying to do their part as we all begin to grapple with our complicity in environmental injustice and as we hope to prepare for a more sustainable future for our grandchildren and our grandchildren's grandchildren.
Making this slow violence visible before it is too late may be difficult because the clock is ticking. But we have to start somewhere.
Sources Cited
Backman, Melvin. "One of Oil's Founding Families is Divesting from Fossil Fuels, and Slamming ExxonMobil in the Process." 23 March 2016. Quartz media. qz.com. Web. 25 March 2016.
Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.
Lahrichi, Kamilia. "Environmental War Waged in Amazonia." USA Today 11 March 2016. Web. 28 March 2016.
Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2011.
