In the early 2000s, when teaching high school in East St. The dynamics of politico-ecological exploitation and indebtedness are present not only on a global scale, but on regional and local scales as well. Indeed, the phenomena that Jorgenson describes helpfully illuminates Francis' claim in Laudato Si' that, "A true 'ecological debt' exists … connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time." This debt, in fact, has been accruing throughout centuries of extractive colonial and neocolonial oppression and abuse as Western powers have sought to reduce the soil, and all that comes from the soil, within colonized spaces into the commodities of land and labor. The Summers memo, therefore, simply sought to encourage and optimize an enduring reality. These same state and corporate actors simultaneously externalize the costs of pollution and ecological degradation to the "sink" of the Global South. It acts as a tap in that, throughout the South, the life-giving resources of the earth are appropriated, extracted and accumulated by state and corporate actors affiliated with the Global North. As Andrew Jorgenson, a sociologist at Boston College, observes, "Throughout human history, more powerful societies and nation-states have utilized their geopolitical-economic power to create and maintain ecologically unequal exchanges with less powerful and less developed societies and countries." Continuing in his description of this phenomena, Jorgenson finds that, in the contemporary world, the Global South functions as both a "tap" and a "sink" for the Global North. Indeed, the views of the Summers memo reflect a perennial injustice present within human history. Of course, the realization that the cries of the Earth and poor interpenetrate one another has always been evident to those with ears to hear and eyes to see. Here, though never stated explicitly, the message is plain: Love and care for neighbor and earth are rooted in the same soil and ought to be attended to accordingly. In this same narrative, God calls the human person "to cultivate and care" - which can also be translated as "to serve and preserve" - for the life of the garden ( Genesis 2:15). God breathes God's life-giving breath into each of these creatures. Later, God forms the animals of the earth out of the same soil. In the second creation narrative of Genesis, God forms the first human out of the fertile soils of the garden. The pope's insight into the closeness of the relationship between love of neighbor and earth is, in fact, consonant with the biblical witness. The recognition of this interrelatedness is foundational to the views of Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical " Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home." "Today," the pope exhorts, "we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor." As Francis makes clear, love of neighbor and love of earth cannot be separated. Rather the social and the environmental always inform one another intrinsically and inextricably. In appalling fashion, then, the views of the Summers memo capture the fact that questions of politics, economy and society can never be separated from those of ecology and the environment. The Summers memo, in effect, proposed turning these otherwise unspecified regions of Africa into what Steve Lerner labels "sacrifice zones." Moreover, whatever short-term economic gain some political and corporate interests might glean from accepting the migration of dirty industries, would be outweighed by the fact that the introduction of such industries would disincentivize other, more healthful, forms of economic development and societal formation. The ecosystems in these regions, and all the myriad forms of life that participate in these ecosystems, would be subjected to toxins and hazardous wastes. It is unlikely, of course, that the welfare of the "underpolluted" regions of Africa would be enhanced. Such transfers would be "world welfare enhancing," the memo asserted. "he economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable," the memo asserted, "and we should face up to that." It went on to single out sparsely populated countries in Africa as "underpolluted," and lamented the difficulty in efficiently transferring environmental costs to the African continent. The memo advocated for the "migration of the dirty industries" to the world's least developed countries. In 1991, while working as chief economist for the World Bank, Lawrence Summers authorized an internal memorandum for distribution at the bank.
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