Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement in the United States and Introduction to Global Environmental Politics

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Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement in
the United StatesandIntroduction to Global
Environmental Politics
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Environmental Justice

• Robert Figueroa Claudia Mills

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

• 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.

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Some Criticisms of the EPA

1. Focused on regulation and not on prevention of
   harms to health.
2. Racial divide in enforcement.
3. Controversial history Numerous exemptions to
   regulatory standards were granted, and standards
   were often held hostage by presidential
   administrations and special interests.

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Risk

• 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.

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Environmental Standards

• 1. Who should set these?
• 2. Who should be protected?
• 3. What should standards measure?
• 4. How do we get people, companies, and
  governments to comply?
• 5. What should be the punishment for
  non-compliance?
• These questions might not be easily answered in
  terms of distributive justice.

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Mainstream EnvironmentalismGroup 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

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Criticisms of Mainstream Environmentalism in the
1980s

1. Had lost its bite and become a culture of reform.
2. Was held hostage by corporate philanthropy and
   big money.
3. Was dominated by professionalism.
4. Had lost touch with its grassroots constituency.
5. Still did not adequately address urban and rural
   environmental concerns.
6. Was still largely a white mens club.

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Enter The Environmental Justice Movement

• By the 1980s, a new type of grassroots
  environmentalism had clearly arrived in the U.S.
• 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.

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Different Tributaries That Nourished the Stream
of the EJ Movement in the U.S.

1. Civil Rights Movement
2. Anti-Toxics Movement
3. Labor Movement
4. Native American Indian Struggles
5. Academia
6. Mainstream Environmentalism

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Some Central Concerns of the EJ Movement in the
U.S.

• 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

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Justice Dimensions of Environmental Justice

• 1. Distributive Justice How should environmental
  burdens and benefits be distributed?
• And theres also
• 2. Procedural Justice What are fair and
  equitable procedures for making distribution
  decisions?
• But
• What is missing is an examination of social,
  cultural, symbolic, and institutional conditions
  underlying unfair distributions of burdens and
  benefits.

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Another Justice Dimension of Environmental
Justice

• Participatory Justice
• 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
  justicefocusing on distributions and procedures
  obscures social structures and the institutional
  context in which environmental decisions are
  made.
• But theres morenext slide please.

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Recognition and Identity

• If you arent recognized and respected, you dont
  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.

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Once More Justice Dimensions of Environmental
Justice

• Recognition or identity justice
• Participatory justice
• Distributive justice
• Procedural justice
• Slogan of the EJ Movement
• We speak for ourselves.

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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

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Principles of Environmental Justice

• http//www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.html

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Transformative Politics of the Environmental
Justice Movement (EJM)

1. EJM reconstructs social relations through
   grassroots actions.
2. EJM concerns self-representation and agency and
   is not merely a new consciousness.
3. Redefining, reinventing, and reconstructing
   political and cultural discourse and practices
   can lead to fundamental social and environmental
   change.
4. Transformation involves individuals, communities,
   and institutions.

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Academic/Activist Robert D. Bullard

• http//www.jodisolomonspeakers.com/speakerspdfs/Bu
  llard,20Robert202006.pdf

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Bullard Dominant Environmental Protection
Paradigm

• 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.

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Bullard Impetus for a Paradigm Shift

• Need to address
• 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.

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Bullards New Environmental Justice Framework

1. Ground the framework on the principle that all
   individuals have the right to be protected from
   environmental degradation.
2. Also ground the framework on the precautionary
   principle to protect workers, communities, and
   ecosystems.
3. 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.
4. Adopt a public health model of prevention as the
   preferred strategy to eliminate a threat before
   it occurs.

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Global Environmental Governance Chapter III
From Stockholm to Johannesburg First Attempt at
Global Environmental Governance

• James Gustave Speth Peter M. Haas

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North-South Distinctions

• Geography
• Economic Standing
• Political Hegemony
• Former Colonizers vs. Former Colonies
• Developed World vs. Developing World
• First World vs. Third World

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Characterizing the South

• 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

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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)

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Stockholm Conference 1972United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment

• It was largely ignored by heads of state.
• Communist countries withdrew on ideological
  grounds.
• 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.

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Rio Earth Summit 1992United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development

• 178 nations sent delegations, and 118 heads of
  state/government attended.
• The Rio Declaration was created. (See p. 71 in
  GEG.)
• Agenda 21 was created.
• Statement of Forest Principles was created.
• Convention on Biological Diversity was drafted.
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was
  drafted.
• But there was no agreement on an Earth Charter.

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Johannesburg Summit 2002World Summit for
Sustainable Development

• 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.

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Stereotypical Development Agendas

• 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.

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Stereotypical Ecology Agendas

• North Prevent environmental degradation and
  catastrophes, protect nature, and conserve
  biodiversity.
• South Sustain local environments, progress
  through sustainable development, and assert
  differentiated responsibilities.

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Parallels Between Environmental Justice in the
United States and Global Environmental Justice

• 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.