BBecker- Environmental Justice

When starting this book it was hard to understand why environmental issues had justice perspectives on them.  The environment belongs to us all and so it seems intuitive that everyone must bear the burden of how the environment is treated.  Unfortunately, like many realities, this is not the truth.  There are large portions of the world where people are taken advantage of for the sake of money, and the environmental issues are no exception.  Once that fact is accepted the question of why people would live under such treatment arises.  The later chapters helped add enlightenment to this puzzle but didn’t quite answer everything. People may more to an area with waste sites or other environmental hazards for the cheap property, but how in fact does a community without such a facility allow once to crop up?

These chapters were very useful in providing some further insight to the above question.  It is interesting to note that while there are options for public involvement, these options are not tailored to the publics interest but instead to industries.  Cole and Foster hit it very well when they state that most decisions are made by “Bureaucrats win state and local environmental agencies [who] respond to pressure, and when deciding between the desires of a community and those of a company, they often favor the interest that puts the most pressure on them.”  The decision is not made by the community, but instead by those who may have no connection to the community, other than being part of the same state.  The people on the committees that make decisions about placement of facilities are often not from the affected neighborhoods and so have entirely different perspectives on the claims made by both the company and the community itself.

This alone begs the question of representation and makes me wonder whether or not the laws or provisions in place are actually effective at all.  The regulations are made with built in loopholes for companies to exploit as well as built in hoops for communities to jump through if they wish to oppose a movement.  Even if a community has the information and activism necessary to show opposition, bureaucrats can still decide that all their work is not worth taking the time to consider, as shown by the Chester, Pennsylvania example…Why have the rules at all?  If they are in place just for face value, then what is the point?  We live in a democratic system where the people are supposed to be the ones with the power to change, but when they take the initiative they can still be told that their thoughts don’t matter? One company can outweigh a community?

The chapter continues to effectively illustrate the shortcomings of every presentable way for the public to participate.  Each successive path meets with either long difficult processes or problems of influence and disinformation.  How can a community of uniformed people fight a company with millions of dollars and a bureaucrat’s sympathetic ear?  How do you argue with an expert when you can’t understand what is being talked about?  Why is it that politics overrules morals and the value of other’s lives?  It is quite a though provoking chapter and points out a daunting task for any community involved in environmental justice claims.  Truly there is no justice in such a situation.  There is a facade of justice, but not actual justice.  But what is the best way to change the system? Grassroots systems seem to have zeroed in on the best and more effective solution.  Interestingly enough it completely bypasses the structure.

The examples given by the book allude to this new strategy.  Communities that went around the system were able to make changes not only for themselves, but for communities across the nation.  The examples of CARE and IEN show that communities bypassing the system and working to create a network of informed and involved members have the ability to extend a community’s concerns to those that matter, the decision makers, the bureaucrats.

What is shown best by CARE and IEN is the simple fact that informed people and communities make informed decisions and have a great amount of influence and power.  Information is the biggest power shifter.  Those who have information know who to talk to, where to gather funding or support, and have access to those pressure points that will provide the most effective results.  Part of this is made possible by the wealth of information available through current technology.  People can look up just about anything on the internet and can communicate in many ways, most in a matter of seconds.

(http://www.ejnet.org/ej/twart.pdf and http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/voicesfromthegrassroots.htm) Two very interesting web sites which I encourage you to visit

Another interesting point from both the book and class is the idea of making a judgment about fairness based on the results.  This chapter notes that Environmental Assessments (EA) and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) are required in some states.  These practices allow the decision makers to see the possible impacts that the facility will have on the environment around it.  While these are indeed good practices and give the decision makers better insight into the effects of the facility, it only focuses on the harmful effects to the earth.  It does nothing to state the effects the facility will have on the community it resides in.  Yes it will have to prove that it doesn’t cause direct health hazards, but it doesn’t point out indirect social consequences.  By failing to look at the effects on the community itself, EA and EIS continue to perpetuate the structural racism seen the in previous chapters.