EJ and race
Racial discrimination in environmental policy-making and enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the presence of life threatening poisons and pollutants for communities of color, and the history of excluding people of color from leadership of the environmental movement
What is environmental racism
The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies
What is environmental justice
Designation of communities marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution, commonly characterized by meeting certain geographic, socioeconomic, public health, and environmental hazard criteria
What is a disadvantaged community
An organized effort by a large number of people to bring about or impede social, political, economic, or cultural change, typically working outside the system
What is a social movement
Signed into law August 2022, this US act authorized investment of $369 billion in energy security and climate projects, with an estimated $47.5 billion for EJ priorities
What is the Inflation Reduction Act
“a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (Omi and Winant 1994:55)
What is race
The right to equal treatment, that is, to the same distribution of goods and opportunities as anyone else has or is given
What is distributive justice
Poorer health outcomes such as increased rates of asthma, cancer, and neurodevelopmental issues, due to chronic exposure to toxic chemicals, polluted air, and water compared to the average
What is a health disparity
An explicit theory of how and why it is thought that a social policy or program activities lead to outcomes and impacts
What is a theory of change
A public health crisis from 2014 to 2019 which involved the drinking water for the city being contaminated with lead. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.
What is the water crisis in Flint, Michigan
A framework for understanding how various aspects of a person's identity, such as race, gender, class, and sexuality, interact to create unique experiences of both discrimination and privilege
What is intersectionality
The right to treatment as an equal. That is the right, not to an equal distribution of some good or opportunity, but to equal concern and respect in the political decision about how these goods and opportunities are to be distributed
What is procedural justice
The total burden – positive, neutral, or negative – from chemical and non-chemical stressors and their interactions that affect the health, well-being, and quality of life of an individual, community, or population at a given point in time or over a period of time
What is cumulative burden
Research that documents pain or loss in an individual, community, or tribe, and looks to historical exploitation, domination, and colonization to explain contemporary brokenness, such as poverty, poor health, and low literacy
What is damage-centered research
Congo, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia - all with high levels of economic inequality and poor democratic institutions - setting aside more than 30% of national territories exclusively for wildlife and biodiversity conservation is an example of
What is fortress conservation
The normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics – historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal – that routinely advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color
What is structural racism
Fairness in how damages are addressed, and punishments for lawbreaking are assigned; not only about punishment, but the duty to repair losses for which one is responsible
What is corrective justice
When communities of concern (1) experience higher levels of exposure to environmental stressors in terms of both frequency and magnitude and (2) are less able to deal with these hazards as a result of limited knowledge of exposures and disenfranchisement from the political process
What is double jeopardy
Doing research with an equal and reciprocal partnership involving: stakeholder interaction and engagement, collaboration, multiple values and perspectives, commitment, iterative process, joint problem/definition, etc.
Co-production of research
In 1996, this company wanted to build a new polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in the lower income, 84% African-American community of Convent, Louisiana. EPA did an analysis and found that African Americans would suffer at 71% to 242% greater toxic air pollution burden than non-African Americans.
What is Shintech
Discriminatory treatment, unfair policies and inequitable opportunities and impacts, based on race, produced and perpetuated by schools, mass media, etc., is an example of this
What is institutional racism
The requirement that policies and programs must meet the standard of fairly considering and representing the cultures, values, and situations of all affected parties
What is recognitive justice
‘a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all’ - Nixon (2011)
What is slow violence
Guidance for (mostly white) environmental organizations who want to work in low income and communities of color: #1 Be Inclusive, #2 Emphasis on Bottom-Up Organizing, #3 Let People Speak for Themselves, #4 Work Together In Solidarity and Mutuality, #5 Build Just Relationships Among Ourselves, #6 Commitment to Self-Transformation
What are the Jemez Principles
In 1978, Ward Transformer Company drove liquid tanker trucks along rural roads and discharged PCBs. Because it was state-owned property, the state was responsible for remediation and planned a landfill in a rural area of mostly poor, Black residents. Residents of this county spent three years fighting this in courts and in 1982 turned to collective action
What is Warren County