Assaults on the Environment as a Form of War or Violence

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Environmental Assaults and Sustainability
Bio-power and Environment
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Numerous discussions have been held regarding the two subjects of environmental assault and sustainability. Several factors are to blame for the assaults that are often directed at the environment to make it less supportive of human needs. Some of the contributing factors include the common theories of liberalism, an increase in global environmental degradation, and the use of capitalism in various parts of the universe (Omer, 2008, p. 2272).

It is evident that there are several ways in which critical thinking on sustainability can be enhanced by considering “assaults” on the environment as a form of violence. Critical thinking can assist in addressing assaults and slow violence, which affect environmental sustainability.

Environmental Assaults and Sustainability

The main determinant in the case of environmental assaults is the aspect of ‘slow violence.’ Slow violence refers to the way factors such as oil spills, deforestation, and toxic drift gradually and invisibly degrade the environment (Nixon, 2007, p. 14). ‘Slow violence’ carries “great statistical, representational, and legislative challenges, which are often witnessed in several real-life scenarios” (Nixon, 2007, p. 15).

For example, the unfair representation of slow violence witnessed in the media is known to lead to other serious issues such as the discounting of casualties. For example, the discounting of casualties that result from the insightful outcomes of war are known to cause difficult challenges; one is often forced to seek legal redress over the misunderstandings that arise from such situations (Omer, 2008, p. 2271).

The representational biases are serious, and for that reason, they require proper means to divert public attention from the insightful acts to other issues that tend to work for the good of everyone involved.

The non-insightful acts that are chosen should be inert in the short term and should have positive impacts on the long-term (Omer, 2008, p. 2272). This scheme is not that easy as it requires all the individuals involved to look for iconic symbols that are compatible with amorphous calamities. After finding the symbols, the team should then look for narrative forms that can be used to connect the symbols to the calamities (Massumi, 2009, p. 155).

It becomes particularly difficult, during this time of numerous cases of degradation, to estimate the effects of environmental degradation. People nowadays live in a world in which no one pays attention to the other; everybody wants everything for themselves (Massumi, 2009, p. 159). It is obvious that things have greatly changed and people tend to move faster in whatever they do than they used to do in the past.

To closely monitor the aspect of slow violence, the speed of this vital aspect needs to be redefined. When cultural factors are incorporated into the aspect of slow violence, the “intergenerational aftermath becomes a harder sell” (Nixon, 2007, p. 15).

The need to redefine the speed of slow violence is just very important in understanding the factors that contribute to it. There are several things that have been happening in the world and some of them significantly affect the environment and other important aspects of human life. People witness events such as accelerated “climatic changes and the rapid loss of various animal and plant species” (Massumi, 2009, p. 154).

The efforts to redefine the speed with which slow violence takes place are faced with several challenges in various countries. For instance, the plan to set up an urgent feasibility study to address the problem of “slow violence in North America was frustrated by the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States’ land” (Nixon, 2007, p. 15).

The 9/11, although considered as a terrorist oriented violent activity, also explained the slim image of the nation as well as an “entire species of human beings being at risk of being wiped out of existence” (Nixon, 2007, p. 15). The Iraqi attack on the United States soil illustrates what an image of violence is; this image is also very much comparable to attritional violence caused by foreseen causes such as global warming.

The then government of the United States promised to revenge as it considered the attack to be so attritional that if assumed it would have encouraged similar incidents (Massumi, 2009, p. 160). The United States’ plan to attack Iraq and eradicate Saddam Hussein is regarded as cataclysmic violence, which was expected to happen instantaneously (Nixon, 2007, p. 16).

Apart from the legislative effects, unfair representation against slow violence also has statistical challenges. Although several aspects are at risk of going through representational bias, the “environment, and human beings are the most affected” (Omer, 2008, p. 2274). The way different wars are represented in the media and various form of literature is a clear indication of representational partiality against the environment, wars and human beings.

The media chooses what to represent at a particular time and to a certain group of people. The main intention for doing this, in most cases, is to favor a particular person at another one’s expense. The media said that the world is just a small space, but with so many cases of “casualties of slow violence habitually screened from view” (Nixon, 2007, p. 16).

Bio-power and Environment

Bio-power is a version of sovereign authority, whose main objective is to completely end the life of an individual. Bio-power seeks to maximize and extract other powers to enable it to optimize the state of life for the benefits of the majority (Omer, 2008, p. 2270).

Bio-power also works in a way that it is seen to eliminate excess forces from critical events that affect the environment and human life. The power, in its extremes, can give and deny life by intervening at the “level at which these phenomena are determined” (Massumi, 2009, p. 155).

Bio-power is one of the factors that affect human life and the way humans treat the environment. The power encourages human beings to “take care of the environment at all times so that they can benefit from it afterward” (Omer, 2008, p. 2272).

People can achieve a moderate and supportive environment if they take care of other lives that also depend on the environment and other phenomena, such as the burning of carbon, which are known to destroy the environment.

The statistical description of the factors that contribute to environmental destruction revolves around biological processes of the populations that derive their sources of living from the environment (Massumi, 2009, p. 156). These factors range from organic to biological, and they affect the entire population.

Although bio-power is seen to play a crucial role in encouraging people to take care of the environment, it is difficult to understand whether it still has a significant “influence on the species and organic individual bodies found in the environment” (Omer, 2008, p. 2273).

The species in the environment should stand strong as they are the poles that determine how it should look like. However, the bio-power helps to balance between the threats caused by man-initiated events, such as terror attacks, and the ones initiated by nature, such as floods and earthquakes (Omer, 2008, p. 2274).

Conclusion

This paper addresses the relationship between sustainability and assaults on the environment. It is clear that a good understanding of these assaults can lead to the creation of a sustainable environment.

The environment can be assaulted in several ways; some of these ways include the burning of carbon and initiating blasts that result in environmental destruction. People can be trained on how to balance their needs, activities and the well-being of the environment. Bio-power can be used to unite people with the environment and make them appreciate every aspect related to it.

References

Massumi, B. (2009). National enterprise emergency: Steps toward an ecology of powers. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(6), 153-185.

Nixon, R. (2007). Slow violence, gender, and the environmentalism of the poor. Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, 13(2), 14-37.

Omer, A. M. (2008). Energy, environment and sustainable development. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 12(9), 2265-2300.

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