The Push for Environmental Justice Essay

During and since World War II the United States has produced millions of tons of toxic wastes during the manufacturing and processing of products. These hazards were often left abandoned and no one really paid attention to their effect on our environment. In the 1980s Congress established a Superfund Program. It was left for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to administer the superfund program, to find these hazardous sites, investigate and determine the worst ones, and then clean up those sites across the United States. Over 15,000 sites were identified and 1,400 were named to the National Priorities List (NPL). One of the towns was Picher Oklahoma named in the Tar Creek Superfund Site.

Writer, William Blumenfield, in his Huffington Post article, “ Environmental Justice a Form of Social Justice,” details the perceptive and political fallibilities of the Republican party in regards to their courses of action towards environmental justice aims. His inclination is to convey the err in their claims and capitalistic objectives, and to promote his ideology that social justice cannot occur without there first being strives to combat against environmental degradation. He develops a strong, but misplaced, pathos throughout his article, devoid of purposeful facts, resulting in a weak argument seemingly based on his resentment towards the Republican party. Blumenfield’s argument is weak in the fact that is argues based on unapologetically tearing down the other side instead of advocating his point while respectfully pointing out the flaws of conflicting views.

Twenty million Americans took to the streets for the first earth day in 1970 as a result of pollution they could see an smell: the Cuyahoga river in Cleveland burned, with flames that towered eight stories high; the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara closed virtually all the beaches in southern California; people had declared Lake Erie dead.

High profile cases such as the Flint water crisis has brought environmental inequality and environmental racism into the limelight. As such, it is becoming a prominent social justice issue and a political talking point. However, there is much to suggest that environmental inequality is the result of economic factors. This paper therefore focuses on developing an understanding of environmental inequality from an economic perspective.

Environmental scanning can be viewed as a way of acquiring information about outside events that can aid organizations in first identifying potential trends, then interpreting them

The concept of environmental inequality appeared at the end of the 70s and at the beginning of the 80s after researchers, activists and government officials began to collect data that in turn showed patterns where social inequality and environmental harm became evident (Brehm, 2013). An additional term used to describe the situation is environmental justice, which according to the sociologist Robert Bullard, misled the reality by giving the impression that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection by environmental

Pezzullo investigates in this article the strategies of environmental justice advocates in Warren County, North Carolina. The rhetorical efforts shown by these advocates vigorously urged the state of North Carolina to clean up a local toxic landfill caused by a truck illegally dumping oil contaminated with PCBs in the middle of the night.

I feel like parts of MLK’S letter can be used to describe the environmental justice movement that is currently taking place. One quote stood out to me the most. “We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.” I feel like this goes hand in hand with environmental injustice in certain communities. As already stated in class, the people who live in the areas that are heavily polluted are people in poverty or who are minorities. Although racial discrimination has been outlawed, it is still shown in the way that neighborhoods are zoned and located near highways. It is also shown in the fact that people are willing to pay more not to live in or around

The environment and the health of the surrounding population go hand in hand. The Environmental Protection Agency takes on this ever so important mission of protecting them both. The mission statement of the EPA states, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Small Business Programs is to support the protection of human health and the environment by advocating and advancing the business, regulatory, and environmental compliance concerns of small and socio-economically disadvantaged businesses, and minority academic institutions (US Enviromental Protection Agency, 2010).” The impact of its mission can be defined clearly as it examines the impact of contamination in the air, the water, and the land on human health.

Living in a highly industrialized world that is ruled by capitalism, the concern for the environment often takes a back seat. Individuals or companies nowadays prioritize achieving optimal profit without putting into mind what their respective actions or productions may have an effect on the environment. They do not realize how important the role of our environment plays in the quality of human life. We can say that a good environment leads to a better quality life, while a bad environment could lead to a harmful and unproductive life. Now, it becomes unfair and unjust when the risks and costs of a company affect a certain group of people and on the opposite side of the spectrum another group of individuals enjoy the benefits without costs. The individuals that are affected badly are usually from Third World Countries where the distribution of risk and costs are not even (Low and Gleeson 1999). This is where Environmental Justice comes in. Environmental Justice mainly concerns the welfare of human beings (Low and Gleeson 1999). Talking about cities where capitalism surges from, it has been argued that these cities are ‘unfairly structured’ (Low and Gleeson 1999). Basically, what this is saying is that the wealthier you are, the better or cleaner the environment. On the other hand, if you are poor, then the environment around you will have more health risks. This kind of injustice or disparity is what adds fuel to the fire of environmental justice. In

Since the beginning of civilization humanity has adopted a subjugating stance toward nature. Ecological exploitation has become the de facto standard, contributing to the illusion of self-subsistence provided by modern society. This mindset is untenable given humanities reliance on the natural world, as best demonstrated by the critical importance of various parts of the environment to humanities continued existence. This includes the importance of biodiversity to medicinal advancement and climate adaptation, the role of insects in the renewal of the biosphere, and the importance of the environment for humanities psychological health.

in an effort to solve problems, which can be seen with the Clean Water Act.

Ethics is the study of what is right and wrong in human conduct. Environmental ethics studies the effects of human’s moral relationships on the environment and everything within it (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). The ethical principles that govern those relations determine human duties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to the Earth’s natural environment and all of the animals and plants that inhabit it (Taylor, 1989). The purpose of this paper is to reveal environmental issues that are threatening the existence of life on Earth, and discus our social obligations to refrain from further damaging our environment, health and life for future generations. I will discus the need for appropriate actions and the ethical

Environmental problems are something which belongs to nature or known as “Mother Earth” [13]. Nature was created to help people survive from gathering foods until build a house. This phenomenon happens continuously without thinking how much damage that nature has because human’s fault. Nature gradually becomes worse and animal’s life in danger. People who are aware of the importance of nature react. Those people do several ways to save the environment. Although these efforts can return back the environment, these efforts only can be hold temporarily. This problem happens because those people who are aware of the environment only slightly; for remaining, there are people either do not know or do not care about the nature. People’s efforts

According to Mintzberg, the environmental school of thought is a strategy dealing with the forces outside the organization. Unlike the other schools in his book, Strategy Safari, the environment plays a central role in the strategy formation process alongside leadership and the organization where the organization becomes subordinate to the external environment. The environmental school assumptions are that during the formative period of the organization the company shapes itself in response to the environment, but after that period is increasingly unable to respond to the environment. Moreover, the organization long term survival depends on the early choices made during its formative period. Over time, Mintzberg states, leadership becomes