Environmental Justice is the goal of achieving a society in which social justice, equity, and ecological sustainability are embraced and are viewed as mutually reinforcing. This is a society in which no group bears a disproportionate burden of environmental risk. Unfortunately, environmental inequality (or injustice) has been the order of the day for many communities of color, immigrant communities, tribal nations, and working class neighborhoods. Studies have demonstrated that these groups face disproportionate threats from industrial pollution and have the least access to decision making in the environmental policy realm. Fortunately, a grassroots movement has emerged since the 1970s to combat this problem and, in collaboration with many researchers and policy makers, they have made considerable progress in documenting environmental inequality and pushing for viable solutions.
We should care about environmental inequalities because the people who suffer these social ills are like the canary in the coal mine: their exposure to risk is a warning sign that we are all ultimately at risk and that no one is exempt from the global reach of industrial chemical poisons. The rising incidence of cancer and respiratory ailments worldwide is perhaps the best evidence of this reality.
Books, Articles, Papers
Agyeman, Julian. 2005. Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice. New York University Press
Bullard, Robert. 2000. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality. Westview.
Bullard, Robert, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, and Beverly Wright. Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007. Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism in the United States. A Report Prepared for the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries. March.
Environmental Health Coalition. 2004. Globalization at the Crossroads: Ten Years of NAFTA in the San Diego/Tijuana Border Region. EHC, San Diego.
Pellow, David. 2002. Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. MIT Press
Pellow, David and Lisa Sun-Hee Park. 2002. The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy. New York University Press.
Pulido, Laura. 2000. �Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California.� Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 90, No. 1, March,
Sierra Club. 2004. Latino Communities at Risk: How Bush Administration Polices Harm Our Communities.
Spence, Mark David. 1999. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks. Oxford University Press.
Sze, Julie. 2007. Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice. MIT Press.
Key Organization / Institutions
California EPA - http://www.calepa.ca.gov/
Environmental Health Coalition - http://www.environmentalhealth.org/index.html
Occupational Safety and Health Administration- http://www.osha.gov/
The San Diego Foundation - http://www.sdfoundation.org/
US EPA - http://www.epa.gov/
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