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Environmental justice in the twenty-first century

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... Opponents of strip mining had called for an outright ban, and only succeeded in attaining what even President Carter called a "watered down" version of the law (Montrie 2003, Kubasek & Silverman 2011. Some Appalachians remain doubtful of the capacity of the current environmental framework and regulatory agencies to protect their health, and thus are often motivated to battle the coal industry on their own (Buckley et al. 2005, Bullard 2005). ...
... Environmental justice (EJ) addresses the inequitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits across the landscape. The EJ Movement first emerged in the early 1980s in relation to a growing awareness that poor communities and people of color are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards in the U.S. (Bullard 2005, Bullard & Johnson 2000, Cole & Foster 2001, Morello-Frosh 2001. The most crucial accomplishment of the movement is that it has come to "redefine environmental protection as a basic right" (Bullard & Johnson 2000). ...
... In Warren, North Carolina, in the early 1980's, a black, rural community protested a proposed PCB disposal landfill. The event prompted a study by the U.S. General Accounting Office that determined that although African Americans made up only 20% of the population, three out of four off-site commercial waste sites were located in African American communities across eight Southern states (Austin & Schill 1991, Cole & Foster 2001, Bullard 2005. In another landmark study, the United Church of Christ in 1987 highlighted that 60% of African Americans and Hispanic Americans are situated in communities with toxic-waste sites (Bullard 1990, Austin & Schill 1991, Cole & Foster 2001. ...
... But the risk society idea arguably reveals the anxieties of White middle-class citizens trying to protect raced and classed "hallmarks of suburban privilege" from industrial and consumerist chemical exposures (Murphy 2004: 276). In addition to universal exposure, the PFAS crisis fl ashes out in geographically dispersed hotspots of contamination, each with its own unique history, each shaped by the structural inequities of the capitalist order and varied forms of environmental racism and classism (Bullard 2005;Harvey 1996;Hoover 2017;Pellow 2007). ...
... Toxic events are informed by a context-specifi c set of dynamics, including the negotiation of scientifi c and experiential causality between a contaminant and its health or environmental impacts (Brown 2007;Checker 2005); the materiality of the toxic substance itself and the ability to establish a temporal horizon of exposure (Agard-Jones 2014; Boudia et al. 2018;Hoover 2017); the complexity of its layering or churning with other toxic substances in situ or throughout time (Frickel and Elliott 2018;Goldstein and Hall 2015;Little 2014); the role of the media and allied researchers in illuminating the hazards and risks of exposure (Ahmann 2018;Langston 2010;Murphy 2004;Wylie 2018); the degree to which independent science over corporate interest informs the regulatory process (Button 2010;Dietrich 2013;Jasanoff 1998;Schuller and Button 2016); and the strength of grassroots groups in engaging in citizen science, humanizing the victims of toxic suff ering, or pressuring for recognition and action (Brown 2007;Bullard 2005;Kimura and Kinchy 2019;Lerner 2010;Pearson 2017;Pellow 2007;Renfrew 2018). ...
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This article examines the social life of PFAS contamination (a class of several thousand synthetic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and maps the growing research in the social sciences on the unique conundrums and complex travels of the “forever chemical.” We explore social, political, and cultural dimensions of PFAS toxicity, especially how PFAS move from unseen sites into individual bodies and into the public eye in late industrial contexts; how toxicity is comprehended, experienced, and imagined; the factors shaping regulatory action and ignorance; and how PFAS have been the subject of competing forms of knowledge production. Lastly, we highlight how people mobilize collectively, or become demobilized, in response to PFAS pollution/ toxicity. We argue that PFAS exposure experiences, perceptions, and responses move dynamically through a “toxicity continuum” spanning invisibility, suffering, resignation, and refusal. We off er the concept of the “toxic event” as a way to make sense of the contexts and conditions by which otherwise invisible pollution/toxicity turns into public, mass-mediated, and political episodes. We ground our review in our ongoing multisited ethnographic research on the PFAS exposure experience.
... Activists within the energy democracy movement assert that it is "rooted in the long-standing social and environmental justice movements" (Fairchild and Weinrub, 2017). Environmental justice refers to the rights of all people to benefit from a healthy environment, to be treated fairly in environmental decisionmaking, and to be meaningfully involved in environmental decision-making (Bullard, 2005). Environmental injustices are the inverse, wherein already underrepresented and historically marginalized communities experience disproportionate harms from the degradation of the environment (Bullard, 2005). ...
... Environmental justice refers to the rights of all people to benefit from a healthy environment, to be treated fairly in environmental decisionmaking, and to be meaningfully involved in environmental decision-making (Bullard, 2005). Environmental injustices are the inverse, wherein already underrepresented and historically marginalized communities experience disproportionate harms from the degradation of the environment (Bullard, 2005). From this perspective, justice is a component of energy democracy that calls attention to the distribution of risks and benefits in relation to energy decisions, who is participating in decisionmaking, whether there are equitable relationships, and the role of structural inequities-such as racism, colonialism, sexism, classism, and ruralism-on whom is served by energy decisions. ...
... Environmental injustice involves (among many other things) inequalities in the healthiness, safety, and beauty of people's living environments. It is contextual, has multiple meanings, and in the United States tends to disproportionately impact lowincome communities and African Americans and Hispanics (Bullard 2005;Holifield 2001;Kuletz 1998;Roberts and Toffolon-Weiss 2001;Taylor 2014;Walker 2012). These racial categories resulted from the enslavement of African Americans and the annexation and invasion of Mexico and thus are unique to nations with similarly racialized history (Morning 2008); the US government uses them to measure progress toward racial/ethnic equality. ...
... It is threats such as these to their homes or communities that cause people to mobilize into EJMs (Groves 2015;McAdam and Boudet 2012;Snow et al. 1998). In the United States, urban residents on the 'fenceline' of large refineries and petrochemical complexes tend to be disproportionately African American and Hispanic, and poor (Bullard 2005). The clustering of industrial hazards in poor, predominantly minority areas has been characterized as 'distributional injustice', which also involves a split distribution of risks to the marginalized and benefits to the privileged (Clough and Bell 2016;Jenkins et al. 2016;Shrader-Frechette 2002;Walker 2012). ...
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In this article, we draw on archival research, participant observation and content analysis to examine urban sustainability, networked infrastructures and environmental justice movements. We do this by focusing on proposal to develop Philadelphia into a natural gas energy hub. The proposal aimed to fully utilize fracking in the Marcellus Shale by privatizing the city’s gas utility (PGW) and expanding gas infrastructure such as petrochemical complexes and large gas transmission pipelines. The proposed development was enabled by federal and state-level legislation favorable to corporate interests, and by support for selling PGW by the Mayor of Philadelphia. Resistance by local- and national-scale environmental and climate justice coalitions and local labor unions soon drew the attention of Philadelphia City Council members, who refused to authorize the sale. This resistance put in motion several important developments that effectively blocked re-making Philadelphia into the next energy capitol. While it should be seen as just one chapter in an ongoing struggle against the complete utilization of fracking in the Marcellus Shale, this case illustrates the power of local resistance to block the flow of fracked gas through cities, and to push for less environmentally destructive economic expansion plans.
... These studies show that segregated areas are subject to lower quality education (Collins & Williams, 1999;Hummer, 1996), limited employment and economic opportunities (Krivo et al., 1998;Wilson, 1987Wilson, , 1996, and higher rates of social disorder, such as criminal activity, substance abuse, family breakdown, and female-headed households (Greenberg & Schneider, 1994;Shihadeh & Flynn, 1996;Testa, Astone, Krogh, & Neckerman, 1993;Wilson, 1987). Furthermore, studies demonstrate that segregation may lead to physical disorder, such as poorer housing quality, decreased access to services, housing code violations, vacant lots, broken windows, litter, graffiti, and abandoned buildings (Chang, Hillier, & Mehta, 2009;Shihadeh & Flynn, 1996;Williams, 1999), increased exposure environmental hazards and toxins (Bullard, 2005), limited access to nutritional foods, and greater access to junk foods, fast foods, tobacco, and alcohol (Bahr, 2007;Chang et al., 2009;Grier & Kumanyika, 2008;Kwate, 2008;Larson, Story, & Nelson, 2009;LaVeist & Wallace, 2000). More recently, scholars have turned their attention to the impact that segregation and the resulting social conditions can have on health and health-care outcomes. ...
... Issues related to segregation play a central role in much of the work on racial health disparities. The literature above on the various impacts of segregation considers obvious health implications, such as environmental hazards and physical disorder that reduce access to safe, green space for recreation and exercise, lack of adequate spatial access to nutritional foods, and an increased access to foods of poor nutritional quality (Bahr, 2007;Bullard, 2005;Chang et al., 2009;Grier & Kumanyika, 2008;Kwate, 2008;Larson et al., 2009;LaVeist & Wallace, 2000;Shihadeh & Flynn, 1996;Williams, 1999). In addition, many researchers have directly examined the impact of residential segregation on health. ...
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A developing body of research has demonstrated the impact of racial residential segregation on a variety of negative health outcomes. However, little is known about the effect of residential segregation on access to health care. This study utilizes multilevel binary logit models based on individual-level health data from the 2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System linked to metropolitan-area level data to examine the association between Black-White segregation in 136 metropolitan statistical areas in the United States and health-care coverage. Overall, an increase in Black-White segregation is related to a decrease in the likelihood of having health insurance for Black residents and an increase in the Black-White gap in health-care coverage. These effects are substantial even when controlling for the effects of educational, social, and economic factors. This study is the first to examine the impact of segregation on an individual's ability to access health-care coverage, which is an essential starting point for accessing health care in the United States.
... This article applies an environmental justice framework that incorporates the public health model of prevention and the precautionary principle [18] to the assessment of the community health implications of onshore unconventional oil and gas developments. The public health model of prevention focuses on eliminating a threat before harm can occur. ...
... Since at least the mid-1950s public health scientists, psychologists, and sociologists have studied how psychological, social, and environmental stressors impact individual and community susceptibility to disease or changes in overall health. In this previous work, a stress or stressor is defined as "any environmental, social, or internal demand which requires the individual to readjust his/her usual behavior patterns" [11, p. 54], having a negative influence on a person's overall well-being and quality of life, and in some cases triggering physiological mechanisms that in turn may determine an individual's or a community's susceptibility to disease, environmental pollution, or toxic substances [11,18,21]. ...
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The ethnographer's toolbox has within it a variety of methods for describing and analyzing the everyday lives of human beings that can be useful to public health practitioners and policymakers. These methods can be employed to uncover information on some of the harder-to-monitor psychological, sociocultural, and environmental factors that may lead to chronic stress in individuals and communities. In addition, because most ethnographic research studies involve deep and long-term engagement with local communities, the information collected by ethnographic researchers can be useful in tracking long- and short-term changes in overall well-being and health. Set within an environmental justice framework, this article uses examples from ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in the Marcellus Shale gas fields of Pennsylvania to describe and justify using an ethnographic approach to monitor the psychological and sociocultural determinants of community health as they relate to unconventional oil and gas development projects in the United States.
... When given more attention within the energy democracy literature, environmental concerns are rather expressed through highly human wellbeingcentred (rather than ecologically-centred) perspectives that put the emphasis on the linkages between social and environmental justice. This focus on "justice" reduces environmental issues to the rights for citizens to live in a healthy environment, to be treated fairly and meaningfully involved in environmental decision-making [38,45]. The same logic is at stake regarding climate issues, which are mostly addressed very generally and/or in terms of climate justice [38,46]. ...
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Energy citizenship is viewed as playing an essential role in the transition towards sustainable energy systems on a national and global scale. However, as a social science concept it is rather fuzzy and insufficiently elaborated. This paper proposes a conceptual typology of energy citizenship that aims for a balance between various competing understandings, in full awareness of ontological and disciplinary differences. The identification of conceptual dimensions and categories for the typology is based on a thorough literature research in the fields of energy social sciences and political sciences, resulting in the formulation of ten ideal types. In a next step, the conceptual typology was empirically tested and substantiated by mapping 596 cases of energy citizenship across Europe. This article presents the conceptual background of the typology and describes the ten ideal-types, highlighting conceptual characteristics, and illustrating them with salient examples. The conceptual typology captures the breadth of energy citizenship, encompassing both existing and possible types. It can be used by practitioners in the design of initiatives and/or policies acknowledging the various possible contributions of energy citizenship to a more sustainable, just and democratic energy system, and in social science studies on transformative social innovations, (dis)empowerment and "knowings of governance".
... Various organizations now publish estimates of how much more likely and intense extreme weather events were due to global warming (Achenbach 2017;Otto et al. 2018). These estimates are another arrow in frontline communities' rhetorical quiver, potentially building on vibrant environmental justice movements within and across the Global South and North (Bullard 2005;Keck and Sikkink 1998;Martinez-Alier et al. 2016). ...
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Much of modern climate science is motivated by the problem of human-caused climate change or its potential solutions, and aims to be “usable” for relevant stakeholders. Sobel (2021) argues in this issue that the expectation for improved climate projections to drive mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions “can now be understood [as] naive about the role of politics, and the power of entrenched interests to inhibit climate action.” While he criticizes this “linear model” of the science–policy interface; he does not elaborate on alternative avenues for scientific advances to spur mitigation. Instead, he encourages physical climate scientists who wish to produce usable results to orient their work towards informing adaptation. He argues that, relative to mitigation science, adaptation science is more likely to be used by stakeholders because the remaining scientific uncertainties are larger and the social barriers to implementation are lower. We join Sobel in calling on physical climate scientists to reflect upon the pathways through which their research improves societal welfare. However, we argue that Sobel’s argument overlooks an important theory of change, namely that mitigation science is politically usable through the non-linear dynamics of social mobilization. Social theories of policy change suggest that organized groups play an outsized role in setting the policy agenda. Grassroots activism on climate, however, has historically been hindered by the abstract nature of climate change, paling in comparison to the lobbying and misinformation campaigns funded by the vested fossil fuel interests. We describe how two recent advances in mitigation science, the Transient Climate Response to cumulative Emissions (TCRE) and Extreme Event Attribution (EEA), have provided social movements with information that allows them to re-frame the climate change problem in a way that attributes blame for the problem, motivates collective action across a diverse coalition of stakeholders, and could plausibly compel policymakers to prioritize the issue in the coming years. Given the utmost importance of mitigation in preventing climate change at the source, we thus advocate for a broader agenda of usable climate research that includes co-production of both mitigation and adaptation science.
... Th e environmental justice approach raises issues of spatial inequities facing racialized and poor communities due to unfavourable urban and regional development and policies. In particular, the dominant environmental justice perspective tackles whether environmental risks are concentrated for particular groups of people and their locations through discriminatory land-use planning and how to prevent it (Bullard 2005). Building from environmental justice, transportation justice literature highlights the historical under-investment in rapid transit services for racialized residents and risks faced by poor communities who live along highway corridors (Bullard 2009;Bullard and Johnson 1997). ...
Article
In response to population growth and events, Toronto is currently in the midst of debates about transportation planning. However, the perspectives of immigrants, especially women, who depend heavily on public transit, are often missing from academic and policy debates on transportation planning in Toronto. Due to Toronto’s changing demographic landscape, a transit planning strategy that is based on a deeper understanding of how immigrant groups travel across the city can further social equity in transportation. Drawing on qualitative interviews with immigrants on their experiences of public transit in Toronto, the paper proposes an environmental justice framework in order to consider the equity and sustainability issues inherent in Toronto stakeholders’ focus on transit expansion. The research findings highlight the limited affordability of public transit, the poor servicing and connectivity of transit networks, and the resulting barriers to accessing work opportunities across the region. Th e paper concludes by highlighting the need for new directions in transit policy and planning that can better address the changing demographics and social and spatial divisions in the city. Keywords: immigrants, transportation, environmental justice, public transit, gender, Toronto
... While most of the sociological and environmental justice literature has framed the analysis of environmental problems in terms of a focus on race or class (Commission for Racial Justice 1987;Krieg 1995;Bullard 2000), scholars such as Ashwood and MacTavish (2016), Pellow (2016), and Pruitt and Sobczynski (2016) propose that there is also utility in framing environmental inequalities socio-spatially by highlighting rurality. Analysis of urban and suburban environmental policy and movements continue to dominate environmental justice and environmental sociology literature (Bullard 2005). This spatial bias is surprising considering the 1984 Cerrell Report, a key source of data used by the environmental justice movement, explicitly noted that rural places are perfect for the placement of trash incinerators and other locally undesirable land uses (LULUs) (Powell 1984). ...
Preprint
Neoliberalism is often understood in terms of deregulation, privatization and withdrawal of the state in a globalized context. Fewer studies examine how neoliberal processes occur over time in particular sub-national spaces. Using archival data, I identify the steps taken by the state of Wisconsin to weaken its system of environmental protection and legally permit pollution through analysis of the rapid expansion of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). A critical juncture occurred in 1995 when Governor Tommy Thompson and the Republican dominated legislature eliminated a key environmental watchdog agency despite bipartisan opposition from the public. After this juncture, the state was placed on a path dependent trajectory towards neoliberalization. The state and industry acted in conjunction to enact incremental legal changes which privileged large farms and stripped rural Wisconsinites of access to legal remedies designed to curb polluting practices of large CAFOs to protect their drinking water sources. This process facilitated the creation of what this article terms “neoliberal sacrifice zones,” where states use law and policy to facilitate the needs of large corporations in ways that negatively affect not only the health of communities and the environment, but the health of democratic institutions.
... Environmental justice is about procedural and distributional justice, not opposing development as such, and nor is it about the 'not in my backyard' (NIMBY) ideology where communities simply advocate shifting hazardous industries from one locality to another. The movement's scope extends also to recognition and protection of community ways of life, local knowledge, and cultural difference (Bullard, 1983(Bullard, , 1994(Bullard, , 2005Camacho, 1998;Schrader-Frechette, 2002;Agyeman et al., 2003;Schlosberg, 2004Schlosberg, , 2007Schlosberg, , 2013Sze and London, 2008). Climate justice shares the environmental justice focus on the systemic causes, and the differential, inequitable and unjust impacts of environmental change, but with a particular focus on climate change (Angus, 2009;Pettit, 2004;Walker, 2012;Baer and Burgmann, 2012;Schlosberg and Collins, 2014). ...
Article
The Hunter Valley, in New South Wales, Australia, is a globally significant coal mining and exporting region. The Hunter economy's strong basis in fossil fuel production and consumption is challenged by e civil society campaigns employing environmental justice discourses. This paper analyses how two civil society campaigns in the Hunter region (‘Stop T4′ and 'Groundswell’) have countered the regional hegemony of fossil fuel interests from an environmental justice perspective. However, the discursive dominance of the'jobs versus environment’ frame hinders efforts to build solidarity amongst local environmental justice goals on the one hand, and workers and union aspirations for secure, quality jobs on the other. Long-term structural decline of global coal markets adds pressure for economic transition. We argue that campaigns to open up possibilities for transition away from fossil fuel dependency to a post-carbon society can be strengthened by engaging with the'just transition’ discourses that are typically associated with organised labour. Doing so can create synergy for social change by aligning community and labour movement interests. Inclusive social movement partnerships around this synergy must address structural disadvantage that creates social and economic insecurity if communities are to prevail over the fossil fuel sector's hegemony.
... The first international climate justice summit was held in 2000 in The Hague in parallel with the sixth United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties negotiations (Karliner, 2000). Following this in 2001, the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa provided a forum for discussions around environmental justice which led to a realisation of the global relevance of the subject matter (Bullard, 2000) Mhairi Aitken et al and facilitated international networking and exchange of experiences and ideas (MRFCJ, 2013). In June 2002, environmental organisations from around the world met in Bali to discuss climate justice, resulting in the 'Bali Principles of Climate Justice' and the creation of the Climate Action Network (CAN). ...
Article
In March 2012 the Scottish Parliament unanimously passed a motion 'strongly endors[ing] the opportunity for Scotland to champion climate justice'. To date, discussions around climate justice within Scottish policy have largely focussed on international dimensions. Questions remain as to what climate justice means at home in Scotland. This article aims to engage with such questions. It begins with an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of climate justice discourses and discusses the various ways that climate justice is framed and understood. We then introduce a categorisation of three broad approaches to climate justice which are being seen globally: Conceptual, pragmatic and transformative. We discuss how climate justice has been pursued in practice to illustrate the different forms that can occur under a climate justice banner, and the implications of different understandings of the concept. Using the human rights based approach to climate change as an illustration of the malleable nature of climate justice, we categorise and critique the dominant approach to climate justice used in Scotland. We find that climate justice is a label which can be applied to a range of practices, with differing results. It is hoped that this article encourages further reflection and debate on the particular flavour of climate justice which has been chosen in Scotland and its implications.
... Researchers have found that environmental injustice develops in a variety of ways; but most agree that disproportionate numbers of people of color and poor and workingclass people live in polluted communities close to extremely hazardous processes or facilities (Bullard 2005;Ringquist 2005;Cole and Foster 2001). In some cases, the hazardous plants began operation when industry was seen only as an economic boon and little was known about how pollutants affect human health (Davis 2002;Mercier 2001). ...
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In hayden, a formerly company-owned copper smelter town located in rural arizona, pollution with toxic heavy met-als and acids persisted for 90 years. Despite new environ-mental laws, the waning economic power of copper, and ac-cumulating epidemiological evidence of health damage, hay-den residents received little help from state regulators. Envi-ronmental injustice in hayden occurred through unequal power relations between copper workers and the multina-tional corporations that controlled u.s. Copper production. Latino workers were subordinated and the labor force divid-ed while corporations were able to mobilize bias and obtain favorable treatment from state government. But by the end of the 20th century, the relative power of copper corporations had declined while public awareness of environmental health and justice issues had increased, leading to a lawsuit by hay-den residents but not a reduction in the mobilization of bias.
... The environmental justice movement took form in the USA, in the 1980s (Brulle and Pellow, 2006;Bullard, 2005). Founded on the observation of over-representation of ethnic minorities close to polluted and/or dangerous sites, this issue has progressively found an audience among scientific and political communities. ...
... This literature illustrates that segregated neighborhoods experience a variety of social problems, including lower quality education (Collins and Williams 1999), limited economic and labor market opportunities (Wilson 1987(Wilson , 1996Krivo et al. 1998), and higher rates of criminal activity, substance abuse, family breakdown, and female-headed households (Wilson 1987;Testa et al. 1993;Greenberg and Schneider 1994). Additionally, studies show that segregation may lead to physical disorder (Shihadeh and Flynn 1996;Chang et al. 2009), poorer housing quality (Williams 1999), and increased exposure to environmental harms (Bullard 2005). ...
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The literature on the relationship between residential segregation and health outcomes for African Americans is well developed, but less is known about this association for Latinos in the USA. The literature for Latinos is limited, demonstrates mixed results, and suffers from data limitations. Using geographic concentration of poverty theory, we analyze the impact of Latino segregation on a series of health and health-care outcomes in order to better establish this relationship. This study uses data from the 2011 to 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System nested within metropolitan area-level data in a set of partial proportional odds and binary logistic multilevel regression models. We examine the relationship between Latino segregation and three health and health-care outcomes for 164 metropolitan areas in the USA. Overall, we find that Latino segregation is negatively related to good self-rated health, having a personal physician, and having health insurance for Latino respondents. Furthermore, for White respondents, no such association exists. As a result, residential segregation for Latinos contributes to the Latino–White health gap.
... 67). Thus, we see that from the beginning, long before the rise of the modern EJ movement in the early 1980s (see Bullard 2005 for a brief history of the movement in the U.S.), African Americans have fostered a unique brand of environmentalism, one that has emphasized the close connection between social justice and environmental concern. The concept of the dependence of environmental concern on social justice appears to be deeply rooted in African American consciousness. ...
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The images of human suffering from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina remain seared in our nation's collective memory. More than 8 years on, the city and its African-American population still have not recovered fully. This reality highlights an important truth: the disturbances that accompany climate change will first and foremost affect minority communities, many of whom are economically disadvantaged. This paper: (1) describes how Hurricane Katrina, an example of the type of natural disaster that will become more prevalent with intensifying climate change, has impacted the black community of New Orleans; (2) explores the notion that African Americans, in the midst of racial oppression, have developed a unique and powerful brand of environmental thought that has much to contribute to mainstream environmentalism; and (3) argues that the voice of the black community, which has a vested interest in climate outcomes, is critically needed in today's climate debate.
... Issues revolving around environmental health and justice gained progressively greater attention by around 1960. These issues are prominent influences within environmental anthropology, especially in the environmental justice movements (e.g., Johnston 1995, Bullard 2005b). ...
Article
NATURE'S CLASSROOM: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION DOROTHEA JODY OWENS ABSTRACT This ethnographic case study examines the dynamic relationship between culture and environmental education within the context of a specific Florida-based public education program. The School District of Hillsborough County (SDHC) offers the program through a three-day field trip to the study site, Nature's Classroom, and accompanying classroom curriculum. The site is located in Thonotosassa on the Hillsborough River, and serves approximately 13,500 to 15,000 sixth grade students annually. The key purpose of the research was to explore public education in a local setting as a vehicle for the transfer and acquisition of cultural knowledge, values, beliefs, and attitudes related to the environment. My primary research question is as follows: What role do American cultural values play in the public education system, as demonstrated in environmental education at Nature's Classroom? Factors that guided data collection include the sociocultural and historical context, the field site itself, curriculum development and content, delivery of the curriculum to students, student outcomes, and additional or external factors that could potentially influence outcomes. This dissertation explores the six factors using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection and analysis. Methods include participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and archival document reviews. Results indicate that environmental education at this site has evolved in tandem with broader sociocultural trends in environmentalism, anthropology, and environmental education. Students show positive gains in knowledge and skills related to the environment.
... Acknowledging that environmental justice movements in the twentyfirst century have ''matured and diversified'' and that they are no longer always locally initiated or sustained and are instead imbued with an ''international worldview'' (Bullard 2005) is my starting point for analyzing actor and identity formation on Sakhalin today. Environmental justice issues arise and are contested precisely because differing worldviews create different understandings of sustainability and of the roles of different actors (e.g., expatriates associated with multinational corporations, government officials, the island's citizens) in creating ''sustainable Sakhalin.'' ...
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This chapter examines the emerging sustainability movement on Sakhalin Island in Russia. It analyzes the dominant discourses on sustainability among the many actors involved in the island’s socioeconomic, political, cultural, and environmental transformation in order to understand the strategies employed to achieve environmental justice. It argues that the socioeconomic and environmental change on Sakhalin Island may be attributed to multinational-led offshore hydrocarbon development in the Sea of Okhotsk.
... For example, Santiago in Chile and Los Angeles in California both experience smog that persists for extended periods and with Chile adding 7% more vehicles on roads annually, the air pollution problems will not disappear (Brown, 1998). Additionally, students in schools close to major highways have elevated occurrences of respiratory distress; data show that people living within 300 meters of major highways are more likely to have asthma, leukemia, and cardiovascular disease (Bullard, 2005). ...
... In numerous articles and books, Robert Bullard (1990Bullard ( , 2001Bullard ( , 2002 reports a pattern of racial segregation, expulsive zoning, urban sprawl and a host of transportation, housing and waste issues that translate into a pattern of hazards accumulating close to poor, minority neighborhoods. The evidence of a race-based pattern of disparate environmental impact has led some scholars and activists to charge that these development trends qualify as 'environmental racism', identifying decisions that allow toxic and dangerous land uses in minority neighborhoods as a continued example of race-and classbased discrimination in American society (Laveist, 1992;Pastor et al., 2001). ...
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This article is a primer on the emerging role for Information Technology (IT) in the Environmental Justice (EJ) movement. It explores current and potential uses of IT by EJ organisations fighting to protect vulnerable local environments and it addresses some of the barriers to more widespread movement efficacy via e-advocacy. We argue a chief but not insurmountable barrier is the disproportionate access to, and knowledge of, the benefits of using IT in the struggle for equitable decisions about environmental impacts.
... The environmental justice movement formed in response to lived experiences of people and empirically documented instances of environmental injustices in their communities. Members, locations of struggles, and issues in the environmental justice movement are diverse (Schlosberg 1999, Cole and Foster 2001, Bullard 2005a, 2005b, Pezzullo and Sandler 2007. Cole and Foster (2001) identify myriad roots of environmental justice in civil rights, indigenous, labour, and anti-toxics movements as well as in academia. ...
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The purpose of this essay is twofold. First, I examine interdisciplinary literature to reveal the environmental injustices associated with the front and back ends of nuclear power production in the USA – Uranium mining and high-level nuclear waste (HLW) storage. Second, I argue that the injustices associated with nuclear power are upheld, in part, through discourse. This essay examines how the term “wasteland” is invoked in relation to HLW waste storage in the USA and contributes to the discursive formation of nuclear colonialism. Examination of this discourse not only contributes to current literature on nuclear colonialism but also to environmental justice research by arguing for the importance of examining the discursive aspects of environmental injustices. Further, the essay adds to current scholarship in energy justice by highlighting the environmental injustices associated with nuclear power.
... The constructivist patterns underline the role of the social context the individual comes from, his/her lifestyle, his/her own risk portfolio. People analyze the received information, however they interpret them on frameworks structured on the social experiences they are involved in and the culture of the group they are coming from789. On a larger range, the risk perception means to become conscious that the environment (or an environmental factor) is dangerous, and to develop an interpretation in accordance with the other references schemes, which are used. ...
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The theme of the risk, as a public problem, is rarely debated in Romania. In the world, the research related to the risk perception, especially the environment risk, started 59 years ago, on the grounds of the nuclear danger. The environment-risk perception at children depends on the prior perceptions acting as decoding filters, nonetheless it can be influenced by the targeted environment oriented education, correcting the false perceptions and aiding the children to form a set of perennial values and to digest healthy behaviours. The work presents the results of the study made on 446 pupils in the primary classes, in three schools from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, with the purpose to encourage environmental friendly behaviours by combining previous strategies (modifying the attitudes and the values towards the environment) with the consecutive strategies (of recompense for the pro-environment behaviours). The study demonstrates the role and the importance both of the school, and the parents’ level of instruction, in building and consolidating the environment consciousness at children.
... Recognition of the Interconnection Between the Three: If equal opportunities policies stop at celebrating cultural diversity and establishing positive and non-stereotypical role models, and do not see themselves as a development of broader economic justice, then they can be viewed as, in essence, conservative, for failing to challenge the status quo, based as it is on social class and exploitation (Bullard, 2005 formation, such as current data and specific issues, which are transient to a greater or lesser degree, even though the mode of their analysis may not be so. ...
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In this paper we set out proposals that constitute a democratic Marxist manifesto for teacher education for economic, environmental and social justice. In doing so, we of course recognise structural limitations on progressive action but also that teacher agency is shaped and not erased by these. We therefore sketch the strategic shape a transformative UK teacher education might take in resistance to attacks on workers from longstanding neoliberal hegemony and, more recently, from so-called ‘austerity’. © 2018, Institute for Education Policy Studies. All rights reserved.
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Self-determination aims to provide everyone the opportunity to sketch their life trajectories. Seemingly aspirational, paths are continuously influenced throughout childhood by both favourable and unfavourable factors. Natural environmental exposures have considerable impacts on development that give rise to transgenerational and community-wide consequences by influencing physical, emotional, and cognitive growth. Each interference can affect academic performance, the ability to reach one’s full potential, and ultimately generational social mobility. The ongoing relationship between early development and hindered self-determination is particularly concerning for non-white and low-income communities in the United States, where children experience disproportionately poor environmental conditions. This paper discusses the multi-scalar effects that stem from such exposures to propose environmental justice efforts as the path toward protecting self-determination. Through reviewing human rights, environmental racism, and capability considerations, the paper illustrates how decades of research have cumulated to create a progression toward equity.
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This chapter provides discussion of how the New South Wales Land and Environment Court (NSWLEC) acted in several important legal cases in Australia involving mining companies. It begins by mapping out aspects of eco-justice (comprised of environmental, ecological, and species justice considerations) and ecocentrism as a philosophical perspective based on the intrinsic worth and value of nature. The chapter then describes the approach of the NSWLEC to matters of ecology and ecological integrity, acknowledgment of the interests and voices of Indigenous people, and the significance of climate change in contemporary assessments of potential environmental impact. The chapter demonstrates how laws and courts are sites of contestation where, occasionally, mining companies can be taken to task and held accountable for their actions—past, present, and future.
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The production of global solid waste has reached an all-time high with over two billion tons discarded each year—much of it burned, illegally dumped at sea, or buried in unregulated landfills (The World Bank 2019). The United Nations Environment Assembly has declared the current waste problem a “global crisis” (Parker 2019), with estimates predicting that the present rate will worsen threefold by 2050 based on existing consumption and disposal rates (Ellis 2018). The international community has responded with expanding laws and regulations that seek to ensure that waste is disposed of in safe, sustainable and renewable ways. Such measures, however, have increased the costs of disposal and have inadvertently enlarged illegal markets in dumping and transference (European Commission 2019). This article examines the ways in which transnational corporations have avoided the rising costs of lawful disposal by shipping their waste to poor countries in the Global South—often with devastating social and environmental impacts. This article draws on world systems theory (Wallerstein 2004) and political ecology (Bedford et al. 2019; Forsyth 2008) in order to embellish discourses in green criminology and southern criminology (Brisman et al. 2018; Carrington et al. 2018; Goyes 2019) and to examine critically the contemporary social and environmental harms generated by the illegal transference of solid and hazardous waste.
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This chapter offers a political economic analysis of the Magurchara gas explosion in Moulvibazar, Bangladesh (June 14, 1997), at a site operated by Occidental Petroleum Corporation ("Occidental"). The gas in the Magurchara Gas Field continued to burn for 17 days, causing harm to the people living nearby, as well as infrastructure loss and grave environmental destruction, including damage to rainforests, farmlands, and tea plantations. This chapter describes how the Magurchara gas explosion exemplifies the nature of capitalist resource exploitation, in which both national and global institutions contribute to disruptions in the socioecological system. It begins by providing a brief history of exploration for and extraction of natural resources in Bangladesh. Next, it offers a short account of the Magurchara explosion with heightened attention to its socioecological consequences. From here, it engages in a critical examination of corporate negligence in and after the disaster, illustrating how and why the Bangladeshi government is complicit with corporate interests. The ensuing section analyzes why the negotiations over compensation fell through, leading the author to unpack what went wrong in the negotiations over compensation and to highlight how the consequences of the Magurchara gas explosion are continuing today and how the demand for justice for socioecological damage remains largely obscured and unresolved. The chapter concludes with a meditation on the implications for scholars studying the political economy of environmental harm.
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This paper describes how a green energy surplus region changed over the years to a thermal energy-mix, driven by environmentalist forces’ strong opposition to Hydro-Electric Power Projects (HEPPs) in Kerala, India. The specific instance of the proposed Athirappilly HEPP is discussed against the background of the opposition of environmentalists and other sympathetic associations. The strong opposition to HEPPs in specific local contexts has led to increased emissions in other places. The tenets of Energy Justice – distributional, procedural, recognition and cosmopolitan – have been challenged by the environmentalists’ movement against the Athirappilly HEPP. The inherent conflicts between Environment Law and Climate Law on the one hand and the principles of Energy Justice and Law on the other are pointed out. The concept of “Power-Environ” is introduced and characterized, and its relation to Energy Justice and Law is explored in the policy context. The concept proposed here serves as a foundation for realizing parsimonious and effective representation of the opposition to HEPPs, and ushering Energy Justice and Law. The use of this concept, as an integrated whole founded on the principles of Energy Justice and Law, should facilitate balanced policy-making in the Energy sector, especially in India and hopefully across the world too.
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As efforts to decarbonize the electric sector take on increased urgency, governments are turning to wood pellets as a potential renewable energy resource. However, the production of pellets from woody biomass has immediate community-wide impacts on air and water quality. This article investigates the siting of wood pellet production facilities in the southeastern United States and finds that they are 50% more likely to be located in environmental justice (EJ)-designated communities. We define an EJ community as a county where the poverty level is above the state median and at least 25% of the population is nonwhite. In addition, we find that all biomass pellet mills in North Carolina and South Carolina are in EJ communities. There is a longstanding history of EJ communities being disproportionately targeted for the siting of coal and natural gas power plants, in addition to waste-to-energy plants and landfills. Wood pellet production facilities are similar to these plants in their emissions of harmful particulate matter, airborne pollutants such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and their degradation of local water quality. Wood pellet production is increasing rapidly in the southeastern United States. These data add to growing evidence that biomass pellet mills in the southeastern United States place an undue burden on economically depressed areas of color.
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In this article, we ask how considerations about moral (and immoral) ecologies have motivated and shaped ecological resistance movements. The concept of 'moral ecologies' involves expectations of reciprocal, just, and sustainable relations between society and environment, which we consider a central concern of environmental movements. We analyze the cultural, material, and political importance of moral ecologies as a form of resistance by examining social movements in Alaska and Turkey, as well as ideas about sumak kawsay ('good living') in Ecuador and historical precursors in the form of the 'righteous ruler' in early medieval Ireland. Our analysis demonstrates that a focus on moral ecologies has often resonated widely, facilitated new and cross-cutting coalitions, and in some cases garnered elite support and significantly influenced national politics and landscapes.
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Environmental justice is critical to our efforts to preserve the human habitat from the degradation of pollution and climate change because of the need for cooperation and due to our ignorance of how the intertwined effects of our actions in one locality affect the quality of life in other localities across the world. While environmental justice questions are often focused on the location choices for specific activities that pollute, another important perspective is environmental justice over the life cycle of the production of products. Upon close examination renewable energies, critical alternatives to the fossil fuels which induce climate change, have environmental justice issues over their life cycles. Formal, statutory national law is not sufficient to address environmental justice problems along product life cycles in a world in which production is globalised and environmental effects pass beyond political borders. The responses to this challenge must draw on an interacting combination of information, custom, soft law, such as international standards and certification, and formal national laws. Through an interesting complex of intertwined effects, this system has already advanced our capacity to address environmental justice problems along product life cycles. The magnitude of the challenge and the complexity of the system demand ongoing effort and further innovation. Also, the system is not well configured to address our burgeoning consumption which continues to expand the burdens of future generations.
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The present body of scholarship suggests that Black Americans seek mental health services at much lower rates than their White American counterparts. The explanations for these decreased levels of mental health help-seeking typically distinguish “barriers” such as stigmatization, lack of culturally relevant treatment models, and negative attitudes toward mental health services. The final results of these analyses are not invalid; however, this researcher contends that they are arguably incomplete. Black Americans must navigate countless obstacles rooted in systematic oppression, institutional inequalities, and structural disparities when seeking help for mental health concerns. This article reviews a set of key terms to offer a historically based and culturally candid perspective on those mental health service seeking experiences for underresourced Black Americans living in environmentally toxic urban spaces. The four theoretical concepts of historical trauma, environmental toxicity, culturally bound economic insecurity, and cultural mistrust both individually and interactively are used to present a more realistic topography of the mental health (help-seeking) experiences for underresourced Black Americans. These ideas are collectively positioned as the theoretical construct of obstructed use.
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The environmental justice movement’s greatest legacy may be its impact on where we as a society look to find “environmental” problems. Today, the idea that the “natural world” can be found in the middle of a heavily populated city may seem rather obvious, but early strands of environmentalism tended to focus on a natural world outside of human society, seeking “nature” in the woods or the wilderness, not in the city streets. Some individuals sought to preserve this wilderness, to protect it from human activities, while others sought to manage it for human purposes. But although they may have valued the natural world for different reasons, they nevertheless understood it to exist “out there” in a place people may visit but rarely live. Environmental justice activists are not, of course, the only reason people view the natural world differently today. The environmental agenda was undoubtedly influenced by a number of factors. In the 1960s, for example, growing concern regarding the health threats connected to industrial pollution and chemical use resulted in public support for legislative reform and the major federal environmental laws that govern these concerns today. In fact, it was against the backdrop of these new environmental laws in the 1970s and 1980s that the environmental justice movement emerged. It is the movement’s response to the implementation of these environmental policies that has shaped its view of the “natural world” and its demand that environmental law focus on the places where people “live, work, and play.”
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Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal examines women's efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. Mountaintop removal coal mining, which involves demolishing the tops of hills and mountains to provide access to coal seams, is one of the most significant environmental threats in Appalachia, where it is most commonly practiced. The Appalachian women featured in Barry's book have firsthand experience with the negative impacts of Big Coal in West Virginia. Through their work in organizations such as the Coal River Mountain Watch and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, they fight to save their mountain communities by promoting the development of alternative energy resources. Barry's engaging and original work reveals how women's tireless organizing efforts have made mountaintop removal a global political and environmental issue and laid the groundwork for a robust environmental justice movement in central Appalachia.
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Over the past ten years, the study of environmental harm and 'crimes against nature' has become an increasingly popular area of research amongst criminologists. This book represents the fi rst international, comprehensive and introductory text for green criminology, offering a concise exposition of theory and concepts and providing extensive geographical coverage, diversity and depth to the many issues pertaining to environmental harm and crime. Divided into three sections, the book draws on a range of international case studies and examples, and looks at the conceptual and methodological foundations of green criminology, before examining in detail areas of environmental crime and harm, and how they are addressed, including: • climate change and social conflict; • abuse and harm to animals; • threats to bio-diversity; • pollution and toxic waste; • environmental victims; • environmental regulation, law enforcement and courts; • environmental forensic studies; • environmental crime prevention. Green Criminology is packed with pedagogical features, including dialogue boxes, case examples, discussion questions and lists of further reading and is perfect for students around the world engaged with green criminology and crime against the environment
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Environmental justice is concerned with the health and wellbeing of individuals, groups and communities in regards to toxic environments. Within this framework, it has long been noted that oil, timber and minerals are extracted in ways that can devastate local ecosystems and destroy traditional cultures and livelihoods. Resource extraction is thus not socially and environmentally neutral but has a number of potential ramifications directly related to ecological wellbeing and human health. The aim of this paper is to explore the social injuries associated with the mining industry, especially as this pertains to vulnerable population groups. As the title indicates, a key concern is what resource extraction leaves behind and how this impacts upon local areas now and into the future.
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Mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) is a form of surface mining frequently utilized in Central Appalachia. MTR is exactly what the name suggests; mountaintops are removed to expose coal seams for cheap extraction. The harmful environmental implications of this form of mining are well documented. Research also shows that MTR has detrimental effects on human health and on the functioning of local communities. Although virtually no research has been undertaken on the psychological effects of MTR, reports of people living close to MTR sites along with research on similar environmental problems suggest a high probability of an increased risk of mental health problems for those living near MTR sites. Solastalgia due to drastic environmental changes, eco-anxiety, and stress resulting from the dangerous and noxious aspects of MTR are likely among the most significant contributors to this increased risk of mental health problems. High rates of unemployment and poverty and lower rates of educational attainment persist in Central Appalachia despite significant gains in other areas of Appalachia. These pre-existing socioeconomic problems compound the stressors created by MTR.
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From the Ogoni people devastated by oil drilling in Nigeria to the Inuit and other indigenous populations threatened by climate change, communities disparately burdened by environmental degradation are increasingly framing their demands for environmental justice in the language of environmental human rights. Domestic and international tribunals have concluded that failure to protect the environment violates a variety of human rights (including the rights to life, health, food, water, property, and privacy; the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands and resources; and the right to a healthy environment). Some scholars have questioned the utility of the human rights framework given the diminished governance capacity of many Third World states due to decades of intervention by international financial institutions and restrictions imposed by trade and investment agreements. Others have expressed doubts about the ability of human rights law to adequately articulate and advance the aspirations and resistance strategies of diverse grassroots social justice movements, and have warned about the susceptibility of human rights law and discourse to cooptation by powerful states to advance their own economic and political interests (for example, through “humanitarian intervention” in Third World states). This article examines the promise and the peril of environmental human rights as a means of challenging environmental injustice within nations as well as the North-South dimension of environmental injustice. Drawing a distinction between human rights discourse as a tool of popular mobilization and human rights law as codified in legal instruments and enforced by international institutions, the article examines some of the limitations of human rights law as an instrument of resistance to environmental injustice and offers several strategies to enhance its emancipatory potential.
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This article explores the political, economic and ecological context within which environmental insecurity emerges and feeds back into a fortress mentality. Shortages of food, water and energy sources are the trigger for nefarious activities involving organized criminal networks, transnational corporations and governments at varying political levels. The consequences of such activities contribute to even more ruthless exploitation of rapidly vanishing natural resources, as well as the further diminishment of air, soil and water quality. These developments, in turn, exacerbate the competitive scramble by individuals, groups and nations for what is left. The accompanying insecurities and vulnerabilities ensure elite and popular support for self-interested ‘security’. Accordingly, the ‘fortress’ is being constructed and reconstructed at individual, local, national and regional levels—as both an attitude of mind and a material reality. Fundamentally, the basis for this fortress mentality is linked to decades of neo-liberal policy and practice that have embedded an individualizing and competitive self-interest that, collectively, is overriding prudent and precautionary policy construction around climate change and environmental degradation. The net result is that security is being built on a platform of state, corporate and organized group wrongdoing and injustice, in many instances with the implied and/or overt consent of relevant publics. Yet, as long as the fortification continues apace, it will contribute to and further exacerbate varying levels of insecurity for all.
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This paper explores the nature and impact of local and global environmental injustice in Africa. It shows that some people have been and still become toxic victims, carrying the brunt of inequitable environmental costs because of the transfer of risks and environmental hazards to some African countries through the export of toxic waste and hazardous industries. This paper suggests that besides local and national efforts global governance should be in place to address the current global environmental injustice. Distributive, participatory, and recognition justice along with measures that promote human capabilities is required to promote ecological democracy in the world.
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While much of the environmental justice literature has focused on exposure to environmental contaminants, this article argues that access to environmental goods should be explored, as well. We do this by looking at the rates paid for drinking and wastewater infrastructure in the United States (US). Although US residents, in aggregate, pay very little for water and sewer (around 1% of household income), the rate varies significantly by place (with Chicago residents paying roughly one fourth of the rates of residents in Atlanta, for instance). We ask whether particular groups may disproportionately pay higher rates. Using census data, we compare the cost of water and sewer across counties in Michigan and find tremendous disparity in reported expenditure. We then use multivariate regression analysis to investigate the relationship among income, urbanicity, race, and cost of water and sewer. Our findings indicate that a higher reported cost of water and sewer is associated most strongly with minority racial status. This results from postindustrial divestment and subsequent depopulation of particular urban areas. As a result, decreased demand (fewer households remaining in the city) actually increases prices (per remaining household), since water infrastructure costs are fixed, and this phenomenon disproportionately disadvantages people of color—who make up the majority of the great industrial cities.Environmental Practice 13:386–395 (2011)
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While concern for social justice has contributed to social work being sensitive to women's rights, gender equity, racism, colonialism and many other forms of oppression, the profession's embeddedness in modernity has limited its ability to move beyond an anthropocentric mindset. Consequently social injustices that accompany environmental destruction, remain at the margins of social work practices. This article examines justice issues in the context of contemporary environmental challenges and points out that environmental destruction carries distinct, often severe, social injustices to which social work should attend. Spirituality can play a vital role in drawing social and environmental injustices together enabling a truly transformative and radical practice.
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The risk of contaminating surface and groundwater as a result of shale gas extraction using high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has not been assessed using conventional risk assessment methodologies. Baseline (pre-fracking) data on relevant water quality indicators, needed for meaningful risk assessment, are largely lacking. To fill this gap, the nonprofit Community Science Institute (CSI) partners with community volunteers who perform regular sampling of more than 50 streams in the Marcellus and Utica Shale regions of upstate New York; samples are analyzed for parameters associated with HVHHF. Similar baseline data on regional groundwater comes from CSI's testing of private drinking water wells. Analytic results for groundwater (with permission) and surface water are made publicly available in an interactive, searchable database. Baseline concentrations of potential contaminants from shale gas operations are found to be low, suggesting that early community-based monitoring is an effective foundation for assessing later contamination due to fracking.
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Environmental justice lies at the heart of many environmental disputes between the global North and the global South as well as grassroots environmental struggles within nations. However, the discourse of international environmental law is often ahistorical and technocratic. It neither educates the North about its inordinate contribution to global environmental problems nor provides an adequate response to the concerns of nations and communities disproportionately burdened by poverty and environmental degradation. This article examines some of the root causes of environmental injustice among and within nations from the colonial period to the present, and discusses several strategies that can be used to integrate environmental justice into the broader corpus of international law so as to promote social and economic justice while protecting the planet’s natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
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Children living in poverty are disproportionately at risk from and affected by environmental hazards. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 13 million children in America live in poverty. Thus, not only are millions of children living in poverty but are also living in environments that are hazardous to their health. Impoverished children are more likely to live in environments with heavily polluting industries, hazardous waste sites, contaminated water and soil, in old housing with deteriorating lead-based paint, in areas with limited access to healthy food, and more. Poor children residing in these toxic environments are either at risk or suffer from a myriad of health disparities, such as asthma, cancer, lead poisoning, obesity, and hyperactivity. This unfortunate reality is better known as environmental injustice. Environmental injustice recognizes that economically disadvantaged groups are adversely affected by environmental hazards more than other groups. To remedy this dilemma, environmental justice seeks to address these unfair burdens of environmental health hazards on poor communities. The purpose of this article is to (a) examine the environmental living conditions of children living in poverty, (b) examine the environmental health disparities of children living in poverty, (c) discuss environmental justice legislation, (d) describe government initiatives to improve environmental health, and (e) propose recommendations that executes measures to protect the health of children.
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Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a method to improve environmental quality in communities primarily inhabited by minorities or low-income families. The Buffalo Lupus Project was a CBPR partnership formed to explore the relationship between a local waste site and high rates of lupus. The "Behind the Fence" Community Environmental Forum Theater project was able to successfully funnel the results of scientific research and ongoing activities to the community by utilizing a Forum Theater approach, image-making techniques, an interactive workshop, and energetic public performance. Filming of project activities will expand the reach of that original performance and provide other communities with a potential model for similar efforts.
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