Environmental Justice Organizations Research Articles

Mutual Aid as a Praxis for Critical Environmental Justice: Lessons from W.E.B. Du Bois, Critical Theoretical Perspectives, and Mobilising Collective Care in Disasters

AbstractWe build on the critical environmental justice (CEJ) framework by exploring mutual aid as a means of practising and realising transformative environmental justice that allows activists to build environmentally resilient and just communities beyond the state. We draw on the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, the Black Radical Tradition, and other critical approaches to demonstrate how mutual aid offers a meaningful point of conjunction for uniting ideological approaches to environmental justice that are often understood as being at odds with one another. To demonstrate this in action, we provide brief examples on the proliferation and longevity of mutual aid in times of disaster, including the 1927 Mississippi floods, Hurricane Katrina, the Nashville tornados, and the Texas power outages. Through these accounts, we seek to demonstrate how environmental justice organisations can and have advanced collective liberation using mutual aid as a critical orientation rooted in community based care and empowerment.

A Mighty Cooperative

A Mighty Cooperative

Challenging Pronatalism Is Key to Advancing Reproductive Rights and a Sustainable Population

Social and environmental justice organisations have silenced discourse on human overpopulation due to fear of any association with reproductive coercion, but in doing so they have failed to acknowledge the oppressive role of pronatalism in undermining reproductive autonomy. Pronatalism, which comprises cultural and institutional forces that compel reproduction, is far more widespread, and as damaging to individual liberties as attempts to limit reproduction. The failure to recognise the enormity of pronatalism has led to the wholesale abandonment of voluntary, rights-based efforts toward a sustainable population despite widespread scientific agreement that population growth is a major driver of multiple cascading environmental crises. We examine the full range of patriarchal, cultural, familial, religious, economic and political pronatalist pressures, and argue that the reluctance to address population as a driver of the ecological crisis serves the very pronatalist forces that undermine reproductive autonomy. We posit that addressing overpopulation, and the pronatalism that drives it, must be central to international conservation and development efforts to elevate reproductive rights while also promoting planetary health.

Viva Texas Rivers!: Adventure, Misadventures, and Glimpses of Nirvana along Our Storied Waterways ed. by Steven L. Davis and Sam L. Pfiester

Reviewed by: Viva Texas Rivers!: Adventure, Misadventures, and Glimpses of Nirvana along Our Storied Waterways ed. by Steven L. Davis and Sam L. Pfiester Chaney Hill Steven L. Davis and Sam L. Pfiester, eds., Viva Texas Rivers!: Adventure, Misadventures, and Glimpses of Nirvana along Our Storied Waterways. College Station: Texas A&M UP, 2021. 316 pp. Hardcover, $29.95. As Clayton Maxwell in “The Lower Guadalupe River: A Return to the River” reminds us, it’s “good to take into account where you are from,” and the narratives in Steven L. Davis and Sam L. Pfiester’s collection Viva Texas Rivers!: Adventure, Misadventures, and Glimpses of Nirvana along Our Storied Waterways do just this (264). Davis is the literary curator of the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University and the editor and author of eight books. Sam L. Pfiester is chair of the Wittliff Collections Advisory Council and has authored four novels. Pfiester and Davis, having met through their work with the Wittliff collections, both feel strongly that the waterways that support the life and lifestyle of Texans should be protected. Sponsored by the Wittliff Collections Literary Series in partnership with The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, Viva Texas Rivers! carries on the work John Graves started in 1960 with Goodbye to a River to educate, safeguard, and treasure Texas’s waterways. Pfiester and Davis put together this collection to bring to life the “‘spirit of place’ for dozens of Texas rivers and streams” and to highlight the unique qualities of each waterway (xvii). The collection of short stories, novel excerpts, republished periodicals, historical records, and poems is divided by region: East Texas, Central Texas, North Texas, West Texas, and South Texas. Viva Texas Rivers! begins with an “Invocation” by Chicana writer Carmen Tafolla entitled “This River Here” and closes with a “Benediction” by poet and author Pat Mora. Pfiester and Davis include texts from a diverse selection of writers, including Texas and national literary luminaries and historical figures such as John Graves, John James Audubon, Attica Locke, Billy Lee Brammer, Pat Mora, Edwin “Bud” Shrake, J. Frank Dobie, Larry McMurtry, Elmer Kelton, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sandra Cisneros, and Américo Paredes, among others. Each section opens with a fold-out map of [End Page 425] the region by artist and mapmaker Molly O’Halloran. These maps are worthy of praise and study on their own. Featuring the major and minor tributaries of many Texas rivers and streams, the cities built along their banks, and the highways that crosshatch them, these maps assist in the place-making the collection is invested in by showing the roots and routes of Texas’s many rivers and streams. Located at the end of the book is a useful appendix of local and national river and conservation advocacy groups. This list is a valuable tool for anyone looking to get involved in cleaning, protecting, and supporting their local or national waterways. Readers will gain a deep place-based understanding of the living routes that run in and out of Texas. As a reader, I began to see and understand the waterways that have sustained me every day, sometimes without me realizing it, in new ways. As Pfiester and Davis advocate in their introduction, these writings can help us learn “how to look, and how to see” Texas rivers and streams “not just [as] our present and past, but also our future” (xviii). Viva Texas Rivers! is for lovers of waterways and environmental advocates alike. Environmental justice scholars, organizations, and policymakers will find Pfiester and Davis’s collection inspirational and may even find a template for future work. This collection is also a great companion for instructors looking to teach on subjects related to critical regionalism, the formation of regional identity, environmental justice, river advocacy, or the intersection of western and southern literature. For readers of Western American Literature, Viva Texas Rivers! will prove to be an invaluable addition to the canon of Texas literature, bioregionalism, environmental literature, and western literature. [End Page 426] Chaney Hill Rice University Copyright © 2023 Western Literature Association ...

The engineering and scientific challenges of environmental justice organizations in the US: A qualitative study

While there is increased interest among engineers and scientists to collaborate with environmental justice organizations (EJOs), and while there are well-known programs that facilitate collaborations between engineers, scientists, and underserved communities, little is known systematically about the engineering and scientific challenges faced by EJOs. We lay the foundation for such a systematic understanding through exploratory research in which we conducted 47 semi-structured interviews with EJO staff across the United States to ask what their engineering and scientific challenges to combating environmental injustice are. Using deductive-inductive coding we discover that EJOs are looking for support to engineering and scientific challenges that fit specific topical areas and methods. Using the words of our informants, we then unpack the qualitative themes of select topical areas (air quality, public and environmental health, fossil fuel infrastructure, clean and just energy transitions, environmental restoration, and indigenous groups) and methods (data collection, data dissemination, data analysis, spatial analysis, online platform building, networking of experts). We explore the patterns of how these themes overlap with five different strategies (policy change, utilizing the media, educating the public, providing legal advice, and developing collaborative projects) used by the EJOs in our study. We show that EJOs want to collaborate with engineers and scientists to solve technical problems, mitigate harm to their communities, and create positive futures. Our research informs the conception of strategic efforts to expand the impact of engineering and scientific work done to address EJ challenges, particularly given the limited resources that currently exist to support collaborative efforts in this space.

Switch to safer basic chemicals, activists tell industry

The chemical industry needs to switch from its major building-block petrochemicals so that it can transform into a sector that no longer harms people’s health or the environment, according to a July 13 report from activist groups . Lower-hazard substances that are not derived from fossil fuels should replace benzene, butadiene, ethylene, methanol, propylene, toluene, and xylene, the report says. It is by policy, science, and market experts and Coming Clean , a US-based network of community activists and environmental justice organizations. “The petrochemical sector’s reliance on fossil-fuel feedstocks and manufacturing processes that have evolved little in a hundred years is a massive barrier for change,” Beverley Thorpe, program manager at Clean Production Action and the author of the report, says in a statement . Clean Production Action promotes green chemicals, materials, and products. Switching to biobased feedstocks, such as wood pulp, to make these basic chemicals isn’t a solution,

Development for whom?: an Indigenous environmental justice movement in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT Indigenous peoples around the world tend to be disproportionately affected by resource extraction activities having access to fewer technical, legal and other resources to participate effectively in the decision-making process. Taking a resistance movement concerning the Phulbari Coal Project in Bangladesh, through qualitative research, this paper examines how Indigenous peoples frame their claims in a mining conflict situation. The Phulbari resistance movement took place more than a decade ago in Bangladesh, however, local Indigenous peoples, Bangalee farming communities, and activists still bear the spirit of the movement. As such, this study seeks to test the claims of how the Indigenous and farming communities, and the actions of national and transnational environmental justice organisations in the Phulbari resistance movement form part of an environmental justice movement. The paper argues that various components of Indigenous resistance and claims may contribute to the overall goals of the environment justice movement against powerful transnational corporations in the global South.

Environmental justice organizations and the diffusion of conflicts over mining in Latin America

Existing research has explored the factors affecting the likelihood of resistance to mining projects. These studies emphasize the geographic and firm-level characteristics of mining sites as well as the impact of these projects on the environment and community livelihoods. While making important contributions, the existing literature has failed to examine the contagion effects of conflicts over mining. Building on the literature on the diffusion of social movements, we argue that environmental justice organizations (EJOs) help diffuse mining conflicts through interpersonal networks involving individuals or organizations, organizational brokers as well as communication strategies through the mass media. Our spatial econometric analysis demonstrates that mining conflicts cluster in time and space and that EJO networks are the primary drivers of diffusion. The diffusion effects associated with EJOs help our understanding of local resistance to mining and represent an important pattern explaining the expansion of social conflicts in Latin America.

Looking back, looking forward

The Earth to Tables Legacies Project emerged in 2015, growing out of personal relationships, but also built on a long trajectory of participatory research, multimedia arts production and popular education. We created an intergenerational and intercultural exchange of food activists working for food justice and food sovereignty with the initial goal of producing a feature length documentary. However, the project evolved over five years to culminate in a multimedia educational package with 10 short videos and 11 photo essays, all accompanied by facilitator’s guides. A web series on the pandemic is in production and a forthcoming book is to be published in 2021.
 
 The intergenerational production team included Deborah Barndt (co-director and co-editor), Lauren Baker (co-editor) and Alexandra Gelis (co-director). In this ‘report from the field,’ the two co-directors Alexandra and Deborah look back on the process of co-producing the visual materials for the interactive website and look forward to its potential use in university classes, schools, and social and environmental justice organizations. Parts of the essay include our zoom dialogue as we revisit our process over the past five years and try to elucidate our way of working, while reflecting on the challenges of the collaborative production and use of multimedia educational tools.
 
 Note that this essay utilizes the same kind of text with hyperlinks that are featured in our website and book. The reader is encouraged to click on the links to learn more about the people and their practices as well as the concept of a non-linear multimedia educational tool and process.

Counter-reporting sustainability from the bottom up: the case of the construction company WeBuild and dam-related conflicts

Controversies around large-scale development projects offer many cases and insights which may be analyzed through the lenses of corporate social (ir)responsibility (CSIR) and business ethics studies. In this paper, we confront the CSR narratives and strategies of WeBuild (formerly known as Salini Impregilo), an Italian transnational construction company. Starting from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), we collect evidence from NGOs, environmental justice organizations, journalists, scholars, and community leaders on socio-environmental injustices and controversies surrounding 38 large hydropower schemes built by the corporation throughout the last century. As a counter-reporting exercise, we code (un)sustainability discourses from a plurality of sources, looking at their discrepancy under the critical lenses of post-normal science and political ecology, with environmental justice as a normative framework. Our results show how the mismatch of narratives can be interpreted by considering the voluntary, self-reporting, non-binding nature of CSR accounting performed by a corporation wishing to grow in a global competitive market. Contributing to critical perspectives on political CS(I)R, we question the reliability of current CSR mechanisms and instruments, calling for the inclusion of complexity dimensions in and a re-politicization of CS(I)R accounting and ethics. We argue that the fields of post-normal science and political ecology can contribute to these goals.

“Shovel-Ready”

“Shovel-Ready”

Call for Papers: 30th Anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit

Environmental JusticeVol. 14, No. 3 Calls for PapersFree AccessCall for Papers: 30th Anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership SummitDeadline for Manuscript Submission: December 31, 2021Guest Editors: Peggy M. Shepard and Crystal Romeo UppermanGuest Editors: Peggy M. ShepardWE ACT for Environmental Justice, New York, New York, USASearch for more papers by this author and Crystal Romeo UppermanAclima, Inc., San Francisco, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:16 Jun 2021https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.29007.cfpAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail The 21st century environmental justice movement will look very different from its 20th century progenitor. Much has changed in the way our world communicates, mobilizes, and governs. This special issue of Environmental Justice will capture the history of environmental justice across the United States, showcasing how the movement has evolved. Moreover, the issue will chart a wireframe of the future of environmental justice in its domestic home of the United States and its international propagation globally.The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, in 1991, where the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice were developed and ratified, propelled the environmental justice movement beyond its antecedent focus to include issues of environmental/public health, worker safety, land use, transportation, housing, resource allocation, and community organizing, base building and enfranchisement. The convening also demonstrated the possibility of building a multiracial grassroots movement around environmental and economic justice, which led to the principles of environmental justice, regional and identity-based networks, academic careers and majors, impact on the EPA, state and city regulations, and advisory boards.This special issue will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. It will explore the following key questions: What is the history of the environmental justice movement from 1991 to 2020, and how has the movement evolved across the regions of the United States?What is the shared vision of environmental justice that can help create action toward curbing environmental externalities and climate impacts for highly burdened communities?Can the international adoption of the tenets of environmental justice advance and lessen the Global North and Global South divide in addressing climate change?What resources, tools, technologies, and new policies are essential to catalyze the environmental justice movement of the 21st century with the rapid adoption of renewable energy as a replacement for fossil fuels?What is the role of funders (foundations and government) and researchers within and adjacent to the environmental justice movement?All manuscripts should be submitted online by December 31, 2021. All submissions will be subject to a rigorous peer review. We are interested in original research, articles, editorials, policy briefs, legal analyses, reviews, history essays, perspectives, tools for education, empowerment and action, and methodology papers on these topics and others from diverse stakeholders representing all sectors (environmental justice organizations, academia, government, nonprofit, community, private sector, etc.).Topics may revisit the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice, discuss their application and propose new principles; discuss how they have been used, how to better actualize them, and how they can be integrated into the manner in which agencies and organizations operationalize environmental justice work.Suggested topic areas may also include, among others:Yesterday, today, and tomorrow: keys that led to the successes of the past and ways to elevate community engagement and mobilization for the future.The role of technology and geospatial tools in bolstering government decision-making toward the attainment of environmental parity.Environmental justice to locally led action: ways in which grassroots organizations in the Global South can move the needle on systemic issues tied to the vestiges of colonization.Building an environmental justice movement that is reflective of shared principles in a global society.Meaningful and authentic environmental justice engagement for sectors that have yet to engage or are looking to reverse historical aggression toward grassroots organizations.Regenerative environmental justice movements: leadership expansion and transition for successful intergenerational organizing.Science to support environmental justice: filling the gaps necessary to make the case for causality and support bold policy actions.Gaps in the law: how jurisprudence and hearty environmental regulation can continue to embrace a connection with environmental ethics and social justice.Visit Environmental Justice at https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/environmental-justice/259 to learn more, read past issues, and view author submission guidelines (https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/environmental-justice/259/for-authors).Queries to the editor to propose a topic prior to submission are encouraged. Please contact Peggy Shepard at peggy.m.shepard@gmail.com and Dr. Crystal Romeo Upperman at crystal.romeo@gmail.com to initiate your query or for any further details.Visit the Instructions for Authors:www.liebertpub.com/envSubmit your paper for peer review online:https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/envFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 14Issue 3Jun 2021 InformationCopyright 2021, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishersTo cite this article:Guest Editors: Peggy M. Shepard and Crystal Romeo Upperman.Call for Papers: 30th Anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.Environmental Justice.Jun 2021.233-234.http://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.29007.cfpPublished in Volume: 14 Issue 3: June 16, 2021PDF download

Compounding Risks Caused by Heat Exposure and COVID-19 in New York City: A Review of Policies, Tools, and Pilot Survey Results.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic changed many social, economic, environmental, and healthcare determinants of health in New York City (NYC) and worldwide. COVID-19 potentially heightened the risk of heat-related health impacts in NYC, particularly on the most vulnerable communities, who often lack equitable access to adequate cooling mechanisms such as air conditioning (AC) and good quality green space. Here, we review some of the policies and tools which have been developed to reduce vulnerability to heat in NYC. We then present results from an online pilot survey of members of the environmental justice organization WE ACT for Environmental Justice (WE ACT) between July 11 and August 8, 2020, which asked questions to evaluate how those in Northern Manhattan coped with elevated summer heat in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also make some policy recommendations based on our initial findings. Results of our pilot survey suggest that people stayed indoors more due to COVID-19 and relied more on AC units to stay cool. Survey responses also indicated that some avoided visiting green spaces due to concerns around overcrowding and did not regularly frequent them due to the distance from their homes. The responses also demonstrate a potential racial disparity in AC access; AC ownership and access was highest amongst white and lowest amongst Latino/a/x and Black respondents. The impacts of COVID-19 have highlighted the need to accelerate efforts to improve preparedness for extreme heat like the City of New York’s AC and cooling center programs, heat ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) retrofitting, equitable green space expansion, and stronger environmental justice community networks and feedback mechanisms to hear from affected residents. Conducting a survey of this kind annually may provide an additional effective component of evaluating cooling initiatives in NYC.

Social and Environmental Issues for Detroit

Detroit has undergone a lot of economical, demographic, and environmental changes over the past few decades. The decline that occurred in Detroit had a strong impact on the state as well. People lost their jobs, many left the city, and population was dramatically decreased. These issues were interlinked with economic inequality, lack of education and lack of affordable housing, etc. Many public issues go unresolved such as low graduation rates, inadequate access to transportation, youth violence, and employment etc. History of ecological disregard has made the city hazardous. Environmental issues such as air pollution, waste recycling and contaminated lakes are a great concern. Research is carrying out from all sides to reduce the intensity of these problems. Upgrading the physical infrastructure of transportation, sanitation and social infrastructures like schools, universities, hospitals, and communities, etc., uplifts the standard of living. Groups of non-profit and environmental justice organizations like Detroit Environmental Agenda (DEA) focuses on interlinked social, economic, and environmental injustices. The main purpose of this paper is to study the present scenario of social and environmental issues for Detroit by the analyzing case studies regarding the issues and suggesting possible solutions for them.

Environmental Justice Organizing in a Gentrifying Community: Navigating Dilemmas of Representation, Issue Selection, and Recruitment

Environmental justice organizations aim to secure an equitable distribution of environmental resources through the participation and self-determination of affected people, particularly communities of color. Yet organizing in a market economy is complicated: As communities become greener, gentrification can follow, thereby inadvertently displacing low-income communities of color and reproducing environmental injustices. This study informs antiracist community practice methods by examining strategic and ethical dilemmas embedded within an environmental justice organization that is located in a gentrifying Mexican American neighborhood in Chicago. Drawing from interviews, we examine members’ perceptions relating to representation, recruitment, and issue selection. We reveal key considerations for community organizations and residents as they work to promote environmental equity without contributing to the marginalization or displacement of communities of color.

Youth Engaged Participatory Air Monitoring: A 'Day in the Life' in Urban Environmental Justice Communities.

Air pollution in Southern California does not impact all communities equally; communities of color are disproportionately burdened by poor air quality and more likely to live near industrial facilities and freeways. Government regulatory monitors do not have the spatial resolution to provide air quality information at the neighborhood or personal scale. We describe the A Day in the Life program, an approach to participatory air monitoring that engages youth in collecting data that they can then analyze and use to take action. Academics partnered with Los Angeles-based youth environmental justice organizations to combine personal air monitoring, participatory science, and digital storytelling to build capacity to address local air quality issues. Eighteen youth participants from four different neighborhoods wore portable personal PM2.5 (fine particles <2.5 µm in diameter) monitors for a day in each of their respective communities, documenting and mapping their exposure to PM2.5 during their daily routine. Air monitoring was coupled with photography and videos to document what they experienced over the course of their day. The PM2.5 exposure during the day for participants averaged 10.7 µg/m3, although the range stretched from <1 to 180 µg/m3. One-third of all measurements were taken <300 m from a freeway. Overall, we demonstrate a method to increase local youth-centered understanding of personal exposures, pollution sources, and vulnerability to air quality.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Salience of Publicly Disclosing Demographic Data in American Environmental Nonprofits

There has been a scholarly interest in the demographic characteristics of American environmental organizations since the 1960s, but until recently there was no readily available way of knowing the composition of the staff or board of these institutions as few revealed any of their demographic data publicly. For the past five years, there has been a high-profile campaign to get environmental nonprofits to disclose their demographic data. This paper examines 12,054 small, medium-sized, and large environmental organizations to find out how many of them have released diversity data on GuideStar. The article also examines how the state in which organizations are located, region of the country, urban or rural setting, organizational typology, amount of revenue, size of the staff, size of the board, gender of the chief executive officer (CEO), race of the CEO, and the year of completion of the GuideStar profile influenced the disclosure of diversity data. The researchers collected financial data from Internal Revenue Service tax forms and diversity data from GuideStar. The study found that 3.7% of the nonprofits studied divulged diversity data. However, organizations in the Pacific and Mid-Atlantic regions were most likely and nonprofits in the South least likely to report diversity data. Urban nonprofits were more likely to divulge diversity data than those located in the suburbs or in the rural areas. The highest level of reporting was in Washington, D.C. In addition, environmental justice organizations were more likely to disclose diversity data than other types of organizations. The larger the staff and the higher the revenue, the more likely it is that the organization divulged its diversity data. Organizations with female CEOs were more likely to reveal diversity data than male-headed nonprofits. Environmental organizations with ethnic/racial minority CEOs were also more likely to disclose demographic data than organizations with white CEOs.

Resistance to coal inequalities and the possibilities of a just transition in South Africa

ABSTRACTCoal mining and burning are among the most destructive activities on the planet, and a major driver of environmental inequality in South Africa. This article suggests that, despite heavy constraints, initiatives involving resistance to coal are building a ‘counter-power’ which challenges inequality, generates solidarity, and is potentially infused by imaginative visions of another world beyond coal. Following the ‘social power’ approach this vision could, with deeper connections between three sites of resistance to coal – organised labour, mining affected communities and environmental justice organisations – cohere into a vision of a ‘just transition’. This could embed the anti-coal struggle in a social movement for an alternative development path to challenge deepening poverty and inequality.

De-privatisation and remunicipalisation of urban services through the pendulum swing: Evidence from Germany

Abstract This paper explores and examines the distribution of environmental conflicts in Germany between 1985 and 2015, analysing the main causes for environmental conflicts related to privatisation and de-privatisation processes of urban services in 80 German cities. Using information collected via means of a Delphi Method based on focus groups with experts, we identify 90 cases of large-scale privatisation initiatives involving urban services occurred in different fields within the period considered. In 38 cases, privatisation was reversed due to initiatives undertaken by environmental justice organisations and other local grassroots groups promoting de-privatisation and re-municipalisation. In another 30 cases, privatisation was prevented as a result of these initiatives. Findings from our analysis indicate that de-privatisation initiatives and potential conflicts related to them are frequently driven by grassroots organisations promoting the provision of commons-based urban services. Our findings also suggest that privatising services in the energy, water supply and waste management sectors is likely to negatively affect the quality of service supply and increasing prices for urban residents.

“I Just Keep My Mouth Shut”: The Demobilization of Environmental Protest in Central Appalachia

This article investigates why people who take a stand against mining-related pollution sometimes abandon activism before resolving their grievances. Previous studies of this process have attributed demobilization to co-optation, violent repression, legitimation tactics, and lack of identity correspondence between movement participants and environmental justice organizations. To sharpen our understanding of why movement dissolution occurs, I investigate a case of demobilization that was not caused by these factors. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and document analysis conducted in “Shale County,” a coal-producing community in Central Appalachia, I show how coal companies’ subtle, yet continuous, acts of obstruction, non-cooperation, and dissimulation prompted activists to withdraw from protest. My analysis contributes to the environmental sociology and social movements literatures by (1) expanding existing theory to account for an empirical anomaly; (2) explaining the role that subtle, under-the-radar social control tactics play in suppressing environmental movements; and (3) highlighting the social conditions that render these “clandestine kicks” and “invisible elbows” effective. The model of demobilization I develop underscores the way contextual factors moderate the effectivity of industrial counter-protest tactics and foreground the active, conjuncturally specific processes through which demobilization occurs.