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Environmental Justice
Environmental justice is a broad concept to define political actions to stop the victimization of disadvantaged communities of color and poverty by projects that cause environmental harm. It began in North Carolina (1982) over a PCB landfill in a poor Afro-American town. It became part of federal policy in 1994 when President Clinton signed an executive order charging all federal projects to incorporate environmental justice into their operations. Environmental justice became internationalized at the U.N. Rio Summit on the Environment (1992). It is a multifaceted movement that includes laws and policies from civil rights, distributive justice court decisions, public participation equality issues, social justice ethics, and actions by the global sustainability movement. Sustainability interacts with issues of justice. It attempts to eliminate harmful impacts such as pollution rather than redistribute them. It attempts to find ways to ensure access to resources such as water and energy that are equitable but do not harm the environment. It promotes the precautionary principle as a way to avoid inequitable environmental burdens. Environmental justice and sustainability also deal with very large economic justice issues: Can all consumers reach U.S. standards of living? Will this cause too much environmental damage? What is an equitable distribution of resources? What kind of limits (e.g. taxation of luxuries and high incomes) should be imposed on the wealthy? What is the minimum life style that should be guaranteed all humans?
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Keywords environmental racism, civil rights, Executive Order 12898, Title VI, distributive justice, sustainability, social justice, environmental ethics, public participation, racial inequality, poverty, disadvantaged communities, environmental hazards, human rights, indigenous peoples, race, social class, power, environmental democracy, toxic waste, environmental enforcement, North-South equity, economic equality, economic discrimination, poverty, fairness, equity, economic affairs, international financial institutions, transnational corporations, economic inequalities, economic access, social justice, debt relief, gender, North-South solidarity, inequity, economic solidarity, social exclusion, inequity of power, justice and sustainability, enviro justice, race, poverty and the environment, corporate charter, green collar jobs, green collar job, green job |
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