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Class 18: Environmental Justice CofC Fall 2010. Environmental Policy. Intent of Enviro Justice.
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Class 18: Environmental Justice CofC Fall 2010 Environmental Policy
Intent of Enviro Justice • An environmental justice analysis attempts to identify and eliminate legacies of systematic, harmful, and disproportionate effects of environmental degradation and mitigation efforts. It is not about redistributing or transferring benefits and burdens after environmental harm is done to particular communities—this is environmental equity, not justice.
EPA Definition (1994) • “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to development, implementation or enforcement of enviro laws, regulations, and policies.”
Pres Clinton: Exec Order 12898 • All fed agencies must develop strategies to ensure programs “do not unfairly inflict enviro harm on the poor and minorities.” • Applicable to any program “that substantially affective human health or the environment.” • One of the first comprehensive effort by fed government to address a “problem long implicit in environmental policy making” (p152)
Environmental Justice, Equity, Racism • EJ: (risk reduction/avoidance) Participation in identifying and eliminating ‘legacies’ of systemic and disproportionate environmental harm (degradation). • Env Equity: (redistribution of risk) redistributing or transferring benefits and burdens after environmental harm • Env Racism: (tends to focus on problem, not solution) decisions/regulations/laws that specifically and directly affect people of color, certain ethnic/racial groups (or gender) in a negative manner
Taxonomy of EJ • Distributive Justice: Rt to same distribution of goods and opportunities • Address disproportionate public health and envirorisks borne by people of color and lower incomes • achieved through a lowering of risks, not a shifting or equalizing of existing risks. • Procedural Justice: Fairness in policy process • Executive Order (‘94): public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples and free from bias or discrimination, affirm the fundamental right to self-determination, and insist on the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision making. • Corrective Justice: Way in which justice is administered but also a duty to “repair” damages • Social Justice: a “just” ordering of society how do enviro decision mirror the power arrangements of larger society (existing racial bias) • E.g. Institutional racism influences siting noxious facilities, placing black communities in “sacrifice zones”
Questions Remain • What is ‘low-income’ or ‘minority’? • What is the “affected area”? • What constitutes an “adverse impact”? • What is the appropriate methodology? • What is “disproportionate impact or health risk”? • What are the fair ways of addressing the issue(s)? • Procedurally fair, disprop outcome = just? • Does intent matter, or just effects? • EJ part of social structural problems? If so, how do we address micro-local problems within a structural deficient system?
Vids • “Environmental Justice” (3m) • Katrina, Disaster Recovery as EJ (4m) • “they don’t care about us” (3m) • Environmental Racism (1.5m) • “Black New Orleans After Katrina” (4.5m)
