Environmental justice

Environmental justice emerged as a concept in the United States in the early 1980s. The term has two distinct uses with the more common usage describing a social movement that focuses on the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. The other use is an interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes theories of the environment and justice, environmental laws and their implementations, environmental policy and planning and governance for development and sustainability, and political ecology.Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EPA has this goal for all communities and persons across this Nation . It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work. Environmental justice emerged as a concept in the United States in the early 1980s. The term has two distinct uses with the more common usage describing a social movement that focuses on the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. The other use is an interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes theories of the environment and justice, environmental laws and their implementations, environmental policy and planning and governance for development and sustainability, and political ecology. The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as follows: Other definitions include: equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits; fair and meaningful participation in environmental decision-making; recognition of community ways of life, local knowledge, and cultural difference; and the capability of communities and individuals to function and flourish in society. An alternative meaning, used in social sciences, of the term 'justice' is 'the distribution of social goods'. Environmental discrimination is one issue that environmental justice seeks to address. Racism and discrimination against minorities center on a socially-dominant group's belief in its superiority, often resulting in privilege for the dominant group and the mistreatment of non-dominant minorities. The combined impact of these privileges and prejudices are just one of the potential reasons that waste management and high pollution sites tend to be located in minority-dominated areas. A disproportionate quantity of minority communities (for example in Warren County, North Carolina) play host to landfills, incinerators, and other potentially toxic facilities. Environmental discrimination can also be the placement of a harmful factory in a place of minority. This can be seen as environmental discrimination because it is placing a harmful entity in a place where the people often don't have the means to fight back against big corporations. Environmental discrimination has historically been evident in the process of selecting and building environmentally hazardous sites, including waste disposal, manufacturing, and energy production facilities. The location of transportation infrastructures, including highways, ports, and airports, has also been viewed as a source of environmental injustice. Among the earliest documentation of environmental racism was a study of the distribution of toxic waste sites across the United States. Due to the results of that study, waste dumps and waste incinerators have been the target of environmental justice lawsuits and protests. Some environmental justice lawsuits are based on violations of civil rights laws. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is often used in lawsuits that claim environmental inequality. Section 601 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin by any government agency receiving federal assistance. To win an environmental justice case that claims an agency violated this statute, the plaintiff must prove the agency intended to discriminate. Section 602 requires agencies to create rules and regulations that uphold section 601. This section is useful because the plaintiff must only prove that the rule or regulation in question had a discriminatory impact. There is no need to prove discriminatory intent. Seif v. Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living set the precedent that citizens can sue under section 601. There has not yet been a case in which a citizen has sued under section 602, which calls into question whether this right of action exists. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was used many times to defend minority rights during the 1960s, has also been used in numerous environmental justice cases. When environmentalism first became popular during the early 20th century, the focus was wilderness protection and wildlife preservation. These goals reflected the interests of the movement's initial, primarily white middle and upper class supporters, including through viewing preservation and protection via a lens that failed to appreciate the centuries-long work of indigenous communities who had lived without ushering in the types of environmental devastation these settler colonial 'environmentalists' now sought to mitigate. The actions of many mainstream environmental organizations still reflect these early principles.