Environment and Society
Lecture 7

1) What is Environmental Justice (1 sentence)?
1) What is Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic (1 sentence)?

Occurs whenever a person or persons are impinged upon by an environmental burden for the alleged good of this society, that the rest of the society does not bear.
An environmental injustice may impact a person of ANY race, class or income level as long as the environmental insult is through no fault of their own

The Powerless and the Already Marginalized

Injustice that exclusively affects people of color, race and ethnicity.
According to Sociologist Robert
Bullard, it can be in the form of individual and systematic and intentional and unconscious .

• Racial prejudice – pre-formed personal opinions about individuals on the basis of race;
• Racial Discrimination – a different treatment of people on the basis of characteristics which may be classified as racial (skin color, cultural heritage, and religion);
• Internalized racism – racist attitudes towards members of their own ethnic group, including themselves;

• Institutional Racism – racism that occurs in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations, and academic institutions, as reflected mostly in terms of policies, programs, and planning;
• Prime example is through racial zoning.

• Redlining – The practice of denying, or charging more for, services such as banking, insurance, access to health care, housing, etc., in particularly, often racially determined, areas;
• Became pronounced because of the “white
flight” phenomenon (i.e. movement of white population from heterogeneous to homogeneous urban regions or suburbs).

Manifestation of White
Flight

Redlining as
Institutional
Racism

• Robert Moses’s
Urban Planning –
Polarizing form of urban planning that favored highways that segregated communities
(raciallymotivated);

“A lot of people say it’s class, but race and class are intertwined. Because the society is so racist and because racism touches every institution – employment, housing, education, facility siting, land use decisions – you can’t really race out of decisions that are being made by persons who are in powe and the power arrangements are unequal.”
-- Robert Bullard

Mossville (Toxicville), Louisiana

Mossville (Toxicville), Louisiana
• Over 30 petrochemical and industrial plants
• Within 2-mile area of Mossville
• Companies admitted to contaminating water sources
• EPA report: High levels of dioxins in blood of residents
• Largely African-American Community

Mossville (Toxicville), Louisiana

South Bronx, New York

South Bronx, New York
• 5000-ton-per-day waste transfer station and a power plant;
• Has the highest asthma-related death rates in the US (3x national average);
• Poorest congressional district in the
US;
• Largely African-American district;

South Bronx, New York
Majora Carter’s Advocacy https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=gQ-cZRmHfs4

Chevron’s Toxic Legacy, Ecuador

Chevron’s Toxic Legacy, Ecuador
• While drilling for oil in the Amazon,
Chevron Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled millions of gallons of crude oil, and abandoned hazardous waste in openair pits
• Resulted in epidemic of cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, and other ailments among indigenous populations.

Chevron’s Toxic Legacy, Ecuador
• While drilling for oil in the Amazon,
Chevron Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled millions of gallons of crude oil, and abandoned hazardous waste in openair pits
• Resulted in epidemic of cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, and other ailments among indigenous populations.

Mining in Irian Jaya, Indonesia

Mining in Irian Jaya, Indonesia
• World’s largest gold and copper mine that resulted in the displacement of
Indigenous peoples and massive contamination of habitats of these peoples

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines
Swidden Cultivation
(pejoratively slashand-burn or kaingin) – land use system that employs a natural or improved fallow phase and land clearing by means of fire ( Mertz et al.
2009 ) .

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines
• Impoverished and marginalized;
• Indolent, uneducated, short sighted, primitive, destructive
• Needs to be educated, trained and transformed ;
• Needs to be connected to broader markets;

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines

Land grabbing in Ancestral Philippines

• http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2008/08
/a_village_calle.html