Blog #1 — Environmental Justice: Have You Ever Heard Of It?
The past year has been quite a rollercoaster, with events like the Black Lives Matter protests, riots, and Covid-19 affecting all of us in very drastic ways. All of this has brought up something that we have been trying to combat for years, which is racism. With this topic being talked about more in the media, my question is, why is nobody talking about environmental justices, especially when it is related to other social justices, such as the Green movement or the fight against racism? A short definition of environmental justice is essentially burdens from the environment that unequally affect people, because their community, for instance, has higher pollution rates than others. Events that have occurred recently, like the Flint Michigan Water Crisis, is an example of environmental justice, as this community did not have any access to clean water for a few years.
Have you ever heard of this term being used in the media or in school? It’s alright if you haven’t because personally, I never heard of this term at all until I learned about it in my critical thinking class my first year in college. My professor gave us a short lecture on it and gave us some examples of it, and it honestly really made me think hard about our society and how something of such great magnitude and affected people in such a negative way could possibly exist. I ended up writing an essay about it being the most important thing we learned that semester, because the topic really touched me in a different place , and I felt like I really needed to learn more about it in order to learn and have the ability to teach people about the topic, along with why and how we should stop it.
One of the big things I saw that causes pollution for these communities is toxic waste and the idea of NIMBY, or not in my backyard, and this idea plays a big part in where these big emission companies decide to dump their pollution and toxic wastes. Considering they wouldn’t want to do that on their own land, Louisiana has been seen as a toxic waste dumping ground, especially in an area called Cancer Alley, which is a 100 mile stretch full of petrochemical plants. There a lots of communities in Louisiana that experience this, and face high levels of pollution because of companies such as Denka
The reason why I brought up race in the beginning of this blog is because it pertains to my research and the answering the question of, Are minorities unequally burdened by environmental factors than their white counterparts, and does this inequality have a real effect on these communities overall health? I think so, but before I come to a formal conclusion on this topic, I want to further my research which will all be documented in this blog, as I will continue to make these posts. I hope you enjoyed it and come back again to read more about this topic.
