Looking through the Lens of Environmental Justice

In 1994, former President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12989⁶ to enhance legal recourse against violations of environmental justice.  Our Environment and Society class discussion on November 19, 2020, focused on the latter, but as we learned from our guest lecturer, Dr. Christy Miller Hesed, environmental justice is not a singular narrative but a collective lens for quantifying, determining, and understanding the experience of injustice for disparate groups in America.  It is also a multidisciplinary, formalized, and/or grassroots platform for collective action against injustice across societal lines.  This is the baseline from which environmental justice theory begins.

"'Big' Kenny looks out over mountaintop removal at Kayford Mountain" by DanaK~WaterPenny is licensed under CC BY 2.0

world as dynamic feedback systems with responses to events having ripple effects throughout and results in that may be delayed or immediate, finite, or cumulative.  The way these manifest often combine to disproportionately impact already vulnerable populations¹².  In the Eastern Shore region of Maryland, historic communities and structures are threatened by sea-level rise, marsh migration, and resource politics that have limited their material ability to respond to climate change as well as their access to take part in solutions to address managing their and the natural environment in which they live.

In the Hesed and Ostergren article, environmental justice is defined in terms of the inherent injustice of climate change effects and the three (3) practical theories through which it is understood.  The first of these is the theory of distributive Justice which moves beyond the concept of equality or equal distribution to one of equity or compensatory distribution.  What does this mean in practice?  Imagine you have two separate and unaffiliated people who are hungry, and both are provided with a can of beans that can only be opened with a can opener.  If one person has a can opener and the other does not, the equally distributed resource is still unequal because the recipient lacking the appropriate tool to access the food is unable to benefit from it.  The concept of equity would compensate for this pre-existing inequality and provide the resource (the can of beans) and the necessary tool (a can opener) to maximize the provision.

"Baby in Cambridge, Maryland Dies During State Troopers' Tear Gas Antics - Jet Magazine, May 28, 1964" by vieilles_annonces is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The final of these is the theory of climate justice which recognizes the uneven features of climate change that often result in disproportionate disadvantages for already disadvantaged and/or disenfranchised populations.  This theory acknowledges that (1) not everyone is equally responsible for causing climate, (2) not all people are equally vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and (3) not everyone is equally empowered to participate in the decision-making processes that will affect how limited adaptation resources are utilized and distributed.  Relevant to this is Williams’ argument in the article, “Environmental injustice in America and its politics of scale” ¹⁶ that while it is most often low-income and/or communities of color that are designated for hazardous sites, commercial entities counter this with market-based metrics that place the burden of proof otherwise back on the target community.

As this field of scholarship evolves, traditional notions of injustice will require re-examination.  As observed by Wright in the article, “As Above, So Below:  Anti-Black Violence as Environmental Racism”¹⁷ formalized concepts of racially situated environmental threats have focused on air quality, soil toxicity, contaminated water, etc.  He maintains, however, mortal threats such as police brutality and hate crimes are equally prevalent threats to Black and other marginalized communities, often with limited recourse to justice as evidenced historically and recently with the killings of Ahmaud Abrey, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.   In response, Wright suggests considering how the reality of “gratuitous violence and death” of Black people constitutes a geographic and environmental threat and should also be included as an expression of environmental racism. 

Similar expansion on environmental justice thought borrows from political ecology, gender and sexuality studies, critical race theory and critical race feminism, and ecological feminism, and others to allow for intersectional interpretations of environmental justice that may arise from other definitions of the vulnerability of groups.  The scholarship of Pellow, “What is critical environmental justice?” ¹⁸ defines in a four-pillared framework, Critical Environmental Justice Studies which is noted as the first pillar which recognizes that social inequality and oppression in all forms intersect; the second pillar focuses on the role of scale in the production and resolution of environmental injustices; the third pillar holds the view that social inequalities…are deeply embedded in society and reinforced by state power; and the fourth pillar centers on the concept of indispensability, an acknowledgment of John Marquez’ concept of “racial expendability” of black and brown bodies in the eyes of the state and its constituent legal system.”  The practice of Critical Environmental Justice studies includes the core work of countering white supremacist ideology and human dominionism and their role in the reproduction of injustice centered on devalued otherness.   

The tools of environmental justice can be applied in such conflicts to counter this added exposure in a way that reapportions responsibility.  This rebalancing is an active and evolving process, requiring calibration at various points, as noted in the Van Dolah work referencing the socio-ecological systems (SES) approach to examining disconnects between prioritization of community interventions and resource allocation¹⁹.  The SES paradigm requires resource managers and other practitioners to expand their evaluation of resilience to consider natural and human interactions within a system, with the health of both included in its definition.

Environmental justice work is the continuation, the expansion of civil rights²⁰ and anti-racism work. In the wake of this past year of peaceful and violent protests, high profile police brutality, inequities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, what we should all know now is that injustice is everyone’s problem as Bill Dennison alluded during our discussion.  This painstaking but important work can seem, as Kenny Rose stated, like “death by a thousand cuts” having only minute impacts on the systemic issues that prevail.  Ultimately, the effects of climate change are an evolving part of our human system and natural system and just as each continent is connected by waterways across the planet, SLR will spill over into the lives of coastal and inland communities alike in yet unforeseen ways.  In response, we can choose, in the smallest of ways, in our professions, in our communities, in our intentions, to, as Gandhi declared, “…live the changes we want to see in the world.” Herein lie the challenge and the opportunity.