Justice and the Environment
This term refers to the fair treatment of all people regardless of race or income when it comes to environmental laws and policies.
What is environmental justice?
This Michigan city faced a major water crisis after lead contaminated its drinking water in 2014.
What is the Flint Water Crisis?
This U.S. federal agency is responsible for protecting human health and the environment.
What is the Environmental Protection Agency?
Breathing polluted air can worsen this common respiratory disease that affects many children.
What is asthma?
Illegally throwing away toxic chemicals instead of disposing of them properly is known as this environmental crime.
What is Illegal Dumping?
Studies have found that communities of color are more likely to live near highways, factories, and landfills. This inequality is called this.
What is environmental racism?
This 2010 disaster released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico after an offshore drilling rig exploded.
What is the Deep Horizon Oil Spill?
This law, passed in 1970, regulates air pollution and sets national air quality standards.
What is the Clean Air Act?
Lead contamination in drinking water can damage this organ, especially in children.
What is the brain?
Companies that break environmental laws can face large financial penalties known as these.
What are fines?
Environmental justice activists often argue that everyone deserves access to clean air, safe drinking water, and this basic environmental necessity for living.
What is a healthy environment?
After this 2005 hurricane, many residents struggled with flooding, pollution, and slow disaster relief.
What is Hurricane Katrina?
This major environmental law regulates pollution in rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water.
What is the Clean Water Act?
Burning fossil fuels releases gases that contribute to this global environmental issue.
What is Climate Change?
Crimes committed by corporations or business professionals, including environmental violations, fall under this category of crime.
What is white-collar crime?
Research shows that low-income communities are often located closer to industrial zones where pollution levels are higher. This is an example of unequal environmental exposure based on this factor.
What is income or socioeconomic status?
This country experienced the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, one of the worst environmental disasters in history.
What is Ukraine?
This 1969 law requires environmental impact statements before major federal projects are approved.
What is the National Environmental Policy Act?
Tiny particles in polluted air that can enter the lungs and bloodstream are known as this type of pollution.
What is Particle Matter?
When companies knowingly pollute rivers or dump hazardous waste, they may face this type of legal punishment besides fines.
What is prison time or criminal charges?
The environmental justice movement gained national attention in the 1980s after protests over a toxic waste landfill in this North Carolina county.
What is Warren County?
Residents of Love Canal in this U.S. state discovered their neighborhood was built on top of a toxic chemical dump in the 1970s.
What is New York?
This federal program helps clean up the nation’s most contaminated hazardous waste sites.
What is the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act?
Plastic waste in the ocean harms marine animals that may mistake plastic for this.
What is food?
Investigators sometimes analyze soil, water, and air samples to prove environmental crimes in court. This scientific investigative field is called environmental ______.
What is Forensics?