Do Wealthy Nations dump on Poor Nations?
Are e-Waste Exports an Environmental Justice Issue?
By "wealthy", let's keep it simple. There are seven billion people.
The wealthier half have different jobs than the poorer 3.5 billion. But environmental justice is about geography, locations, and property value. Where do the poor people live? Why do they have different jobs than wealthy people? Foster the people...
Not all the wealthy live in the OECD... Mathematically, that would be impossible, as the OECD nations combine to form about 1.3 billion people. But the OECD nations account for even less than 1.3 billion or the "richest half"... because people live in places like this - slums - within the OECD.
Kamagasaki, Japan. A slum in Nishinari-Ku one of 24 wards in Osaka, with a density of 30,000 people in every 2000 meter radius.
Now, it may be a cheap shot to compare the Japanese slum of 30,000 to a slum of 1 million in (non-OECD) India:
Dharavi, India. A slum in Mumbai with approximately 1 million people.
Before you jump to the conclusion that the OECD countries like Japan have fewer ultra poor .. below is an even larger slum than Dharavi, with 4 million residents. It's in an OECD country (Mexico).
Neza-Chalco-Itza barrio, Mexico. A slum in Mexico city with approximately 4 million people
The camera angles get wider as you try to capture bigger slums. The source of these photos also has the slums of Kenya, Ghana, Columbia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Brazil, and Iraq. Not only is wealth "pixelized"... poverty is pixelized as well.
But the cities are developing. The poor come to the slums from the countryside, as if attracted by the lights. They see electricity. They see wifi. They taste the internet. The fruit of knowledge brings them to the barrio.
Wi-Fi will be in 42% of all households worldwide by 2016.
According to the International Energy Agency, over 80+% of the people in the world already have access to electricity.
The percentage of individuals with access to internet is lower than the percentage of households with wifi... because poor people have more people per household. Still, internet access is growing much faster than electricity did.
So if the majority of the 83% of the world which is not OECD has electricity and internet, just where are the photos of primitive, informal recycling taking place? The slums. The NGO cameras show, close up, what the satellites keep us safely apart from.
One of the best things you can do to set the table for formal reconciliation is to focus on something you both care about. I care about children in slums and rural poverty. At bottom are slides of satellite photos of the largest slums in the world.
Here are my pictures inside. Closer yet. Names. What people are doing. Who they are. Who we are.
Are e-Waste Exports an Environmental Justice Issue?
By "wealthy", let's keep it simple. There are seven billion people.
The wealthier half have different jobs than the poorer 3.5 billion. But environmental justice is about geography, locations, and property value. Where do the poor people live? Why do they have different jobs than wealthy people? Foster the people...
Not all the wealthy live in the OECD... Mathematically, that would be impossible, as the OECD nations combine to form about 1.3 billion people. But the OECD nations account for even less than 1.3 billion or the "richest half"... because people live in places like this - slums - within the OECD.
Kamagasaki, Japan. A slum in Nishinari-Ku one of 24 wards in Osaka, with a density of 30,000 people in every 2000 meter radius.
Now, it may be a cheap shot to compare the Japanese slum of 30,000 to a slum of 1 million in (non-OECD) India:
Dharavi, India. A slum in Mumbai with approximately 1 million people.
Before you jump to the conclusion that the OECD countries like Japan have fewer ultra poor .. below is an even larger slum than Dharavi, with 4 million residents. It's in an OECD country (Mexico).
Neza-Chalco-Itza barrio, Mexico. A slum in Mexico city with approximately 4 million people
The camera angles get wider as you try to capture bigger slums. The source of these photos also has the slums of Kenya, Ghana, Columbia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Brazil, and Iraq. Not only is wealth "pixelized"... poverty is pixelized as well.
But the cities are developing. The poor come to the slums from the countryside, as if attracted by the lights. They see electricity. They see wifi. They taste the internet. The fruit of knowledge brings them to the barrio.
Wi-Fi will be in 42% of all households worldwide by 2016.
Wi-Fi network use will nearly double in homes around the world come 2016, according to new Strategy Analytics research. Already used in some 439 million households worldwide, equivalent to 25% of all households, Wi-Fi home network penetration will expand to 42%, reaching nearly 800 million by 2016, according to the “Broadband and Wi-Fi Households Global Forecast 2012” report.
Based on this updated analysis, we estimate that in 2009 the number of people without access to electricity was 1.3 billion or almost 20% of the world’s population.
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| Juan takes two LCD TVs, makes one (Lima). |
So if the majority of the 83% of the world which is not OECD has electricity and internet, just where are the photos of primitive, informal recycling taking place? The slums. The NGO cameras show, close up, what the satellites keep us safely apart from.
One of the best things you can do to set the table for formal reconciliation is to focus on something you both care about. I care about children in slums and rural poverty. At bottom are slides of satellite photos of the largest slums in the world.
Here are my pictures inside. Closer yet. Names. What people are doing. Who they are. Who we are.
