The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed not only the true value of nature and open public spaces, but it reified the presence and persistence of racism in and throughout American institutions. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health officials encouraged people to visit parks and green spaces as a way to be safe against COVID-19 transmission, the toxic presence and persistence of racism experienced by Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) was fully exposed. Through an examination of built, social and natural environments, this chapter will delve into historical and contemporary inequities stemming from structural racism. The toxic interrelationship between race-/class-based privilege and place, as well as its impact on nature and green space access and connection, particularly throughout the pandemic will be critically assessed.
One of the overarching problems of the world today is that too many people see themselves as dominating other groups of people, and dominating nature. That is a root problem. And thus part of a core solution builds from Kohlberg’s commitment to a universal moral orientation, though extended to include not only all people but the more-than-human world: animals, trees, plants, species, ecosystems, and the land itself. In this article, Peter Kahn makes a case for this form of ethical extensionism, and then present psychological evidence for it in both children and adults, including studies with inner-city Black youth and their parents. Then he builds on Piaget’s, Kohlberg’s, and Turiel’s emphasis that interaction with the physical and social world is a critical mechanism for development. His corollary is this: that to reverse the incredibly fast human-caused destruction of nature—the wellsprings of human existence—we need to deepen and extend people’s interactions with nature, and with its relatively wild forms, even in urban environments. Toward this end, Dr. Kahn discusses his current body of research and framework for urban design based on what are referred to as interaction patterns.
72 children across grades 1, 3, and 5 (mean ages, 7–5, 9–6, and 11–4) from an economically impoverished inner-city Black community were interviewed on their views and values about the natural environment. Assessments were made on whether children were aware of environmental problems, discussed environmental issues with their family, valued aspects of nature, and acted to help the environment. Additional assessments pertained to the prescriptivity and generalizability, and supporting justifications, of children’s normative environmental judgments based on a hypothetical scenario that involved polluting a waterway. Overall, children showed sensitivity to nature and awareness of environmental problems, although attenuated by both developmental and cultural factors. Most children believed that polluting a waterway was a violation of a moral obligation. Children’s environmental moral reasoning largely focused on homocentric considerations (e.g., that nature ought to be protected in order to protect human welfare). With much less frequency, children focused on biocentric considerations (e.g., that nature has intrinsic value or rights). Findings are discussed in terms of moral-developmental theory, and the place of social-cognitive research in understanding the human relationship to the natural environment.