The Environmental Justice Movement Is The Confluence Of Three Of America 's Greatest Challenges

Environmental Racism can be described as, the intentional or unintentional placement of hazardous waste sites, landfills, or industries that are polluting communities mainly those inhabited by African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and Asians, as well as the working poor. In the broadest sense, Environmental Racism, is a process where environmental decisions, actions, and policies results in racial discrimination. Environmental racism is important to know about because it effects almost every low-income or impoverished area across the world. Some notable areas that are dealing with environmental racism are: Flint Michigan-where thousands of residents have

Over the years, the poor and people of color have always been treated badly by others. They mostly lived in polluted environments which negatively affect the way they live and work. In these communities, the placement of waste facilities emitted large amounts of chemical pollutants into the air. Individuals exposed to pollutants have increased chances of getting sick because they pose a huge threat to their health. The sudden environmental changes caused by landfills and industrial plants triggered countless environmental justice movements. Activists like Emelda West fought environmental injustice attempts to find ways to create public awareness about their community. Despite dozens of companies deliberately building hazardous facilities in

It shows the fundamental socio-political factors that calculate which group of people get exposed to the hazardous man made environmental pollutants. Pellow uses a combination of ethnographic and historical research to show that it is not an accident or a coincidence that garbage automatically finds its way to regions inhabited by African Americans, Hispanics, immigrants and other defenseless communities. The book, thus, addresses with what the author calls, environmental racism; The book also shares the stories of people who have to struggle with these environmental problems and their search for environmental

Environmental justice is very ambiguous term as it denotes the need for not only environmental sustainability but also social liberation. Regrettably, not every citizen, politician or business owner is apprehensive about our wilting global environment. To this very day, there are scholars and politicians that contend that climate change and global warming is the rhetorical vehicle for which liberal propaganda can be transported. Consequently, these same leaders in their lofty positions deny that there is any evidence of global warming and other environmental dangers by undermining the countless research studies by acclaimed scientists. Ignorance to objective quantitative and qualitative findings that justify theoretical claims that global warming

Rooted in the civil rights movement, environmental justice emerged in the 1970s before gaining nation’s attention in the early 1980s. In 1982, a nonviolent demonstration protesting a PCB landfill in Warren County, North Carolina brought the concern of discriminatory siting to the public and prompted further investigation.

The increasing number of environmental concerns and worsening environmental situation all over the world forces people of different ages, education levels, and occupations to pay much more attention and promote environmental justice. In the reading under analysis, Dana Lanza casts light on the nature and importance of urban youth activism helping to increase people’s awareness on environmental justice in the modern society. In my opinion, people living in the modern society should value the environment they live in and being able to manage space and resources surrounding them on a daily basis.

Everything about environmental justice is supposed to give the environment and the world the treatment it deserves, people have spent a lifetime trashing it with pollutants, smog, and cutting down its trees, but at the same time the people who live on the Earth have been treated with injustice as well, “Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” (EPA 1). “Environmental racism is policy or practice that differentially affects or disadvantages (intentionally or unintentionally) individuals, groups, or communities because of their race and/or class. Poor communities and communities of color often experience disproportionate impacts of environmental hazards.”(The Weave 1). Water discrimination is an example of environmental racism and the act of distributing clean water to wealthy people and dirty water to those who live in poverty and can not afford the clean water. This is a tactic used to separate the rich from the poor, and in this case, money equals health, however, clean water should not be a privilege to the people who can afford it. It should be something that is given to everyone despite their background and the money they come from.

However, it is when racialism turns to racism that issues arise. The categorization and grouping promoted by racism on the plantation have allowed environmental injustices to occur both historically and presently. Environmental justice acknowledges the environmental risks faced by minority groups and seeks to overcome these issues by examining the specific ways in which the environment is used against minority groups, usually African Americans (Adamson 72).

The goals of this environmental justice conference are stated simply: firstly, to explore whether racial minorities and the poor are being environmentally victimized, and secondly, to evaluate public policies that promote environmental fairness. Each speaker provided insight and information from their respective area of expertise. Led by keynote speaker Dr. Bunyan Bryant, they drew upon the realms of academic investigation, government and public policy, sociology, healthcare, and philosophy to unite the environmental movement with the quest for social justice. After absorbing so much information concerning the current state of environmental justice, one leaves the conference

Environmental disasters are often pushed into regions with a higher rate of marginalized groups; relating to race, class, and gender. The dangerous environmental issues that these groups face hinder their progress in the fight for equality, oppressing them and hurting the environment even more. Environmental racism is a problem that many have to face, trapping people in a cycle of poverty and making it so they can’t escape environmental disasters that bring health issues with them. There are high rates of pollution in areas that are disproportionately African American, and governments help keep the businesses that are damaging the environment in place. General populace and media care less about communities with bigger populations of oppressed people, preventing their social advancement. In addition, different classes have different ways of looking at environmental and social justice issues, which can drastically effect the turn of events. Sexism can change the way that environmental catastrophes such as the one at Love Canal, New York, are solved, making the process in the fight for equality drawn out because of sexist stereotype. Inequality drastically changes our environment because environmental disasters are forced onto groups of people that have less rights than others, this oppresses them even more, and in turn- continues the damage of the environment.

However, the EPA analyzed that claim and found that “communities of low-income and or people of color bear a higher burden of environmental risk,” and also revealed that minority groups that reside in low-income neighborhoods “experience higher than average to selected air pollutants, hazardous waste facilities, contaminated fish, and agriculture pesticides in the workplace.” When the report analyzed the information, they

Race is a significant root of environmental justice because minority communities are subject to more harmful environmental issues and receive inadequate assistance. When looking at the Flint Water crisis, the severity of the lead contamination portrays the environmental racism linked with the situation. The Flint Water Crisis Task force reported that, “Flint residents, who are majority Black or African American

Environmental inequalities contrary to what we may imagine, is a social and political problem rather than a simple environmental problem. It is deeply tangled with political and economic structures and institutions, adding to the social inequalities that already affect our daily lives. For all that, what is environmental inequality? It’s refers to the fact that low-income people and people of color are disproportionately likely to experience various environmental problems by living in high risk areas. If we look at this problem closely we realize “that black, white, and Hispanic households with similar incomes live in neighborhoods of dissimilar environmental quality” (Downey) and that most people who suffer the consequences of living in neighborhoods with high hazard levels are racial minorities, this leads us to determine that in addition to inequality it is also about racism. However, other social categories are as well associated with exposure to hazards and its repercussions; we will concentrate on the racial and social class effects being that these factors are the most prominent throughout time.

Environmental justice discourse has crossed two other spatial barriers. First, it links the individual and community, the movements not simply address injustice at individual level anymore, but also the functioning of community (Agyeman, 2005). For instance, after Hurricane Kartrina, apart from the poor African American who was severely and disproportionately impacted, like transportation, employment of the community, and even the city itself were all impacted (Agyeman, 2005). Additionally, the approach applied to both human and non-human can make a connection between conceptions of social justice and environmental concerns (Schlosberg, 2013). Environmental justice is a crucial tool for addressing the relationship between environment and human needs. The focus on the needs of natural systems entail us recognize the link between environmental conditions and the basic needs of both human beings and the non-human (Kaswan, 2011). Which in turn entail recognition of the value of the processes and provisions of natural systems (Kaswan, 2011).

Historically, it has been disadvantaged, low-income, minority communities that bear the burden of pollution and have been used as a dumping ground for the city’s most polluting industries. According to Penny Newman in “Fixing Land-Use Mistakes One Neighborhood at a Time”, low-income disadvantaged communities often suffer from higher rates of asthma, cancer, and birth defects. This is due to the fact that minority communities are often segregated into areas with high concentrations of poverty therefore, they lack the resources for upward mobility. As a result, these communities experience poor educational attainment, poor economic and political opportunities, and poor health due to polluting industries invading their neighborhoods.