Rise of the Environmental Justice
Movement in the United States
and
Introduction to Global
Environmental Politics
“Environmental Justice”
Robert Figueroa
Claudia Mills
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
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Created by the Revised Clean Air Act, 1970.
Set air, water, pesticide, industrial chemical, and
toxic and hazardous waste standards to protect
human health.
Ecological health standards were added later.
Some Criticisms of the EPA
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Focused on regulation and not on prevention
of harms to health.
Racial divide in enforcement.
Controversial history: Numerous exemptions
to regulatory standards were granted, and
standards were often held hostage by
presidential administrations and special
interests.
Risk
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Many environmental legal standards are based
on the concept of risk.
Risk = Probability of a harm multiplied by the
magnitude of its consequences.
Risk is an elusive and value-laden concept.
Risk is often separated into risk assessment and
risk management.
Environmental Standards
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Who should set these?
Who should be protected?
What should standards measure?
How do we get people, companies, and
governments to comply?
5. What should be the punishment for noncompliance?
These questions might not be easily answered in
terms of distributive justice.
Mainstream Environmentalism:
Group of Ten in the 1980s
1. National Wildlife Federation
2. Izaak Walton League
3. National Audubon Society
4. Sierra Club
5. Wilderness Society
6. National Resources Defense Council
7. Environmental Defense Fund
8. Environmental Policy Center
9. Friends of the Earth
10. National Parks and Conservation Association
Criticisms of Mainstream Environmentalism
in the 1980s
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Had lost its bite and become a culture of
reform.
Was held hostage by corporate philanthropy
and big money.
Was dominated by professionalism.
Had lost touch with its grassroots constituency.
Still did not adequately address urban and
rural environmental concerns.
Was still largely a white men’s club.
Enter: The Environmental Justice Movement
By the 1980s, a new type of grassroots environmentalism had clearly
arrived in the U.S.
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It was a blending of social justice and environmental concerns.
It was led primarily by people of color, women, blue collar labor, and
marginalized peoples.
It focused more on urban and rural environments: “where we live,
where we work, and where we play.”
It was largely a response to inequities in the distribution of
environmental burdens, the failure of environmental laws and
governmental agencies to protect people, and the failure of
mainstream environmental groups to address social concerns.
Distributive justice was not its overriding concern.
Different Tributaries That Nourished the
Stream of the EJ Movement in the U.S.
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Civil Rights Movement
Anti-Toxics Movement
Labor Movement
Native American Indian Struggles
Academia
Mainstream Environmentalism
Some Central Concerns
of the EJ Movement in the U.S.
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Siting of facilities that produce toxic and
hazardous materials and waste
Environmental racism
Institutional and environmental discrimination
Occupational health and safety in industrial and
agricultural sectors
Land rights
Urban environmental politics and the right to a
safe, livable environment
Struggles of indigenous peoples
Justice Dimensions of Environmental Justice
1. Distributive Justice: How should environmental
burdens and benefits be distributed?
And there’s also:
2. Procedural Justice: What are fair and equitable
procedures for making distribution decisions?
But:
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What is missing is an examination of social,
cultural, symbolic, and institutional conditions
underlying unfair distributions of burdens and
benefits.
Another Justice Dimension
of Environmental Justice
Participatory Justice
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Who gets to make the decisions about how to distribute
environmental burdens and benefits?
One important insight from the EJ Movement is that
participatory justice might be more important than
distributive and procedural justice—focusing on
distributions and procedures obscures social structures
and the institutional context in which environmental
decisions are made.
But there’s more—next slide please.
Recognition and Identity
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If you aren’t recognized and respected, you
don’t participate in decision-making.
Recognition and identity are not goods to be
distributed like burdens and benefits.
This creates a need to look at the relationships
between social, cultural, and environmental
harms and benefits, as well as the lack of
democratic participation.
Once More: Justice Dimensions of
Environmental Justice
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Recognition or identity justice
Participatory justice
Distributive justice
Procedural justice
Slogan of the EJ Movement:
“We speak for ourselves.”
Informed Consent
Many cases of environmental injustice involve a violation of
informed consent.
Informed Consent:
1. Competence
2. Voluntariness
a. Free of compulsion and threats
b. There are comparable alternatives
3. Disclosure
4. Understanding
Principles of Environmental Justice
http://www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.html
Transformative Politics of
the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM)
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EJM reconstructs social relations through
grassroots actions.
EJM concerns self-representation and agency
and is not merely a new consciousness.
Redefining, reinventing, and reconstructing
political and cultural discourse and practices
can lead to fundamental social and
environmental change.
Transformation involves individuals,
communities, and institutions.
Academic/Activist Robert D. Bullard
http://www.jodisolomonspeakers.com/speakerspdfs/Bullard,%20Robert
%202006.pdf
Bullard: Dominant
Environmental Protection Paradigm
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Exists to manage, regulate, and distribute risks.
Reinforces, rather than challenges, existing
unjust stratifications of people and places.
“The Environmental Justice
Movement provides a bottom-up
challenge to this paradigm.”
Bullard: Impetus for a Paradigm Shift
Need to address:
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Procedural Equity: extent to which governing rules,
regulations, evaluation criteria, and enforcement are
applied uniformly across the board.
Geographical Equity: location and spatial configuration
of communities and their proximity to environmental
hazards and LULUs (locally unwanted land uses).
Social Equity: role of sociological factors in
environmental decision-making.
Bullard’s New Environmental Justice
Framework
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Ground the framework on the principle that all individuals have
the right to be protected from environmental degradation.
Also ground the framework on the precautionary principle to
protect workers, communities, and ecosystems.
Shift the burden of proof to polluters and dischargers who do
harm, who discriminate, and/or who do not give equal protection
to all racial and ethnic groups.
Adopt a public health model of prevention as the preferred
strategy to eliminate a threat before it occurs.
Global Environmental Governance: Chapter III
“From Stockholm to Johannesburg: First Attempt
at Global Environmental Governance”
James Gustave Speth
Peter M. Haas
North-South Distinctions
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Geography
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Economic Standing
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Political Hegemony
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Former Colonizers vs. Former Colonies
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Developed World vs. Developing World
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First World vs. Third World
Characterizing the South
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Colonial legacies
Low average per capita income
Low rates of literacy
Low health status
Low life expectancies
Limited infrastructure
Fragile economic progress
High vulnerability to economic setbacks
Lack of capital
Large agricultural sectors
Reliance on export of primary products
Responding to Global
Environmental Threats
1. Private Voluntary Responses: corporations and
consumers see it in their own best long-term
interests to protect the environment.
2. Government Responses: governments use their
powers to tax, spend, and regulate to protect the
environment.
a. Unilateral responses
b. Multilateral customs (“soft law”)
c. Multilateral conventions/treaties (“hard law”)
Stockholm Conference 1972:
United Nations Conference
on the Human Environment
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It was largely ignored by heads of state.
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Communist countries withdrew on ideological grounds.
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Developing countries were wary about Northern concern with
pollution and nature conservation taking precedence over poverty
and underdevelopment.
The conference offered no real guidance on how to balance
sovereign rights to natural resources with environmental
responsibilities.
After Stockholm, there was a lot of talk about global environmental
governance, but very little concrete action was initially taken.
Rio Earth Summit 1992:
United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development
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178 nations sent delegations, and 118 heads of state/government
attended.
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The Rio Declaration was created. (See p. 71 in GEG.)
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Agenda 21 was created.
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Statement of Forest Principles was created.
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Convention on Biological Diversity was drafted.
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UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was drafted.
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But there was no agreement on an Earth Charter.
Johannesburg Summit 2002:
World Summit for Sustainable Development
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Millennium Development Goals on water, energy, health,
agriculture, and biodiversity were asserted. (See p. 77
in GEG.)
There were significant discussions about the 3
dimensions of sustainable development (“triple bottom
line”): economy, environment, and society.
But no implementation plan for the Millennium
Development Goals was forthcoming.
Stereotypical Development Agendas
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North: Safeguard monetary interests, affluent
lifestyles, and political hegemony; utilize
Southern markets for labor and as waste sinks.
South: Overcome poverty, achieve higher
standards of living, receive technology transfers
from North, and enter globalized markets.
Stereotypical Ecology Agendas
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North: Prevent environmental degradation and
catastrophes, protect nature, and conserve
biodiversity.
South: Sustain local environments, progress
through sustainable development, and assert
differentiated responsibilities.
Parallels Between Environmental Justice in
the United States and
Global Environmental Justice
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Inequity: unfair distributions of burdens and
benefits.
Dominance and Hegemony: unequal
participation and lack of recognition and respect.
Ineffective Legal Institutions and Norms:
deficient international treaties and lack of
procedural remedies.