On Oct. 10, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics kicked off its new Environmental Justice Salon Series, led by Margaret Little, as part of President DeGioia’s Engaged Ethics Initiative. This new series is aimed at bringing together students and faculty to learn about pressing issues concerning the natural environment, and engaging them in constructive discussions.
“The Environmental Justice Salon Series specifically provides an opportunity for students to participate by interacting with knowledgeable faculty and experts on some key topics in environmental justice, including water, food, energy, animals, social justice, and sustainability,” said Chong Choe, a graduate student at Georgetown and a Kennedy Institute of Ethics teaching fellow.
The KIE was founded at Georgetown in 1971 to “bring expertise to the new and growing ethical problems in medicine today,” according to Dr. Andre Hellegers, the first director of the initiative.
In addition to the series, the KIE is exploring the possibility of offering a Living and Learning Community focused on Environmental Justice.
“Initially, Living and Learning Communities tend to be just living communities. They may have some learning components, but it is within a dorm room setting,” said Choe. “So what they [the Kennedy Institute of Ethics] want to move towards is having a more holistic approach with classroom and dorm room components. You will have courses that are lined up with living communities.”
The first talk, which focused on the topic of water, was given by Dr. Martin Iguchi, Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Studies.
During the talk, Iguchi highlighted that the problem of water is a multi-dimensional one, covering areas such as health, science, business, economics, politics, and ethics.
Iguchi emphasized the problem of water scarcity, giving as an example the fact that 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases, and that 40 billion hours per year are lost collecting water in sub-Saharan Africa, an amount the UN estimates is worth a year’s worth of labor by the entire workforce of France.
Additionally, Iguchi commented on the issues that arise in the property rights of water by giving as an example the privatization of water incited by the World Bank in Chochabamba, Bolivia in 2000.
“It scares the hell out of me,” said Iguchi, referring to the privatization of this scarce resource.
Iguchi is also working with the Georgetown Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship to develop a course on water issues.
“We will require students to work as teams, developing a framework for addressing selected water issues that take into consideration aspects of the political context, economic/business factors, health issues, and social/ethical/psychological considerations,” Iguchi wrote in an email to the Voice.
“In the spring, we hope to offer a course that will ask students to help us create a new interactive course on water. I hope my talk will invigorate interest and discussion on a topic that I believe to be one of the most important of our time.”
Iguchi also praised the University’s record on environmental justice.
“President DeGioia has certainly emphasized that this is a really important area,” he said. “He’s done a huge amount to support this initiative across campus.”
Dan Mathis (SFS ‘13), a member of the student group Georgetown Energy, was more critical.
“I think the University has been making strong moves in the environmental arena but still has work to do,” Mathis wrote in an email to the Voice. “Programs like solar street, the solar compactors, and energy monitoring in the dorms are awesome projects that promote environmental friendliness. However, there should be a stronger push to make students aware of these programs.”
Acknowledging the importance of environmental ethics, Iguchi said, “It is an area that I think creates better world citizens, and that is what I want our students to be. [Students] need to partner with others in the world to solve this problem and, for me, it is an issue of building an awareness of need and an awareness of what is outside the classroom.”
Upcoming talks will be on topics such as energy, food, animal rights, and social justice, and will feature faculty speakers including Profs. Hope Ferdowsian and Madison Powers.
