Blog #2: Best Arguments For The EJ Movement
It’s evident that the Earth is constantly changing and our environment is constantly being negatively affected by pollution and toxic waste. We’ve been able to see this clearly, as every year it feels like the summers are getting hotter and hotter, with news reports of carbon dioxide increasing annually. The environmental justice movement, which focuses on fair distribution of environmental burdens based on race, is a movement that has developed because of pollution. But are minorities actually receiving fair distributions of these environmental burdens, or are their communities being greatly affected? In this blog post, I will be focusing on the best arguments for the side that does not agree with the question, and how they do believe that pollution affects minorities at a much higher rate.
An article posted by The Atlantic in 2018 shows the EPA came out with a report that came to the conclusion that environmental racism, which goes hand and hand with environmental justice, is actually indeed real. The study focused on mostly people of color, and the results of it were staggering. It found that black people were more likely to be exposed to particulate matter, which is a known carcinogen that can cause great health risks. It showed that black people are 1.5 times more likely to be exposed to these carcinogens than their white counterparts, and people who are in poverty are 1.3 times more likely to be exposed. This exposure can eventually develop into underlying diseases. This has a great effect, especially today, as there are major disparities of people of color being infected and dying due to COVID-19 and this can be one of the reasons why people of color are dying at a higher rate than their white counterparts.
Black Americans are not the only ones that are affected by such high rates of environmental inequities. A group that’s not talked about that much in the media are the Indigenous people, or Native Americans, who endure a great amount of environmental burdens. This article states that most Indigenous people and their families have struggled in reservations such as the Navajo because they do not always have access to running water, especially for simple activities such as washing your hands. They also struggle with access to food, and it has been very evident during the pandemic, as it is harder to transport food. Plus a ton of businesses have closed down, causing the struggle to find food to be even harder. Because they don’t always have access to food and water, Indigenous people have developed lots of underlying diseases, which has aided COVID-19, causing a lot of deaths in the Native American communities. Similarly to people of color, Indigenous people have been dying at a heavily disproportionate rate from COVID-19 when compared to their white counterparts
After reading and learning this new information, I really took time to reflect on these ideas. There is an alarming amount of evidence that points to the fact that environmental racism and environmental justice are very real things, and should be taken into account whenever the topic of climate change and greenhouse gases are brought up. For me, it’s very heartbreaking to think about how big problems like these exist and people can decide to brush it off or not believe it, especially when these problems are a big concern to these minorities’ public health.
