...Environmental Inequality in the United States Introduction Minority and poor populations have been experiencing an unequal amount of exposure to various environmental hazards. The goal of this paper is investigate the situation at hand and provide an explanation to whether this treatment is ethical. Thus, in this paper, I will not only attempt to analyze reasons why these populations experience more pollution than other populations and the types of pollution that they experience, but I will also explore the solutions provided by other researchers on how to solve environmental inequalities. Previous research has been carried out to detect why most, if not all, of the polluting industries, such as power plants and waste facilities, tend to be located in minority and poor neighborhoods (Carter; Morello-Frosch; Pellow and Park; Bullard and Wright). Normally, people that live in low income neighborhoods will experience a disproportionately high amount of pollution compared to those living in high income neighborhoods (Morello-Frosch). Therefore, parks, trees, and outdoor recreational areas tend to be located in wealthy neighborhoods. Consequently, minority and poor neighborhoods tend to have the lowest ratios of parks-to-people (Carter). This means that there is a low amount of park space per 10,000 people. Other research shows that even if we ignore the level of income, minority neighborhoods, such as African American and Hispanic neighborhoods, will still experience higher levels...
Words: 3504 - Pages: 15
...SOC103 Environmental Racism and Transnational Corporations “All Americans have a basic right to live, work, play, go to school, and worship in a clean and healthy environment” (Bullard, Dixie xiii). Unfortunately, this is not true for all. Afro-American communities in the South and other visible minorities across the globe, live through the harsh realities of environmental racism every day. (Bullard, Racism 3) In Confronting Environmental Racism, Robert D. Bullard defines environmental racism as: Racial discrimination in environmental policymaking. It is racial discrimination in the enforcement of regulations and laws. It is racial discrimination in the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and the sitting of polluting industries. It is racial discrimination in the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in communities of color. And, it is racial discrimination in the history of excluding people of color from the mainstream environmental groups, decision-making boards, commissions, and regulatory bodies. (3) Environmental justice on the other hand, is a form of environmental equity. It refers to “the equal protection of environmental laws amongst all people, irrespective of their race or social status. (Peluso 389) With very little influence in decision-making from minority groups, policymakers deliberately target these low-income communities of visible minorities. Environmental racism...
Words: 2390 - Pages: 10
...Racism 2 In this current disenchanted world, there is no meaningful order of things or events outside the human domain. When the forests and the farms are no longer considered sacred and the spirits we tempted with food and sacrifice have no mysterious risks associated with the systematic rape of mother Earth. Then a disenchanted nature is no longer alive. The living Earth commands no respect, reverence or love. It is nothing but a giant machine, to be mastered to serve human purposes. The animists(1) took care of this planet on up to the last few hundred years. As man accidentally discovers the beginnings of commerce that opens the doors to an industrial nation, then an industrial world will soon discover industrial waste. Whether the notion that a mountain or a tree is to be regarded as a person is taken literally or not, the attempt to engage with the surrounding world as if it consists of other people might possibly provide the basis for a respectful attitude towards living things. If your disenchantment is over the environmental problems and destruction, then the environmental racism byproduct can be regarded as an attempt to reveal to you that we are part of the world collective and that we are in a sense, the world itself. Environmental racism(2) is one of the biggest problems the world faces today. Issues created by corporate polluters produce trouble in the form of economic, as well as, physical. For some individuals and cultures, it affects them every...
Words: 11347 - Pages: 46
...minorities or poor people when locating their facilities. Instead, they choose sites for some of the same reasons that these same sites are attractive to poor minorities. There has been a large controversy over whether or not the practices of these business constitute racism. The location choices are not intentionally discriminatory, although it may seem that way, so therefore it is not racism. A great deal of factors come into play when a business is looking at where to site ion the most commercially reasonable location. The siting of the Camden St. Lawrence Cement Company's plant in a nonwhite neighborhood in 2001 was not environmentally racist because the siting decisions for large plants such as this one are based on the ability to secure the required permits, sufficient transportation networks, and low land costs. The siting of this plant in 2001 in the Waterfront South...
Words: 1025 - Pages: 5
...environment. This can impact human health by reducing life expectancy and increasing infant mortality rate. For example, climate change can lead to flooding and drought, which can impact agricultural yield. Shortage of food or famine can affect the infant mortality rate. Also, human activities that pollute the environment can lead to chronic and acute disease which can affect life expectancy and infant mortality rate of a given population. Infrastructure can impact life expectancy and infant mortality rate. The presence of good infrastructure may aid healthy lifestyle leading to higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate. Hence the absence thereof may affect...
Words: 1376 - Pages: 6
...Abstract and Annotated Bibliography: Racism in Rare Form Quinta Anderson Liberty University Abstract Racism occurs when there is a prejudice that is targeted towards a specific group or person due to their ethnicity or the color of their skin. Prejudice can be perceived as passing judgment on a person before knowing facts about an individual. If an individual allows prejudiced to consume them then it is known as discrimination. Discrimination can occur any many different forms such as not allowing someone to purchase a home, getting employment, denying them of their education rights, can all be a form of racial discrimination. For many years, there has been a major conflict regarding the African American race as well as immigrants. Although, the civil rights movement is no longer in existence, racism has started to formulate in rare form and hate crimes has been present across the country has arrived. Racism can be seen daily especially in the Southern States. However, when the color of one’s skin is not a main factor, other examples of discrimination can be seen in the form of one’s language, religion, nationality, sex. The reader will be able to explore how racism and multicultural counseling are linked together. Racism in Rare Form What is Racism? Racism and prejudice is a problem that has existed for years and still exist today, but in rare form. Racism has changed from generation to generation and is sometimes hidden. Racism has been said to exist for years...
Words: 2516 - Pages: 11
...my answer would lean toward immigrated by force. The country where my ancestors originated from was Africa. They were brought to the United States by Europeans to be slaves. This ethnic group faced prejudice, segregation, and racism. African Americans face prejudice because the color of their skin. African Americans also faced segregation into which they were not allowed to vote, sit anywhere on the bus, they had to sit at the back of the bus, they were not allowed to eat inside of restaurants with White people, they were not allowed to use the same restrooms as a White person, or drink from the same water fountain as a White person, nor were African Americans able to attend school with White people. As for racism in the United States African Americans face racism as a form of racial profiling. According to Fredrickson and Siljander (2002) “define racial profiling as an act of enforcement by police officers that are more motivated by racial bias of any reasonable suspicion or probable cause that may exist under the circumstances. It is also referred to as the practice of targeting African Americans for traffic stops because the officer(s) seem to believe that blacks are more likely to engage in some kind of criminal activity”. Another form of racism is school finance, because millions of African American students do not receive equal education as White students would, due to the fact that urban schools do not have the money to fund their schools as White...
Words: 1047 - Pages: 5
...number of social problems, such as polarization and inequality. To solve the problems resulting from urban sprawl, many international organizations put technology forward as the most efficient and economically feasible approach. This essay will outline how urban sprawl results in these problems and point out the risks of depending on technologies to address environmental issues as well as its limitation to solve the social ones. In many countries in the world, urban sprawl imposes great stress on both of ecological and social well-being. In the first place, urban sprawl causes a lot of environmental problems. One of the burning issues for the international community is global warming. In order to support the running of current transportation, the utilities to warm or cool spacious houses and household appliances in neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities, energy mainly created by fossil fuels becomes greatly demanded, thus giving rise to higher emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, which is considered as one of the arch-criminals causing global warming (Gonzalez, 2005). Besides climate change, other environmental problems, such as loss of forests and farmland, loss of architecture diversity and higher levels of noise, also result from the over expansion of cities. In addition to ecological impacts, urban sprawl arouses quite a few social conundrums like social inequality. For the urban sprawls with the improvement of mobility, in some motorized countries...
Words: 994 - Pages: 4
...Racism in America I have always believed that defining the term “race” is often impossible. After all isn’t race just another social invention? Humans cannot be categorized into being anything more specific than humans can they? Nowadays when people bring up race it is usually based on a variety of attributes including skin color, birthplace, religion and a number of others elements. The only issue is do these differences, things that we normally have no impact on, warrant enough evidence to create a taxonomic key that can be used to classify humans. The dictionary definition for race is, “a group of persons related by common decent or heredity.” Over the history of human existence, the human species has migrated and changed social characteristics so many times that we can also comfortably say that our races have changed as well. I have personally lived in five different countries and speak three languages, yet I am somehow classified into a niche that I must somehow fit. Pigeonholing people into races has never served useful to the population because that sense of national pride is forever lost if you cannot feel connected to those around you. Distinction between different people began very early on in human history, however it has carried over and is now this social stigma that we cannot get away from. The earliest views on ethnic differences may arose because of the ancient Egyptians. They tended to classify people based on skin color over other characteristics such...
Words: 1261 - Pages: 6
...polled. Yes, I also agree with the statement. I can say I agree because the only way my family survived was with the food, vegetables, spices and animals the adults grew and harvested. The counter to the belief that hard work leads to success are the ways society and even the societal classes within the races and genders have set themselves apart. How could one complain that “The man is keeping us down,” when there are the haves and have nots in every race? For example, every race has separated itself by education, wealth and many other excuses. Like found in this article, Classism, like many other “isms,” results from prejudices based on false assumptions (pg. 182). Many studies have shown children born into a family with wealth usually remain there. Families with access to capital tend to make sure they remain there and do what they can to make sure their offspring remain there too. As a person who did not have...
Words: 502 - Pages: 3
...the first people to colonize the country, and have played such a big role in the history of the country. I also, as I will attempt to explain later, feel like I may identify better with their culture. The English initially came to America to colonize The New World and stake their claim in what was and has always remained one of the most important resources: land. America at the time of their arrival was still a frontier land thus far only sparsely colonized by the Spanish. The English first landed at and founded Jamestown in 1607, and quickly became one of the dominant ethnic groups in America. By 1790 about 60% of White Americans were English, and being the “majority” ethnic group in the country they really experienced very little racism against them, though the early days of their colonization was far from conflict free. Many skirmishes with local Indian tribes, coupled with disease outbreaks, lead to high mortality rates for early colonies. These conflicts with Indians were not the only violent encounters they had with other ethnic groups as they were almost constantly at war with the Spanish. Though their wars with the Spanish were primarily politically motivated and not due to their ethnic differences, it did lead to a sort of forced segregation between the English and Spanish colonies early on. A similar segregation existed between the English and Indian tribes as well, and this was at least to some extent an ethnic issue. The trend of the English being a “Majority”...
Words: 744 - Pages: 3
...domestic changes of the 1960s and the US's changing foreign policy? Section 1: Short Answer (30 points) Write multi-sentence responses for the prompts below. Be specific and give examples from the history we have learned. A. Read the statement below and then analyze what it is saying about being a young person in the United States in the 1960’s. Use these questions to help you write a commentary of 3-5 sentences: (10 points) * What events and changes in American society does the writer refer to? * How is this document an example of the ‘youth culture’ at the time? "When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world; the only one with the atom bomb. . . . As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated [filled] by events too troubling to dismiss [forget about]. . . . The Southern struggle against racial bigotry [racism], compelled [took] most of us from silence to activism. Second . . . the Cold War, symbolized by the presence of the Bomb, brought awareness that we ourselves, and our friends, and millions of abstract "others" . . . might die at any time." —Port Huron Statement, Students for a Democratic Society The writer is referring to how America changed as he grew up. He grew up during a time when America was the wealthiest nation, but there was racism in the south. The second part of this he was talking about the fears during the cold war. They did not know when they were going to be bombed or attacked. They were always aware...
Words: 745 - Pages: 3
...student activism can make a difference. And it makes we students really want to get involved and do something with their situation. Moreover, I agree with them that this is not a problem in Santa Cruz but a global one which concerns justice, food security, racism, it is culture hostility against minority. They also mentioned that some similar ones that fight for people who...
Words: 502 - Pages: 3
...Environmental Ethics Environmental ethics is that branch of philosophy dealing with the major ethical questions regarding the relationships between humans and the environment. This includes issues such as biodiversity, wildlife management, ecological preservation, hunting practices, farming techniques, and food regulations. Emergence of the Field Environmental ethics emerged as a distinct field in in early 1970s. Among its driving forces were the environmental concerns regarding the dependability of our society on natural resources as well as the threat that our use of those resources poses to the integrity of the ecosystem; it should also be noted that the increased attention to an ecological perspective on life was promoted also by the prospect of exploring life on other planets. It should be noted that around the same period a cognate field was also developed: philosophy of biology. In the 70s, in other words, our theoretical perspective on life was deeply transformed and has led to movements such as the green revolution and the contemporary quest for sustainable living. Retrospectively, the emergence of those fields seems almost obvious. A Non-Anthropocentric Philosophy? Although environmental ethicist have applied ethical theories – such as consequentialism – to try and solve environmental concerns, the specificity of environmental problems facilitated the development of some novel ethical perspectives; an example of this is the non-anthropocentric...
Words: 730 - Pages: 3
...Holmes Nicholas Holmes 912416549 Environmental Ethics Rationally Persuasive Paper 1 12/10/2013 The Inaction that repetitively plagues the Environmental Movement can be brought to an end by doing something new. Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. --Albert Einstein. Since there is doubt to the severity of or even the existence of the environmental crisis, this paper will operate under the presupposition that the environment is indeed in dire straits, and that the ultimate solution should produce a utopian society where man and environment are judged equally. This paper is written from the contentious perspective. Through this perspective it is implicit; by the environment's current state, coupled with the assumption of human responsibility, and the obligation human morality, the notion that something must be done by humans in regards of addressing the environment's plight. That something; must be different from what is currently, and has historically been done. The justification for this statement comes from Albert Einstein’s Epitaph. We need to strike out. Enacting positive drastic changes in the state in the environment will require drastic changes in our collective ethos. It is the task of the environmental movement to; not only figure out what these changes are, and which ones will work best, but to also integrate the changes in to the mainstream. Obviously there must be division of labor within the movement...
Words: 2055 - Pages: 9
