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Taking Action: Public Responsibility for Environmental Injustice

Kristin Shrader‐Frechette

in Environmental Justice: Creating Equity, Reclaiming Democracy

Using case studies focusing on biased scientific research that helps promote environmental injustice, the chapter argues that there are both deontological and utilitarian ethical reasons for citizens ... More

Using case studies focusing on biased scientific research that helps promote environmental injustice, the chapter argues that there are both deontological and utilitarian ethical reasons for citizens to behave as public‐interest and environmental advocates. These duties are to protect victims of environmental injustice. The chapter also argues that such duties are not a matter of moral heroism or supererogation, but rather normal duties of citizenship in a democracy. Analyzing constraints on public‐interest advocacy, the chapter closes by suggesting a number of ways that citizens might exercise their duties of public‐interest advocacy, particularly through work with nongovernmental organizations or N.G.O.s.Less

African Americans, LULUs, and Free Informed Consent

Kristin Shrader‐Frechette

in Environmental Justice: Creating Equity, Reclaiming Democracy

Using case studies focusing on energy development in Louisiana, the chapter analyzes the concepts of equality and free informed consent in order to show how African‐Americans are typically victims of ... More

Using case studies focusing on energy development in Louisiana, the chapter analyzes the concepts of equality and free informed consent in order to show how African‐Americans are typically victims of environmental injustice. In one chapter example, blacks were victimized by a multinational corporation seeking to build a production facility for nuclear energy. Carefully assessing the scientific and ethical flaws in the arguments for siting such facilities in poor and minority neighborhoods, the chapter focuses on the first major U.S. environmental‐justice victory, in Louisiana, in which the author and her students played a role. By assessing scientific and ethical flaws in the Louisiana environmental impact statements, they were able to protect affected minorities and stop the facility.Less

Risky Occupational Environments, the Double Standard, and Just Compensation

Kristin Shrader‐Frechette

in Environmental Justice: Creating Equity, Reclaiming Democracy

Using case studies focusing on higher workplace risks because of exposure to pollutants in exchange for “hazard pay” or a “compensating wage differential,” the chapter analyzes the ways in which ... More

Using case studies focusing on higher workplace risks because of exposure to pollutants in exchange for “hazard pay” or a “compensating wage differential,” the chapter analyzes the ways in which workers are victims of environmental injustice. Using detailed data about a Department of Energy cover‐up of occupational risks, the chapter reveals the hazards faced by the 600,000 U.S. D.O.E. workers in nuclear energy and nuclear weapons facilities. Workers would receive equal treatment if they were really compensated for the higher risks they bear, but they are not typically compensated, even though they face pollution often 50 times higher than members of the public. Moreover, occupational pollution threatens the integrity of the gene pool, so workers cannot give genuine informed consent to these risks because they cannot consent for others who may be innocent victims of it.Less

Developing Nations, Equal Protection, and the Limits of Moral Heroism

Kristin Shrader‐Frechette

in Environmental Justice: Creating Equity, Reclaiming Democracy

Using case studies focusing on how developed nations impose environmental risks on developing countries, the chapter reveals how the U.S. and other nations ship banned pesticides or hazardous waste ... More

Using case studies focusing on how developed nations impose environmental risks on developing countries, the chapter reveals how the U.S. and other nations ship banned pesticides or hazardous waste to developing nations. The chapter analyzes the concepts of equal protection and moral heroism or supererogation. It argues that most indigenous people do not give genuine informed consent to such risks and that it is not paternalistic to protect native people. Extending and developing arguments of Peter Singer, the chapter also argues that ordinary citizens have duties (that are not heroic) to help protect innocent victims from first‐world exploitation, even though there are many economic incentives that lead nations to exploit the poor of the world.Less

Native Peoples and the Problem of Paternalism

Kristin Shrader‐Frechette

in Environmental Justice: Creating Equity, Reclaiming Democracy

Using case studies focusing on Shell Oil drilling in Africa and on native American attempts to take U.S. hazardous and radioactive waste onto reservations, the chapter analyzes the concept of ... More

Using case studies focusing on Shell Oil drilling in Africa and on native American attempts to take U.S. hazardous and radioactive waste onto reservations, the chapter analyzes the concept of paternalism. It argues that it is not paternalistic to demand a halt to imposing such risks on indigenous people. Showing that behavior – which victimizes indigenous people – amounts to threats to equality and to supporting colonialism, the chapter argues for a concept of geographical equality.Less

Nuclear Energy and Environmental Justice

Kristin Shrader-Frechette

in What Will Work: Fighting Climate Change with Renewable Energy, Not Nuclear Power

Chapter 5 shows that, even when accidents are ignored, fission causes many serious pollution-induced health effects. In addition, atomic energy is ... More

Chapter 5 shows that, even when accidents are ignored, fission causes many serious pollution-induced health effects. In addition, atomic energy is responsible for significant environmental injustice, that is, for disproportionately-higher pollution effects on the weakest, most vulnerable people—children, blue-collar workers, minorities, and members of future generations. The chapter addresses these concerns by arguing for 4 main claims. First, the nuclear fuel cycle imposes unjust and uncompensated radiation burdens on indigenous people and minorities, who are often forced to work for low pay in dangerous uranium mines and processing centers. Second, US commercial reactors are disproportionately sited in the poorest part of the US, the Southeast, and in communities having statistically significantly more people living below the poverty line, unfairly subjecting them to the serious health effects of radiation. Third, even normally operating reactors cause radiation-induced diseases and fatalities. Fourth, the chapter shows that radiation standards themselves are environmentally unjust because they protect some US children almost 200 times less well than adults, and they protect blue-collar radiation workers 50 times less well than members of the public. Children living near normally operating nuclear plants also show statistically significant increases in cancer, especially radiation-related cancers like leukemia, and these cancers decrease in proportion to distance away from the reactor. Likewise, because regulations allow nuclear workers to receive 50 times the annual-radiation dose of the public, they are at especially high risk. Using data from the US National Academy of Sciences and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the chapter shows that among every 80 workers who receive the annual allowable occupational-radiation dose, that radiation can annually cause 1 fatal, otherwise-avoidable, premature cancer. Moreover, the chapter shows that, because contemporary radiation-protection regulations do not satisfy disclosure and voluntariness requirements, radiation workers cannot give free informed consent to these much-higher occupational risks. Finally, the chapter reveals that, because US radiation standards, for permanent, future, nuclear-waste management, are more than 4 times less protective than for current people, they subject future people to massive environmental injustices.Less

The Challenge of Ecocommunitarian Restrictionism

John Hultgren

in Border Walls Gone Green: Nature and Anti-immigrant Politics in America

This chapter introduces a discourse of environmental restrictionism that is typically, and problematically, ignored by opponents: ecocommunitarianism. Ecocommunitarianism provides a forceful critique ... More

This chapter introduces a discourse of environmental restrictionism that is typically, and problematically, ignored by opponents: ecocommunitarianism. Ecocommunitarianism provides a forceful critique of neoliberalism, brings nonhumans and future generations into its discussion of political community, and makes repeated reference to saving “wild places.” Ecocommunitarians also move beyond the neoracism of nativist forms of restrictionism. The ecocommunitarian restrictionists thus discuss race constantly, but in a way that is rhetorically distanced from the logic of ecocommunitarianism itself. This chapter observes that, for environmental restrictionists, ecocommunitarianism represents the next logical strategic step beyond econativism, but also signifies anideological breaking point. Race is displaced to such an extent that it becomes illegitimate to talk about, yet the policies supported by ecocommunitarians further entrench the racialized structures producing environmental injustice—thus threatening to shatter the very postracial narrative that ecocommunitarians rely upon. The shattering of this narrative is not preordained, however; it requires opponents who can articulate an alternative vision of the relationships between nature, sovereignty, and race. The problem is that the ecocommunitarian logic has received little attention from opponents of restrictionism despite the fact that it is the discourse of environmental restrictionism that is most likely to persuade social progressives and mainstream environmentalists.Less

Why Climate-Change Skeptics Are Wrong

Kristin Shrader-Frechette

in What Will Work: Fighting Climate Change with Renewable Energy, Not Nuclear Power

Chapter 1 begins by stressing the severity of climate change (CC) and showing how, contrary to popular belief, atomic energy is not a viable solution to ... More

Chapter 1 begins by stressing the severity of climate change (CC) and showing how, contrary to popular belief, atomic energy is not a viable solution to CC. Many scientists and most market proponents agree that renewable energy and energy efficiencies are better options. The chapter also shows that government subsidies for oil and nuclear power are the result of flawed science, poor ethics, short-term thinking, and special-interest influence. The chapter has 7 sections, the first of which surveys four major components of the energy crisis. These are oil addiction, non-CC-related deaths from fossil-fuel pollution, nuclear-weapons proliferation, and catastrophic CC. The second section summarizes some of the powerful evidence for global CC. The third section uses historical, ahistorical, Rawlsian, and utilitarian ethical principles to show how developed nations, especially the US, are most responsible for human-caused CC. The fourth section shows why climate-change skeptics, such as “deniers” who doubt CC is real, and “delayers” who say that it should not yet be addressed, have no valid objections. Instead, they all err scientifically and ethically. The fifth section illustrates that all modern scientific methods—and scientific consensus since at least 1995—confirm the reality of global CC. Essentially all expert-scientific analyses published in refereed, scientific-professional journals confirm the reality of global CC. The sixth section of the chapter shows how fossil-fuel special interests have contributed to the continued CC debate largely by paying non-experts to deny or challenge CC. The seventh section of the chapter provides an outline of each chapter in the book, noting that this book makes use of both scientific and ethical analyses to show why nuclear proponents’ arguments err, why CC deniers are wrong, and how scientific-methodological understanding can advance sound energy policy—including conservation, renewable energy, and energy efficiencies.Less

Environmental Injustices, Unsustainable Livelihoods, and Conflict: Natural Capital Inaccessibility and Loss among Rural Households in Tajikistan

Dominic Stucker

in Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union

This chapter examines environmental injustice in Tajikistan in the form of limited access to and control of natural capital. It describes the rural vulnerability context and highlights the ... More

This chapter examines environmental injustice in Tajikistan in the form of limited access to and control of natural capital. It describes the rural vulnerability context and highlights the unsustainable livelihood strategies such as child labor, the drug trade, and militant fundamentalism. It discusses the limited influence of civil society and the absence of public participation in decision-making processes. This chapter also explains that shortcomings of environmental governance at the national level and offers some possible steps forward for the environmental justice movement in Tajikistan.Less

Oil Wealth, Environment, and Equity in Azerbaijan

Shannon O’Lear

in Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union

This chapter examines the Soviet legacy of environmental degradation in oil-rich Azerbaijan and the impacts of that degradation on the evolving political and economic systems. It evaluates the impact ... More

This chapter examines the Soviet legacy of environmental degradation in oil-rich Azerbaijan and the impacts of that degradation on the evolving political and economic systems. It evaluates the impact of Azerbaijan’s oil wealth on the daily life of the people using the concept of human security as a lens and highlights the people’s concerns and awareness of the environmental problems associated with the oil industry. The analysis also indicates while environmental injustice is experienced locally, the processes generating it occur at national and transnational levels and involve states and multinational corporations with a global reach.Less

Environmental Justice

Marcia McKenzie, Jada Renee Koushik, Randolph Haluza-DeLay, Belinda Chin, and Jason Corwin

Alex Russ and Marianne E. Krasny (eds)

in Urban Environmental Education Review

This chapter discusses the importance of environmental justice and issues of equity within urban environmental education. Urban environmental education engages with environmental justice through ... More

This chapter discusses the importance of environmental justice and issues of equity within urban environmental education. Urban environmental education engages with environmental justice through topics such as disparities in access to nature and ecosystem services and in exposure to industrial pollution and other environmental risks. There are many approaches to addressing injustice, including food sovereignty, political mobilization, and climate justice. The chapter first provides a brief history of the environmental justice movement before presenting three case studies illustrating educational responses to environmental injustice in cities: Green Guerrillas Youth Media Tech Collective and Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice in New York City, and the Equity and Environment Initiative in Seattle, Washington. These initiatives demonstrate the ways in which race, colonization, poverty, and other social issues overlap with access, understandings, benefits, and related considerations of urban place, as well as how urban environmental education is addressing these intersections.Less

Emissions, Economics, and Equity: Problems with Nuclear Solutions to Climate Change

Kristin Shrader-Frechette

in The Environment: Philosophy, Science, and Ethics

This chapter focuses on addressing the problems faced by current climate policy and attempts to show how equitable it would be to increase commercial nuclear energy in an effort to help address ... More

This chapter focuses on addressing the problems faced by current climate policy and attempts to show how equitable it would be to increase commercial nuclear energy in an effort to help address climate change. This type of assessment, as is argued here, must not only focus on what is wrong with current climate policy but also on proposing solutions to current problems or ways on how to correct flawed policies. This chapter shows first that because atomic power has nearly the same CO2-equivalent emissions as natural gas and because it is far more expensive than many renewable-energy technologies, it is not one of the more effective ways to address climate change. Next, it is explained that because of ethically flawed radiation-protection standards, using nuclear fission imposes environmental injustices on indigenous communities, workers, children, and members of future generations.Less

Gas Masks: The Ecological Body under Assault

Finis Dunaway

in Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images

This chapter explains how the gas mask became an environmental icon that warned of the risks to fragile, ecological bodies. Antipollution groups began using the gas mask as a protest prop in the ... More

This chapter explains how the gas mask became an environmental icon that warned of the risks to fragile, ecological bodies. Antipollution groups began using the gas mask as a protest prop in the 1950s and 1960s, in campaigns that called upon local governments to combat smog and clean the air. As Earth Day 1970 approached, the gas mask moved beyond the local contexts of air pollution activism to represent environmentalist claims that the federal government needed to broaden its regulatory powers to protect the health of the citizenry. For the most part, gas mask imagery focused on white Americans as archetypal members of the national community and therefore as universal emblems of environmental danger. The apparently placeless ubiquity of air pollution, together with the repeated focus on white bodies, obscured the specific geographies of environmental risk and the social processes that produced environmental injustice. The gas mask acted as a sign of universal danger, of the white ecological body under assault. The story of this environmental icon thus reveals the limits of mainstream imagery: even as the gas mask normalized fear of the environmental future, its depiction of universal vulnerability obscured the vastly unequal experience of environmental risk.Less

Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Post-Soviet Estonia

Maaris Raudsepp, Mati Heidmets, and Jüri Kruusvall

in Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union

This chapter examines sustainability movement and environmental injustice in post-Soviet Estonia. It describes the political, economic and social changes in Estonia and the transformation of natural ... More

This chapter examines sustainability movement and environmental injustice in post-Soviet Estonia. It describes the political, economic and social changes in Estonia and the transformation of natural environments in this Baltic republic. It highlights environmental degradation and harmful living conditions in the Ida-Virumaa area and the low level of participation protest movements. This chapter also explains the rationale behind Estonia’s national strategy of sustainable development called “Sustainable Estonia 21” which is geared towards increasing social and environmental justice and public participation.Less

Viliui Sakha of Subarctic Russia and Their Struggle for Environmental Justice

Susan Crate

in Environmental Justice and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union

This chapter examines the impact of environmental injustices on post-Soviet Russia’s indigenous peoples, particularly the Viliui Sakha. It discusses the environmental history of the Viliui regions ... More

This chapter examines the impact of environmental injustices on post-Soviet Russia’s indigenous peoples, particularly the Viliui Sakha. It discusses the environmental history of the Viliui regions and the citizen activism and corporate activities and compares the situation of the Viliui Sakha with the indigenous peoples in the diamond-mining districts of Canada’s Northwest Territories. This chapter also describes the factors or conditions that can help promote environmental justice including an effective legal infrastructure to implement and enforce law and a transparent economic development process.Less

“It’s Just Not Turning Up”: AIDS, Cinematic Vision, and Environmental Justice in Todd Haynes’s

Nicole Seymour

in Strange Natures: Futurity, Empathy, and the Queer Ecological Imagination

This chapter turns to American suburbia, where we meet a white housewife suffering from an ambiguous illness in the 1995 film, Safe. While many critics read the film as an AIDS allegory, the chapter ... More

This chapter turns to American suburbia, where we meet a white housewife suffering from an ambiguous illness in the 1995 film, Safe. While many critics read the film as an AIDS allegory, the chapter argues that it also tells a story about environmental injustice: its queer filmic techniques draw our attention away from our privileged protagonist to the film's literally and figuratively marginal figures and the disproportionately large envirohealth risks they face. The film thereby interrogates how we recognize suffering, and how certain types of suffering are framed as “natural” and, therefore, not worthy of public attention. Furthermore, this chapter explains the ideological paradigms prevalent during the time of the film's setting, and illustrates the methods by which Safe works against these ideologies. Finally, this chapter indicates how environmental concerns obtain even, or perhaps especially, in spaces construed as refuges from the environment, such as the suburban home.Less

The school in the city

Pamela Woolner

in Justice and Fairness in the City: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to 'Ordinary' Cities

This chapter first considers the problems faced by the urban school and establishes the potential for environmental injustice to be compounded by social injustice. It then considers the possibility ... More

This chapter first considers the problems faced by the urban school and establishes the potential for environmental injustice to be compounded by social injustice. It then considers the possibility of moving beyond merely ameliorating these negative effects so that the city school becomes a part of the solution to the challenges of urban living, an environmental and social resource for the whole community. It is argued that this ambition for the city school draws on ideas of justice based on recognition and participation, and therefore moves beyond understandings founded on principles of distributive justice.Less