Environmental Justice Literature Research Articles

Cumulative Exposures to Environmental and Socioeconomic Risk Factors in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

The environmental justice literature demonstrates consistently that low-income and minority communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. In this case study, we examined cumulative multipollutant, multidomain, and multimatrix environmental exposures in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin for the year 2015. We identified spatial hot spots in Milwaukee County both individually (using local Moran's I) and through clusters (using K-means clustering) across a profile of environmental pollutants that span regulatory domains and matrices of exposure, as well as socioeconomic indicators. The cluster with the highest exposures within the urban area was largely characterized by low socioeconomic status and an overrepresentation of the Non-Hispanic Black population relative to the county as a whole. In this cluster, average pollutant concentrations were equivalent to the 78th percentile in county-level blood lead levels, 67th percentile in county-level NO2, 79th percentile in county-level CO, and 78th percentile in county-level air toxics. Simultaneously, this cluster had an average equivalent to the 62nd percentile in county-level unemployment, 70th percentile in county-level population rate lacking a high school diploma, 73rd percentile in county-level poverty rate, and 28th percentile in county-level median household income. The spatial patterns of pollutant exposure and SES indicators suggested that these disparities were not random but were instead structured by socioeconomic and racial factors. Our case study, which combines environmental pollutant exposures, sociodemographic data, and clustering analysis, provides a roadmap to identify and target overburdened communities for interventions that reduce environmental exposures and consequently improve public health.

Memory Carriers and Intergenerational Kinship in Indigenous Climate Change Fiction Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013) and Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017)

The concept of anthropogenic climate change, in its most simplistic interpretation, implies that all humanity is collectively responsible for the present threats to planetary sustainability. This unquestioned discourse of collective responsibility also facilitates frames of understanding that isolate older generations and burden them as a whole, blaming them for the construction of a life model that has led to the present crisis, a discourse challenged by postcolonial and environmental justice literature and in particular by Indigenous fiction. A discussion of two novels, The Swan Book (2013) by the Waanyi Australian writer Alexis Wright, and The Marrow Thieves (2017) by the Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline, scrutinises how they create alternative frames presenting older adults in scenarios of environmental devastation as carriers of memory that are agents in the construction of the spirit of resilience and resistance of young characters.

Dataset of U.S. School Bus Depots

This technical note describes the methods used to create a dataset of school bus depot locations in the United States. There are nearly half a million school buses in the country but almost no public information about where they are kept. Environmental justice literature describes how school bus depots may create air pollution hotspots for underserved communities that lead to health harms and may require grid infrastructure upgrades for future bus electrification.

A social constructivist understanding of culture for environmental justice and policy


 
 
 In addressing the environmental threats to cultural resources, some environmental ethicists have taken for granted the idea that culture has an essential character of change that is to be welcomed. In this article, I show that there are pressing moral issues, in this age of environmental crisis, that lurk behind the idea that culture has an essential nature of change. One question that I address is whether, if change is always a pervasive part of culture, we should be morally neutral about changes to cultural values and resources, especially when such change is harmful and external forces are responsible. To address this question, I adopt a social constructivist understanding of culture to show why concerns for loss of culture in the event of environmental crisis that is qualified as cultural change is normatively flawed. I argue that this perspective on culture, yet to be considered in environmental justice literature, prescribes not being neutral about cultural change in addressing environmental issues that affect cultural resources. I demonstrate that seeing culture in this new light has revealing implications for environmental justice. I conclude that failure to integrate this idea of environmental justice runs the risk of dismissing what is harmful to some cultural groups under the guise of ‘normal’ cultural change.
 
 

Rising to the Challenge: Embedding Environmental Justice in Management and Organization Studies

Management and organization studies (MOS) scholars have recently brought attention to the lack of engagement with social equity and justice in tackling grand challenges. We argue that environmental justice (EJ) can deepen MOS’ engagement with social equity in addressing grand challenges, particularly climate change. Through a bibliometric analysis and qualitative review, we explore scholarly communities within EJ literature and draw connections to MOS research. We develop three bridges between EJ and MOS scholarship: (a) investigating organizational roles and processes in distributing environmental benefits and burdens within socioecological systems, (b) situating the firm within structural and historical contexts that create and perpetuate environmental injustices, and (c) prioritizing the goals, perspectives, and agency of activists and neglected voices within environmental conflicts and solutions. Ultimately, this review aims to build meaningful pathways to embed EJ in MOS research on grand challenges.

Youth and climate justice: Representations of young people in action for sustainable futures

AbstractFrom fossil fuel corporations sponsoring climate change education to youth‐washing international gatherings, young people are bombarded, and simultaneously abandoned, by struggles for climate justice. The root issues fuelling interlocking environmental and social crises are often erased in initiatives involving youth. These crises are a direct result of broader, structural conditions that have become the de facto global order and propel notions of sustainable development. In settler colonial contexts such as Canada, colonialism, capitalism and inequitable forms of violence mutually depend upon one another to perpetuate climate injustice. Youth are increasingly aware of these entanglements, while seemingly discouraged from transformative action. With these tensions in mind, this commentary investigates the obstacles youth face despite making key contributions to justice‐focused climate action, and draws attention to the necessity of strengthening meaningful youth engagement. To explore this issue, we engage with climate and environmental justice literature, youth‐led initiatives, and youth representation on a global stage.

Environmental justice for whom? Citizen participation and brownfield redevelopment in downtown Birmingham, Alabama

Environmental legislation promotes citizen participation in the environmental review process through public hearings, community meetings, and advisory groups. However, environmental justice literature advocates higher levels of grassroots citizen empowerment through education and involvement in the decision-making process. Numerous research studies indicated that although the federal government supports community involvement in environmental restoration projects, such involvement has never been implemented to its fullest potential. This case study examines citizen participation and empowerment in the environmental review process in the redevelopment of three brownfields in underserved neighborhoods in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. This study quantifies empowerment leveraging Arnstein's ladder of participation in a novel approach. Utilizing a survey questionnaire, this analysis was conducted in three ways: a comparison of actual citizen participation methods used in the process with those providing a higher level of empowerment; compilation of open-ended responses of citizen dissatisfaction with the environmental review process; and utilizing Arnstein's Ladder to measure perceived levels of empowerment of citizen, public official, and developer stakeholders. Findings suggest that the types of participation methods used were at lower levels of citizen empowerment removed from decision-making; in responses to open-ended questions, citizens expressed shortcomings in the participatory process compared with their opinion on how it should be conducted, and perceived levels of empowerment differed among the categories of stakeholders. Citizens reported perceptions of empowerment at levels of tokenism removed from decision-making, while developers and public officials reported higher levels of empowerment. This study concludes that more innovative citizen participation techniques, university/community partnerships, and collaborative compact models are needed for more equitable participation. Statement of Problem—The purpose of this case study is to analyze how well citizen participation in the environmental review process as specified by legislation corresponds to normative guidelines prescribed in the environmental justice literature.

Environmental (in)justice in the Anthropocene ocean

Environmental justice refers broadly to the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, and the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in environmental decision-making and legal frameworks. The field of environmental justice initially developed out of a concern for the disproportionate distribution and impacts of environmental pollution and hazardous waste disposal on groups that have been historically and structurally marginalized, including Black populations and socio-economically disadvantaged communities. More recent environmental justice scholarship has expanded geographically and focused on a broader set of environmental hazards and harms, such as climate change impacts, biodiversity and habitat loss, and ecosystem service declines. Yet, the impacts and distribution of environmental hazards and harms in the marine environment on coastal populations has received less attention in the environmental justice literature. This narrative review paper starts to address this gap through a focus on five main areas of environmental injustice in the ocean: 1) pollution and toxic wastes, 2) plastics and marine debris, 3) climate change, 4) ecosystem, biodiversity and ecosystem service degradation, and 5) fisheries declines. For each, we characterize the issue and root drivers, then examine social and distributional impacts. In the discussion, we explore how these environmental injustices are converging and interacting, cumulative, differentiated, and geographically distributed, and briefly examine solutions and future research directions. In conclusion, we call for greater and more explicit attention to environmental justice in ocean research and policy.

Governance learning from collective actions for just climate adaptation in cities

Environmental policy research fails to integrate procedural and recognitional justice perspectives and collective actions in governance learning for just climate adaptations. Drawing on the insights of two cities experiencing climate impacts differently, Bergen (Norway) and Istanbul (Turkey), this paper assesses how collective actions influence different levels of governments (local to national) to learn from these actions to implement just climate actions in their localities. Using environmental justice (specifically recognition and procedural) and policy learning literature, we contextualize a three-governance learning typology that emerges through collective actions that may trigger governance structures for policy integration: governance learning by resisting, co-opting, and expanding. We identify what kind of learning is introduced to the existing governance structures in Bergen and Istanbul, and how that learning shapes or is shaped by the governance structures, local government in Bergen and local to national governments in Istanbul, while developing climate adaptation policies and actions. Overall, this paper shows what types of knowledge and information are incorporated or ignored after collective actions and how power mediates interactions between actors across multiple urban settings for just climate adaptation.

Environmental justice is exhausting: five decades of air pollution and community advocacy at Ezra Prentice Homes in Albany, New York

ABSTRACT This narrative case study used semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and archival research to document the ongoing environmental injustices faced by the predominately Black residents of Ezra Prentice Homes, a public housing complex adjacent to the Port of Albany in the South End of Albany, New York. We highlighted the context of the relocation of minorities to this public housing complex for the construction of the Empire State Plaza, and impacts to residents from polluting port industrial activities and heavy-duty diesel trucks. Using a social justice Theory of Change framework, we evaluated the diversity of outcomes and relevance of an innovative suite of advocacy tools employed by policy activists and discussed the factors constraining the resolution of continued environmental injustices. We observed a complex legacy of environmental racism, power struggles, and an ongoing mindset of expendability of marginalised public housing residents targeting this community for hosting locally unwanted land uses and delayed long-term solutions. While policy activists employed a diversity of advocacy tools instrumental in winning lawsuits, expanding their base of support, attracting media, and bringing widespread state and national visibility to the struggles and necessary solutions for protecting residents, this “middle coalition” facilitated successful yet temporary policy outcomes in terms of long-term protections for residents. This research fills an important gap in the environmental justice literature that explores the phenomenon of public housing complexes inappropriately sited adjacent to polluting port facilities. Future research is needed to better understand community risk perceptions related to public housing and long-term public policy responses.

The greening of human rights in Iran: Lake Orumiyeh, human rights, and environmental justice

In the mid-2000s, a social movement emerged in northwestern Iran to demand increased environmental protections for Lake Orumiyeh. Once among the largest saltwater lakes in the world, Lake Orumiyeh has undergone rapid desiccation, losing nearly 90 per cent of its surface area over the past two decades. Conceptually, the aim of this article is to examine how protesters in Orumiyeh used environmental justice, both as a concept and political strategy, to make human rights claims against the Iranian state. I posit that environmental justice functions as a coded language in this political context, where it is challenging to speak openly about human rights. Drawing from environmental justice and critical human rights literature in geography, combined with an empirical and visual analysis of protests to save Lake Orumiyeh, I analyze how protesters strategically ‘greened’ the language of human rights to protect themselves from state violence. I compare two protests organized in 2010 and 2011 to demonstrate how the site of the lake was used to signify broader grievances against the state. Through a comparison of the affective tone and state response to the protests, I explicate both the importance and the limits of ‘greening’ human rights as a protest strategy. Taken together, these case studies illustrate how limiting activism to binary frameworks of the environmental or political renders invisible the multidimensional claims of protesters. My study demonstrates the importance of widening our analytical gaze to incorporate protests that register rights claims outside of the normative framework of human rights, thereby accounting for political contexts where alternative rights narratives are both strategic and necessary.

Why New Zealand’s Indigenous reconciliation process has failed to empower Māori fishers: Distributional, procedural, and recognition-based injustices

How is it that the New Zealand government’s process for re-establishing Indigenous fishing rights has failed to deliver thriving Māori fisheries? This paper examines why, at Te Waihora, a coastal lake, and site of one of the nation’s longest running and best-funded state-Māori co-governance agreements, Māori fishers have been unable to use their rights to support their fishery. As of 2018, the lake’s culturally and ecologically significant eel population was no longer commercially viable, a decline fishers have attributed to rampant dairy industry expansion upstream. Drawing on environmental justice literatures, we deploy a multi-dimensional framework to identify factors shaping possibilities for justice in the wake of rights reconciliation, as experienced by Māori fishers, scientists, and leaders. We engage theories of political economic relations to interpret the implications of these experiences for environmental justice theory and politics. Ethnographic accounts demonstrate that the New Zealand government’s process for re-establishing Māori rights falls short of achieving distributional, procedural, and recognition-based dimensions of environmental justice, and that these effects are interlinked. In particular: (i) downstream fishers are placed to bear disproportionate costs of runoff from upstream land use change; (ii) Māori fishers have little influence over governance decisions that affect land use; and (iii) government claims, including that Māori should, “move beyond grievance mode,” obscure logics for resistance. We suggest that the government’s support for dairy industry expansion represents an attempt to mitigate crises of overaccumulation, characteristic of competitive markets. Unlike those who identify persistent injustice as a logic for turning away from the state, we argue that the recurring nature of these crises, and the role state organizations play in directing responses, indicates a rationale for continued engagement with state governing bodies to advance justice.

Ambiguities at Sites of Acceptance: Agrarian Neoliberalism and Herbicide Exposure in Argentina

In this article, we study how dominant ideas on herbicide-dependent agriculture are reappropriated and recreated at different scales in farming towns of the Argentine Pampas. First, we analyze the discourses of national reach, to show how herbicide use is institutionally justified, promoted, and legitimized, while also being downplayed or minimized. Second, and based on our interviews with people who benefit from herbicide-dependent agriculture, we inspect how they interpret and reframe national actors' discourses. Our analysis shows ambivalences toward the risks of agrochemical exposure, a tendency to dilute them by pointing to people's quotidian coexistence with other environmental hazards, and a reinterpretation of the right to use agrochemicals in terms of national sovereignty and individual rights to prosperity. We also identify an understanding of the role of the state that overlapped with the typical neoliberal stance but also departed from it in significant ways. This study contributes to the understanding of “sites of acceptance” and to the environmental justice literature by focusing on understudied places, actors, and processes.

Towards a CO2-neutral steel industry: Justice aspects of CO2 capture and storage, biomass- and green hydrogen-based emission reductions

A rapid transition towards a CO2-neutral steel industry is required to limit climate change. Such a transition raises questions of justice, as it entails positive and negative impacts unevenly distributed across societal stakeholders. To enable stakeholders to address such concerns, this paper assesses the justice implications of three options that reduce emissions: CO2 capture and storage (CCS) on steel (up to 70%), bio-based steelmaking (up to 50%), and green hydrogen-based steel production (up to 100%). We select justice indicators from the energy, climate, labour and environmental justice literature and assess these indicators qualitatively for each of the technological routes based on literature and desk research. We find context-dependent differences in justness between the different technological routes. The impact on stakeholders varies across regions. There are justice concerns for local communities because of economic dependence on, and environmental impact of the industry. Communities elsewhere are impacted through the siting of infrastructure and feedstock production. CCS and bio-based steelmaking routes can help retain industry and associated economic benefits on location, while hydrogen-based steelmaking may deal better with environmental concerns. We conclude that, besides techno-economic and environmental information, transparency on sector-specific justice implications of transforming steel industries is essential for decision-making on technological routes.

A Framework for Developing Environmental Justice Indicators

Environmental justice (EJ) is a broad discipline that attempts to understand and redress unfair exposure to unhealthy environmental conditions. EJ is often made measurable with indicators, however the capabilities and the limitations of EJ indicators can be difficult for policy makers to understand. Using an exploratory review of EJ literature, this paper performs a research translation role by clarifying the key terms used to describe EJ indicators and by providing conceptual frameworks for developing locally valid EJ indicators for government and community. Issues such as the position of EJ in the context of the social determinants of health, indicator development, and definitions are explored. The exploratory literature review highlighted the potential and limitations of EJ indicators for measuring the extent and impact of EJ issues on human health and the environment. We found that EJ indicators are invariably (1) composed of two or more measures, and (2) developed iteratively, in consultation with those affected. To aid governments and communities, we present both a top-down and a bottom-up framework for developing EJ indicators, with the bottom-up framework guiding the combination of measures from four different core elements; environment, demography, epidemiology and procedures. A list of evidence-based example measures, from the literature, for developing EJ indicators is also provided. It is anticipated that the frameworks and list of EJ example measures will provide guidance for efficiently developing locally relevant EJ indicators.

Safe drinking water for small low-income communities: the long road from violation to remediation

Small, low-income communities in the United States disproportionately lack access to safe drinking water (i.e. water that meets regulated quality standards). At a community level, the literature has broadly claimed that a major barrier to safe drinking water access is low technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) capacity. At a broader structural level, the environmental justice literature has shown that historical neglect of low-income communities of color has resulted in numerous water systems without the financial and political resources to meet water quality standards. This study investigates the contemporary processes by which distributive injustices persist in California’s Central Valley. The study uses key informant interviews with a range of stakeholders, including employees at the state, county and community, non-profit organizations, and engineers, to understand why sustainable water quality solutions for small low-income communities remain such a challenge. The interviews are structured around a decision chain, which builds out the specific steps needed to go from a maximum contaminant level violation to remediation. The resulting decision chain makes visible the multiple steps at multiple stages with multiple actors that are needed to arrive at a solution to substandard water quality. It shows the numerous nodes at which progress can be stalled, and thus functions as a behind-the-scenes look at the (re)production of persistent inequalities. The complexity of the process shows why having the TMF capacity needed to get to a safe water system is not a reasonable expectation for most small community water systems. Inequalities are continually being produced and cemented, often by the very steps aimed towards remediation, thus making persistent disparities in safe drinking water access a de facto state-sanctioned process that compounds a discriminatory historical legacy.

Exposure, access, and inequities: Central themes, emerging trends, and key gaps in Canadian environmental justice literature from 2006 to 2017

Environmental injustices—in the form of inequitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits, uneven access to decision‐making processes, and misrecognition of communities—have been documented globally. However, in Canada, many have argued that the story of environmental injustice is less widely known, with more fragmented research that has produced little in terms of public policies intended to alleviate injustice. This paper uses a meta‐narrative review approach to map the evolution of environmental justice research in Canada between 2006‐2017, and characterize how central themes, emerging trends, and gaps in the literature have changed since the last review of this kind was completed. We conducted a systematic search of publications addressing environmental justice in Canada, yielding 820 publications. We coded abstracts to assess patterns of coverage across space, time, topics, and populations of focus. We find that Canadian environmental justice literature has continued to grow in quantity and scope, addressing more dimensions of environmental harms and benefits, and from an increasingly integrated perspective. However, there remain important and persistent gaps in its coverage. Future research that more fully addresses these geographic (e.g., Atlantic and Prairie regions), topical (e.g., focus on prevention), and recognitional (e.g., racialization) gaps is needed to inform policy‐making and promote justice.

Making space for indigenous law in state‐led decisions about hydropower dams: Lessons from environmental assessments in Canada and Brazil

AbstractThe article examines the environmental impact assessment of hydropower dams as an opportunity for applying indigenous laws. Although indigenous laws of affected communities exist and have guided the management of land and natural resources for millennia, they have not yet occupied a significant place in state‐led decision making. Consequently, decisions to approve dams, based on state laws and officials' discretionary power, affect indigenous peoples in distinct and profound ways. The analysis is based on the comparison between two decision‐making processes—Site C (Canada) and Belo Monte (Brazil) dams. The methodology includes the application of principles from the environmental justice literature, the analysis of interviews, case law and legislation. The article concludes that environmental justice for indigenous peoples in environmental decision making of projects with significant impacts, such as large dams, requires recognizing and making institutional spaces for implementing indigenous laws.

Why do Mines Fail to Obtain a Social License to Operate?: Insights from the Proposed Kallak Iron Mine (Sweden) and the Prosperity/New Prosperity Gold-Copper Mine (Canada).

Opposition to mines endures even in countries with relatively strong environmental assessment processes and regulations. Why proposed mines fail to obtain a social license to operate is analyzed by developing a framework comprised of three concepts-process legitimacy, distributional outcomes, and values compatibility-drawing from the social license to operate, interactive governance, and environmental justice literatures. The framework is applied to understand opposition from local Indigenous people to two mine projects, one in Sweden and the other in British Columbia, Canada. Evidence from interviews with Sami legal experts and Reindeer Herding Community representatives and an advisor with the Tŝilhqot'in National Government, as well as from secondary sources is used to analyze the contestation. Despite the proposed mines being situated in different governance contexts, the reasons for the opposition are markedly similar - environmental assessment processes are illegitimate, distributional outcomes unfair, and values incompatible. The comparative empirical analysis leads to refining the framework as a scaffold with values compatibility as the foundational plank, rather than three independent planks contributing to a social license to operate. The analysis offers insights into company commitments to Indigenous engagement, enhancements to process legitimacy, and evolving and paradigmatic shifts in governance processes, as articulated by Indigenous peoples and international governance mechanisms such as the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Invited Perspective: Moving from Characterizing to Addressing Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Air Pollution Exposure.

Invited Perspective: Moving from Characterizing to Addressing Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Air Pollution Exposure.