Post #5
Climate change —the change in weather patterns and changes lasting for longer than normal. For a long time climate change has lacked a relation with human rights. Many don’t see the relevance as to why they should view climate change and making actions against it in relation to human rights. When discussing what countries should do and what they are responsible for many developed countries don’t believe that they have an obligation to take action for their own massive contributions to global warming. But these kind of thoughts are dangerous and a danger to those underdeveloped countries, especially islands.
Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey, who was born in Hawaii, talks about how she can see someone else’s culture encroaching on the culture of those who raised her and misunderstanding their culture. She mentions how she could see the faces in National Geographic magazines and see that they knew the way of the land that they lived on. Dr. Lindsey realized that the knowledge of the elders was important but dying. The elderly women who helped raise her told her that there was going to come a time where the world is going to be in trouble because people will have forgotten stories.
Specifically developed countries contribute greatly to the pollution causing global warming thus in turn affecting climate changes. Because of this, water levels are rising and especially affecting those living on small islands. These countries are increasingly becoming smaller and smaller and soon enough will be completely gone. These people losing their country is a huge reason why climate change has to do with human rights. The industrialization of developed countries is aiding in the disappearance of these smaller undeveloped countries.
Suriname is vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms from the Atlantic. Furthermore, the massive flooding that comes with these storms could greatly affect the industries (mining, petroleum, agriculture, and tourism) that contribute to its Gross Domestic Product. In 1994 UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) started working in Suriname. They are helping the Suriname government to make the National Development Plan that will spread the Sustainable Development Goals into development priorities.
On July of this year, UNDP posted an article about a project in Suriname called ‘Women Empowerment & Renewable Solar Energy Pilot Project’ being supported by the UN Development Programme’s Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Partnership. This project is to benefit the people of Tepu and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In South America, there is more of a call to action to curb emissions and to better the conditions and rights of the people on the vast continent.
Endangered cultures. Just looking at the phrase it might be a common thought that this means a culture that is at risk at dying. This is pretty much the case. Cultures are being lost. Fast. In this TED talk called ‘Dreams from endangered cultures’ Wade Davis talks about the many cultures that he has been able to encounter and record their stories so that they may not be forgotten. He states that language is a flash of the human spirit and many of these endangered cultures also have languages that are dying or on the brink of extinction because they are no longer being taught to children and the elders who know its intricacies are dying.
I found myself agreeing with Davis about endangered cultures, especially when he began giving many examples of endangered cultures and stated that power is what is threatening these cultures. These cultures are being driven out by things such as deforestation like the Penan from Southeast Asia experienced. This is an example of ethnocide — “the destruction of people’s way of life” — and is in many places “celebrated as part of a development strategy.”
Now let’s move onto a broader term — Eurocentrism — which relates to the human rights topic that was addressed throughout this post. Eurocentrism “denotes the emerging perception within the European cultural, historical experience of European identity as good and all other forms as less good or less advanced” (Noor 51). It is essentially Western culture being pushed onto all other cultures.
Farish Noor’s main points about going beyond eurocentrism include learning to see the world without the European or Western glasses as being the norm. We all need to step away from this view and begin seeing through those of other cultures. No one perspective or culture is better than an other. Noor states “We will need to attempt to understand and appreciate the way different societies and cultures have developed their respective understandings of human dignity and values” (54).
Sources:
Noor, Farish. “Beyond Eurocentrism.” Dealing with Human Rights: Asian and Western Views on the Value of Human Rights, by Martha Meijer and Lee K. Mitzman, Greber, 2001, pp. 49–72.
