Allyship describes a relationship of alliance, support, and shared purpose. With origins in political, military, and matrimonial relations, allyship today commonly describes how people in positions of power and privilege work in solidarity with marginalized groups (see profile of Water Allies). As many in this broadsheet series describe (see Simmons; Shotwell, SDUK03; LEAP Manifesto, SDUK01; and Whyte, SDUK01), allyship is not an identity to be claimed, but a relationship to be enacted through trust-building and recognition of systemic injustice.
Currency is specific to a group or nation, and typically refers to a material form, such as paper money and coins. Currency can also refer to objects of value that are alternative to conventional money, see Cutler, such as salt (which was historically paid to Roman soldiers, giving us the word “salary”). Currency fluctuations depend on innumerable variables, though D.T. Cochrane argues that prices should also be understood as socially constructed. Adam Dickinson’s poetry in this issue further reflects on relations between currency and social bodies through depictions of bacteria swabbed from money.
Decarbonization aspires toward a low-carbon or carbonless economy achieved through collaborative efforts by all levels of state government, and non-state actors such as industries and citizen groups (see profiles of Musket Transport and Environmental Governance Lab). In a recent example, Ontario’s shift from coal-derived electricity was in part inspired by advocacy from The Ontario Clean Air Alliance. But a fully decarbonized electricity grid does not necessarily mean a clean one, as sources such as nuclear power have non-carbon consequences (see Schaper).
Disaster: An unforeseen accident, natural event, or calamity causing grave damage or loss of life. Disaster is characterized by its abrupt occurrence, which demands coordinated and large-scale response by organizations and state agencies. Amid ongoing global cycles of disaster, some call the exploitation of these events disaster capitalism (see Hoffman)—wherein the interruption of everyday life is opportunistically used to restructure law enforcement, governance, and jurisdiction (see Simmons).
Divestment: the reduction or cessation of a set of investments. In the movement for fossil fuel divestment, this strategy is used to inspire decarbonization. Hern and Johal (SDUK02) consider how the Canadian economy is wedded to the oil industry, through perspectives from Fort McMurray. In this issue, Sharp reflects on fossil fuel divestment and broader decolonizing practices in museums, while Rowe & Shotwell consider citizens’ implication in colonial dispossession.
Epistemology is the study of the nature of human knowledge. Broadly speaking, epistemologies can encompass systems of knowledge and meaning-making, worldviews, and mechanisms for reason and justification. A diversity of epistemological frameworks exist: compare European scientific and museological epistemes (see Sharp) with concepts of Indigenous Place-Thought (Davis & Todd, SDUK01), and the diverse approaches to geology chronicled in Cutler.
Extreme weather: Abnormal weather conditions that deviate from recorded patterns in a given region, frequently expressed as floods, heat waves, hurricanes, and significant temperature variations (see disaster). In this issue, Carpenter reflects on contrasts amid everyday weather, while Hoffman reflects on how disaster management must address the structural conditions that produce unequal exposure to risk.
Flight: The action of flying through the air or travelling in an aircraft (Besco); the rapid passage of time; a flock or mass of airborne creatures; the action of fleeing (as in military retreat, white flight to racially homogenous suburbs, exodus, refuge, escape); and unrealistic plans or ideas (flights of fancy, flightiness).
Fluctuation has hydrological origins from the Latin term for wave, flow, and current. Commonly referring to variable or irregular phenomena such as weather and economic markets (Cochrane and Rowe & Shotwell), accounting for fluctuation is a way of planning for contingency and unpredictability.
Fracking (or hydraulic fracturing) ruptures rock formations for access to oil and natural gas deposits via a forced solution of chemical sand-water into a well. This process requires massive quantities of fresh water, that is ultimately contaminated and disposed of in tailings ponds or through injection deep underground. Oil companies that make use of fracking are represented in the CPP’s investment portfolios (see Rowe & Shotwell), and the seismic and pollutive effects of fracking continue to provoke widespread resistance (see profile of EGL).
Jurisdiction, in its legal sense, refers to the authority granted to a legal body or official, though its common usage refers to the geographic or administrative area overseen by an authority. Jurisdictional limits can pose problems in the context of current climate crises, as with the flow of aviation emissions outside and across state boundaries (see Besco), and where pollution and contamination impact communities not responsible for their production (see Simmons; Xiang, SDUK03).
Hydroelectric power is generated from the flow of water through dammed waterways. In Ontario, hydropower generates about one-third of the energy grid across 241 dams (see Schaper). Hydropower is often characterized as green energy; but damming introduces infrastructure that can profoundly reshape local environments, from inhibiting fish migration, to flooding/ebbing shorelines, and often disproportionately affecting Indigenous communities (see Robertson, SDUK04).
Immiseration: To make miserable, or render economically impoverished. The term evokes Marx’s “immiseration thesis,” which describes how the impoverishment of working people underpins capitalist accumulation of wealth—for example, through the externalization of costs (see Diamanti, SDUK03) or through automation and the elimination of paid labour.
Metabolism: The set of chemical processes that occur within an organism to sustain life. These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. “The metabolism of a body, however, is necessarily connected to the metabolism of the planet and its circulation of energy, resources, and capital,” (see Dickinson).
Offsetting: The payment of fees to mitigate the pollutive effects of a good or service. Offsetting is commonly found in aviation, where passengers can opt to offset flight pollution by paying at the point of purchase (see Besco). For critics of offsetting, this same convenience undermines environmental accountability by reducing ecosystems to economic terms; and logistically, critics cite the difficulty of holding beneficiaries of offset programs accountable (see Wood).
Porosity: A body or thing’s ability to absorb or be permeated by something external to it. Porosity can have the positive metaphoric sense of being responsive and attuned to one’s environment (see Albina in SDUK04); or, through the felt effects of pollution, it can express the vulnerability of a body to external contaminants (see Simmons, and Xiang in SDUK03).
Smog is a portmanteau (combining smoke and fog) describing severe air pollution made up of mostly nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, and ozone. The word was coined in 1905 to describe the new phenomenon of air pollution arising from the coal-powered industrial revolution. The invention of terms that accurately respond to our rapidly-changing climate allows us to take action; for example, Ontario has not seen a Smog Advisory since 2013 after its elimination of coal from electricity-generation (see Schaper).
Superfund is the nickname for the US Congress’s Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), a program that grants the Environmental Protection Agency the power to clean up contaminated sites. Superfund requires parties responsible for contamination to bear the costs (the “polluter pays” principle), or (if no responsible party can be found) provides the funds for site remediation. While Superfund was created to manage toxicity-related public health problems, it has also been criticized for classifying African American and Indigenous communities as lower priority sites for clean-up (see Simmons).