 Environmental JusticePollution's Peril Amplified
Pollution and the negative health effects it causes affect all of us, but not equally. People who live near pollution sources are more likely to be affected – more likely to breathe air laced with pollutants from a nearby industrial plant, more likely to drink well water contaminated by pesticide run-off from a nearby farm, more likely to be affected by toxic waste at a nearby dump site not yet cleaned up by Superfund.
Such increased environmental hazards are not just the result of where one lives, they also relate to where one works. Some farm workers and chemical plant employees, for example, are likely to have higher rates of illness, including life-threatening diseases like cancer, because they work daily in a compromised environment, breathing or otherwise taking into their bodies a variety of environmental hazards.
Not surprisingly, the people who work at such jobs and live in such areas tend to be those on the lower end of the economic scale and, therefore, disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities. The recognition of this dynamic has given rise to an “environmental justice” movement that focuses attention on exactly who is harmed by pollution, and that works for stronger pollution controls.
CPR Member Scholars have participated in, studied and written about the environment justice movement:
- Proposed Executive Orders for the Obama Administration. In November 2008, the Center for Progressive Reform transmitted to the Obama Transition Team a slate of seven Executive Orders addressing a series of critical issues, including climate change, transparency in government, environmental justice, children's exposure to toxics, citizens' right to sue corporations whose products cause them harm, and stewardship of public lands. Read a web article about the proposals, and read the white paper itself, Protecting Public Health and the Environment by the Stroke of a Presidential Pen. Or read the news release.
- A CPR Perspective. Read CPR's Perspective on Environmental Justice by Member Scholars Eileen Gauna, Sheila Foster, Carmen Gonzalez, Lisa Heinzerling, Catherine O'Neill, Clifford Rechtschaffen and Robert R.M. Verchick. Also read CPR's Perspecitve on International Environmental Justice.
- CPR White Paper. Read CPR's White Paper, "Environmental Justice," by Eileen Gauna, Catherine A. O’Neill and Clifford Rechtschaffen.
- Mercury and Native Americans. Read Catherine O'Neill's description of the impact of the Administration's mercury cap-and-trade scheme on Native Americans in the Great Lakes region.
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