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"Walter, Mariana"
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Just transformations : grassroots struggles for alternative futures
The climate crisis is the greatest existential threat humanity faces today. The need for a radical societal transformation in the interests of social justice and ecological sustainability has never been greater. But where can we turn to find systemic alternatives? From India, Turkey and Bolivia, to Venezuela, Canada and Lebanon, 'Just Transformations' looks to local environmental struggles for the answers. With each case study grounded in the social movements and specific politics of the region in question, this volume investigates the role that resistance movements play in bringing about sustainable transformations, the strategies and tools they utilise to overcome barriers, and how academics and grassroots activists can collaborate effectively.
BOOK
Environmental justice and the SDGs: from synergies to gaps and contradictions
Through their synergies, trade-offs, and contradictions, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) have the potential to lead to environmental justices and injustices. Yet, environmental justice (EJ), and social justice more broadly, are not currently embedded within the language and spirit of the SDGs. We part from the premise that “many ‘environmental’ problems are, by their very nature, problems of justice” (Lele, Wiley Interdiscip Rev Water 4:e1224, 2017). We review progress in EJ frameworks in recent years, arguing for the need to move beyond a focus on the four principles of mainstream EJ (distribution, procedure, recognition, and capabilities) towards a more intersectional decolonial approach to environmental justice that recognises the indispensability of both humans and non-humans. EJ frameworks, and the SDGs should recognise power dynamics, complex interactions among injustices, and listens to the different ‘senses of justice’ and desires of theorists, activists, and other stakeholder from the Global South. We analyze how EJ frameworks are, or fail to be, incorporated in the SDGs with a focus on the food–water–health nexus (SDG2, 3, 6); climate-energy (SDG7, 13), conservation (SDG14, 15); and poverty and inequality (SDG1, 10). We call attention to the ‘elephant in the room’—the failure to go beyond GDP but instead include economic growth as a goal (SDG8). We argue that sustainable degrowth and intersectional decolonial environmental justices would create better conditions for the transformative changes needed to reach the broader aim of the SDGs: to leave no one behind.
Journal Article
Movements shaping climate futures: A systematic mapping of protests against fossil fuel and low-carbon energy projects
In this article we undertake a systematic mapping of 649 cases of resistance movements to both fossil fuel (FF) and low carbon energy (LCE) projects, providing the most comprehensive overview of such place-based energy-related mobilizations to date. We find that (1) Place-based resistance movements are succeeding in curbing both fossil-fuel and low-carbon energy projects. Over a quarter of projects encountering social resistance have been cancelled, suspended or delayed. (2) The evidence highlights that low carbon, renewable energy and mitigation projects are as conflictive as FF projects, and that both disproportionately impact vulnerable groups such as rural communities and Indigenous peoples. Amongst LCE projects, hydropower was found to have the highest number of conflicts with concerns over social and environmental damages. (3) Repression and violence against protesters and land defenders was rife in almost all activities, with 10% of all cases analysed involving assassination of activists. Violence was particularly common in relation to hydropower, biomass, pipelines and coal extraction. Wind, solar and other renewables were the least conflictive and entailed lower levels of repression than other projects. The results caution that decarbonization of the economy is by no means inherently environmentally innocuous or socially inclusive. We find that conflicts and collective action are driven by multiple concerns through which community mobilization seeks to reshape the energy regime and its impacts. These include claims for localization, democratic participation, shorter energy chains, anti-racism, climate-justice-focused governance, and Indigenous leadership. Climate and energy policymakers need to pay closer attention to the demands and preferences of these collective movements pointing to transformative pathways to decarbonization.
Journal Article
A perspective on radical transformations to sustainability: resistances, movements and alternatives
A transformation to sustainability calls for radical and systemic societal shifts. Yet what this entails in practice and who the agents of this radical transformation are require further elaboration. This article recenters the role of environmental justice movements in transformations, arguing that the systemic, multi-dimensional and intersectional approach inherent in EJ activism is uniquely placed to contribute to the realization of equitable sustainable futures. Based on a perspective of conflict as productive, and a “conflict transformation” approach that can address the root issues of ecological conflicts and promote the emergence of alternatives, we lay out a conceptual framework for understanding transformations through a power analysis that aims to confront and subvert hegemonic power relations; that is, multi-dimensional and intersectional; balancing ecological concerns with social, economic, cultural and democratic spheres; and is multi-scalar, and mindful of impacts across place and space. Such a framework can help analyze and recognize the contribution of grassroots EJ movements to societal transformations to sustainability and support and aid radical transformation processes. While transitions literature tends to focus on artifacts and technologies, we suggest that a resistance-centred perspective focuses on the creation of new subjectivities, power relations, values and institutions. This recenters the agency of those who are engaged in the creation and recuperation of ecological and new ways of being in the world in the needed transformation.
Journal Article
Moral management in the extractive industries during turbulent times: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
We develop an inclusive overarching moral framework for understanding corporate behaviour in turbulent times (or non-normal situations). We test this framework empirically using a case study from the extractives sector, the planned Dominga mining project in Chile. Chile experienced turbulent times (social and political turmoil) with the 18-O social revolution (on 18 October 2019), the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic and social lives of people, and with public shock following the release of the Pandora Papers in August 2021, which exposed high-level corruption. We undertook multi-phased, multi-method fieldwork across several research visits to Chile between 2019 and 2022. We considered various corporate moral management concepts such as moral silence, moral muteness, moral deafness, moral blindness, moral myopia, moral hypocrisy, moral paralysis, and moral nihilism. While these concepts are conceptually clear, in our research, we found that they were hard to differentiate. Nevertheless, by clarifying and bringing together some of the concepts, we believe that together they provide a useful and comprehensive framework to analyse the ethical decision-making of managers. We contributed to the theory around the morality of corporate behaviour by demonstrating that a corporation’s behaviour can be analysed by applying our moral framework. Our findings are significant because, by identifying the ways corporations justify or obscure their actions, we provide a useful tool for stakeholders, regulators, and civil society to assess corporate moral behaviour.
Journal Article
Ostwald Ripening and Antibacterial Activity of Silver Nanoparticles Capped by Anti-Inflammatory Ligands
Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been extensively studied during recent decades as antimicrobial agents. However, their stability and antibacterial activity over time have yet to be sufficiently studied. In this work, AgNPs were coated with different stabilizers (naproxen and diclofenac and 5-chlorosalicylic acid) in different concentrations. The suspensions of nanostructures were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, UV–Vis and FT-IR spectroscopic techniques. The antibacterial activity as a function of time was determined through microbiological studies against Staphylococcus aureus. The AgNPs show differences in stabilities when changing the coating agent and its concentration. This fact could be a consequence of the difference in the nature of the interaction between the stabilizer and the surface of the NPs, which were evaluated by FT-IR spectroscopy. In addition, an increase in the size of the nanoparticles was observed after 30 days, which could be related to an Ostwald maturation phenomenon. This result raises new questions about the role that stabilizers play on the surface of NPs, promoting size change in NPs. It is highly probable that the stabilizer functions as a growth controller of the NPs, thus determining an effect on their biological properties. Finally, the antibacterial activity was evaluated over time against the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. The results showed that the protective or stabilizing agents can play an important role in the antibacterial capacity, the control of the size of the AgNPs and additionally in the stability over time.
Journal Article
The activism responsibility of climate scientists and the value of science-based activism
Scientists have the right and responsibility to engage in activism—from the translation of their work in societal outputs to the participation in policy or civic events—because their expertise and ethical responsibility position them well to change policy. Similarly, civic groups that engage with scientific evidence make their actions more credible and effective. Lastly, collaborations between researchers and activists enhance the inclusiveness of climate science and action.
Journal Article
Stability of Antibacterial Silver Carboxylate Complexes against Staphylococcus epidermidis and Their Cytotoxic Effects
The antibacterial effects against Staphylococcus epidermidis of five silver carboxylate complexes with anti-inflammatory ligands were studied in order to analyze and compare them in terms of stability (in solution and after exposure to UV light), and their antibacterial and morphological differences. Four effects of the Ag-complexes were evidenced by transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM): DNA condensation, membrane disruption, shedding of cytoplasmic material and silver compound microcrystal penetration of bacteria. 5-Chlorosalicylic acid (5Cl) and sodium 4-aminosalicylate (4A) were the most effective ligands for synthesizing silver complexes with high levels of antibacterial activity. However, Ag-5Cl was the most stable against exposure UV light (365 nm). Cytotoxic effects were tested against two kinds of eukaryotic cells: murine fibroblast cells (T10 1/2) and human epithelial ovarian cancer cells (A2780). The main objective was to identify changes in their antibacterial properties associated with potential decomposition and the implications for clinical applications.
Journal Article
Effect of pH on the Electrochemical Behavior of Hydrogen Peroxide in the Presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa
The influence of pH on the electrochemical behavior of hydrogen peroxide in the presence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was investigated using electrochemical techniques. Cyclic and square wave voltammetry were used to monitor the enzymatic activity. A modified cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) carbon electrode (OPG), a known catalyst for reducing O 2 to H 2 O 2 , was used to detect species resulting from the enzyme activity. The electrolyte was a sterilized aqueous medium containing Mueller-Hinton (MH) broth. The open-circuit potential (OCP) of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa culture in MH decreased rapidly with time, reaching a stable state after 4 h. Peculiarities in the E / I response were observed in voltammograms conducted in less than 4 h of exposure to the culture medium. Such particular E/I responses are due to the catalase’s enzymatic action related to the conversion of hydrogen peroxide to oxygen, confirming the authors’ previous findings related to the behavior of other catalase-positive microorganisms. The enzymatic activity exhibits maximum activity at pH 7.5, assessed by the potential at which oxygen is reduced to hydrogen peroxide. At higher or lower pHs, the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurs at higher overpotentials, i.e., at more negative potentials. In addition, and to assess the influence of bacterial adhesion on the electrochemical behavior, measurements of the bacterial-substrate metal interaction were performed at different pH using atomic force microscopy.
Journal Article
The Biophysical Performance of Argentina (1970-2009)
The biophysical features of the Argentinean economy are examined using a social metabolism approach. A material flow analysis (MFA) for this economy was conducted for the period 1970-2009. Results show that Argentina follows a resource-intensive and export-oriented development model with a persistent physical trade deficit. Also, Argentina's terms of trade (the average weight in tonnes of imports that can be purchased through the sale of 1 tonne of exports) show a declining trend in the period of study. Argentina's economy shows a pattern typical of countries whose economies are based primarily on exports. Comparisons between Argentina's metabolic profile and the metabolic profile of other countries in Latin America and of Australia and Spain show that the Argentinean economy presents the same pattern as other Latin American exporting economies, and its terms of trade are opposite to those of industrialized economies. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Journal Article