The environmental impact on different social groups and environmental social work

Abstract

This dissertation will focus on the environmental aspect of social work, commonly known as environmental social work or ‘green’ social work. More specifically this dissertation will study in-depth the effect that the environment has on the lives of individuals. This dissertation is therefore based on two particular principles. The first principle is that the environment has an effect on the world's population. An article by the World Health Organisation (2016), has reported that 1.4 million people in the European region die every year due to diseases caused by environmental pollution. The article explains that such diseases include respiratory and cardiovascular problems and cancers. What the article fails to state is the way that those diseases have in turn affected the lives of the individuals before causing death, for example, the financial burden that certain medication places upon people, or the amount of sick leave a person has to take from work to cater for their health or the effect of bereavement that a particular death would have on the rest of the family members. These are only a few of the consequences that result from the effects of the environment on humanity and more in-depth research will no doubt show different effects of the environment apart from diseases and more repercussions of such effects. The second principle is that social workers are in some ways obliged to alleviate such effects and burdens placed on those most vulnerable in society. The International Federation of Social Work acknowledges that social work needs to address issues that threaten the third-generation rights. In the third paragraph of the section titled ‘Principles’, they describe these rights as the “focus on the natural world and the right to species biodiversity and inter-generational equity” (2014). On their website the International Federation of Social Work (2020) has a page specifically addressing a Climate Justice Programme that aims to elevate injustice through monetary contributions to fund solutions that might elevate injustices. In this web page the IFSW explains that social injustice occurs when the consumption patterns of the majority of the people creates burdens on the most vulnerable and marginalised people of society, who most often have less consumption patterns. IFSW is urging social workers to be a part of the solution by “find[ing] ways to connect with each other in order to build solidarity, share critical research findings, ideas, and resources, and to network for collaborative solutions to the issues we are charged to address as a profession (2020 para.5).” Clearly the Federation has added the responsibility towards environmental justice to the social work mandate and this ideology is spread throughout the literature on environmental social work (e.g. Gray, Coates & Hetherington, 2013; Molyneux, 2010). […]