Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy (review)

Abstract

Kristin Shrader-Frechette, a well known philosopher of environmental ethics, makes an ethical case for Environmental Justice. Explaining fundamental ethical concepts such as equality, property rights, procedural justice, free informed consent, intergeneration equality, just compensation and moral heroism - and then bringing them to bear on real-world social issues - Shrader-Frechette shows how many of these core concepts have been compromised for a large segment of the global population, among them Appalachians, African-Americans, workers in hazardous jobs and indigenous people living in developing nations. She argues that there are strong and compelling grounds for remedying our environmental problems and that burdens like pollution and resource depletion need to be apportioned more equally. She also argues vehemently that not only do we have strong ethical grounds for remedying environmental problems, but that these remedies need to involve the participation of those affected, that all citizens have a duty to engage in activism an behalf of Environmental Justice and that in a democracy it is the people, not the government, that are ultimately and truly responsible for equitable and fair use of the environment. Combining rigorous philosophical scholarship with a deep knowledge of actual problems in the environment and among the disenfranchised, Environmental Justice is a new look at an old problem and will encourage debate among those concerned with both social and environmental justice.