The Reality of Environmental
Environmental Justice and acts/people supporting it are key to fighting for an environment that is safe and healthy for everyone. Many factors contribute to the environment one lives in; however, specific factors promote the idea that people living in poverty are directly exposed to much worse pollution and environmental conditions than those not living within poverty. A person "poverty had about 1.3 times more exposure to pollutants than people above poverty. Although there have been systems and regulations aimed at prohibiting environmental injustice, they are often easy to bypass and are regulated by wealthy people. Lobbying, back-door politics, and money tend to aid in making environmental decisions. The lack of strict regulation and adherence to regulations increases the amount of possible corruption or which ideas/projects are being pushed or rejected. This also helps to push a narrative of one: the silence about environmental injustice, and two: the idea that an individual can not do anything about it. This is the narrative that needs to be pushed and heard. Pollution is getting worse and worse in these areas and corporations are getting chosen over the well-being of groups of humans. Environmental Justice needs to be acknowledged more and addressed more in policies and regulations as well as not only educating the communities it affects most, but communities that have the resources to affect change.
|
Environmental Justice
Throughout history, “long circulated anecdotes and warnings within black communities of bad air and water, poison, and career” (Vann) were known throughout communities. This story turned out to be true. Organizations and scientists began documenting the difference in the amount of pollution in different areas and began noticing patterns in their data. After analyzing data, scientists found “black people are exposed to about 1.5 times more particulate matter than while people, and that hispancics had about 1.2 times the exposure of non-hispanic whites.” Many factors contribute to this finding, but it is important to note that two of the major contributing factors are related to race and poverty (which are also linked to each other). One must question the correlation of the data and realize the discrepancies based on status in society. It is the government’s job to protect their citizens from wide-scale harm, and “long-term exposure to the pollutant is associated with racial segregation, with highly segregated areas suffering higher levels of exposure.” Policies like some state pollution laws working in conjunction with big corporate companies obviously contain bias and are working against the Environmental Protection Association’s promise in equality and equity of land. Ultimately, any type of climate change is a type of racial equality change too.
|
What is Pollution Exposing
While fine particulate matter exists in all areas of the world, specific places contain higher amounts of particulate matter, and these tend to be areas with a larger amount of minority population. Known cancer-causing pollutants invade areas and put populations most affected at greater risk. Harmful “particulates include automobile fumes, smog, soot, oil smoke, ash, and construction dust.” Obviously people living in a city are at higher risk of exposure to these pollutants, but “the magnitude of emission from individual factories appears to be higher in minority behaviors.” Not only does the government allow the use of pollutants in big corporations and factories to harm the environment, but because the government typically has bias in policy-making decisions, marginalized groups are foundationally at a disadvantage. Government establishes laws and regulations to all carcinogens to be released into communities. The EPA released information connecting carcinogens to being “a contributor to several lung conditions, lung conditions, and possible premature death.” Additionally, complications such as “asthma prevalence and severity, low birth weights, and high blood pressure.” Essentially, legally we have policies currently, that are putting marginalized communities further at a deficit. Laws are being put in place while knowingly exposing citizens to cancer-causing toxins.
|
Elements to Consider When Promoting Environmental Justice
Democracy
Consider the role societal status (i.e race, SES, ethnicity, ect.) plays into how the United State's democracy work. Since Environmental Justice relies heavily on democracy through representatives voting for their constituents, it is important to consider the effects these factors play into how the government creates policy regarding environmental issues.
|
Participation
Community members must be able to participate in the decision-making process. Oftentimes, the most vulnerable communities are not able to have their voices heard as they do not have the connection or economic pull that members of more affluent communities have. Hence, the ability to participate for members of these communities becomes essential in aiming towards environmental justice.
|
Awareness
Awareness is the key and fundamental element to achieve the most out of democracy and participation in law-making decisions. Actions as little as having children in low-income schools cleaning up their communities have some weight, but those students should also be educated why there is so much trash in their community and the factors that play into this.
|
A Look at How Racial Justice Relates to Environmental
Justice
How Are Current Policies Playing Out? |
While there some organization and institutions aimed at dismantling racism and classism, "the Environmental Protection Agency and the Trump administration continued a plan to dismantle many of the institutions built to address those disproportionate risks." While following a study conducted by the EPA under the Trump Administration, Vann reveals that people living in poverty are directly exposed to much worse pollution and environmental conditions than those not living within poverty. The Trump administration was focused on continuing to roll back environmental restrictions and would only lead to potentially greater disproportionate pollution within America. Policies allowed companies to pollute air with factories which typically end in poorer areas. However, these factories are not usually looked at poorly by communities where this happens because the government pushed the narrative of creating more jobs. Throughout history until now, money has been picked over public health safety, and members of marginalized communities have been put at a much greater risk of reaping these consequences. Currently, there are many organization and environmental managers fighting back against the reckless and inconsistent enforcement of environmental policies. Instead, the government's role and job in this case would be to educate all populations about environmental justice and how it affects communities. The government is abusing the lack of education about the environment (or at least the lack of resources to be able to enable any real change) in these minority communities to further push agendas aimed at making rich people richer and low-income communities are left to clean up the mess. This idea completely goes against proven evidence that the inclusion of enhanced measures in land use plans [which] can greatly improve environmental equity” (Glass) along other ideas or scientifically proven measures that can help make the environment a safer place for everyone regardless of external factors.
The Biden Administration & Environmental Justice
Environmental Justice has been a priority issue for the Biden administration. During their campaign, the Biden administration stressed the need for racial and systemic equality through environmental policy. He made following claims the Biden administration made (from their website) on what he is going to fix this problem:
Lastly, Biden-Harris' 10 Rules for Pollution Learned from California:
- Use an inclusive and empowering All-of-Government approach
- Make decisions that are driven by data and science
- Target resources in a way that is consistent with prioritization of environment and climate justice
- Access and address risk to communities from the next public health emergency
- Establish an Environmental and Climate Justice Division within the U.S. Department of Justice
- Elevate environmental justice in the federal government and modernize the All-of-Government approach
- Overhaul the EPA external civil rights compliance office
- Mandate new monitoring in frontline and fenceline communities
- Require community notification
Lastly, Biden-Harris' 10 Rules for Pollution Learned from California:
- Apply the right scale for analysis.
- Produce a cumulative score that can be used to provide a community assessment and comparison.
- Establish a threshold for determining which communities are designated as disadvantaged.
- Establish minimum thresholds for investment in disadvantaged communities.
- Prioritize community co-creation, leadership, and engagement.
- Acknowledge and account for the limitations to and incompleteness of data, and continuously and regularly iterate upon and improve the tool.
- Develop funding programs specifically designed for disadvantaged communities using information from the tool.
- Provide technical assistance and capacity-building resources to support communities and community leaders, including to help them successfully access funds designated for disadvantaged communities.
- Use screening tools not only to target benefits and investments but also to improve and better coordinate regulatory compliance and enforcement work in disadvantaged communities.
- Acknowledge that mapping tools have limitations and, on their own, are not a panacea.
The Mother of Environmental Justice
Hazel M. Johnson was a prominent figure for environmental justice on the South side of Chicago. Originally born in Louisiana, Johnson moved with her husband to the South side of Chicago around the 1950's. After being to realize some of the pollution and injustices happening in her community, Johnson helped educate members of the community and taught them how to use their voice to begin to enact change. In the neighborhood where Johnson was living with her family, she found it was nicknamed "The Toxic Donut" due to the elevated levels of air pollution and water pollution in her community. As Johnson's life continues, she continued to educate the community on adverse health effects of the pollutants in their air. Later on, Johnson founded a not-for-profit organization called The People for Community Recovery, an organization dedicated to abolishing environmental racism. Hazel M. Johnson later went on to receive a presidential award in 1992 for her dedicated work towards environmental justice in her community. Johnson has paved the way for other environmental and social activist to fight for environmental equality.