Environmental racism

Exploring the historical roots, impacts of environmental racism, governmental actions, grassroots efforts, and possible remedies can serve as a foundation for addressing this issue effectively.

"Environmental racism" was a term coined in 1982 by Benjamin Chavis, previous executive director of the United Church of Christ (UCC) Commission for Racial Justice.

Following the events in Warren County, the UCC and US General Accounting Office released reports showing that hazardous waste sites were disproportionately located in poor minority neighborhoods.

Nationally, a significant portion of whites, African Americans, and Hispanics reside in counties with substandard air quality, with people of color disproportionately affected by pollution-related health issues.

They believe that associated manure lagoons produce hydrogen sulfide and contaminate local water supplies, leading to higher levels of miscarriages, birth defects, and disease outbreaks.

[27][28] According to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, one possible solution is the precautionary principle, which states that "where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

In a study by Daum, Stoler and Grant on e-waste management in Accra, Ghana, the importance of engaging with different fields and organizations such as recycling firms, communities, and scrap metal traders are emphasized over adaptation strategies such as bans on burning and buy-back schemes that have not caused much effect on changing practices.

This initiative aims to create reports on the deaths and disappearances of Indigenous women in order to raise awareness and get government and civil society groups to take action.

[40] Though the Canadian federal government decided to defund the Sisters in Spirit Initiative in 2010, the NWAC continues to support women, Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ Indigenous peoples in their fight to be heard.

Reparations can take many forms, from direct payouts to individuals, to money set aside for waste-site cleanups, to purchasing air monitors for low income residential neighborhoods, to investing in public transportation, which reduces green house gas emissions.

In response to their concerns, on 30 January 1991, the Pan-African Conference on Environmental and Sustainable Development adopted the Bamako Convention banning the import of all hazardous waste into Africa and limiting their movement within the continent.

[44] Soon after, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) passed a resolution that allowed for penalties, such as life imprisonment, to those who were caught dumping toxic wastes.

Concerns about globalization can bring together a wide range of stakeholders including workers, academics, and community leaders for whom increased industrial development is a common denominator".

The EJG2G provides a clearer line of communication and funding between all types of governments such as state, local, and tribal to make a strong effort to steer towards a more environmentally equitable society.

[53][54] Indigenous people in the region have suffered the loss of their livelihoods as a result of these environmental issues, and they have received no benefits in return for enormous oil revenues extracted from their lands.

Additionally, mining companies in South Africa have close ties with the national government, skewing the balance of power in their favor while simultaneously excluding local people from many decision-making processes.

[61] This legacy of exclusion has had lasting effects in the form of impoverished South Africans bearing the brunt of ecological impacts resulting from the actions of, for example, mining companies.

[66][67] Guiyu, China, is one of the largest recycling sites for e-waste, where heaps of discarded computer parts rise near the riverbanks and compounds, such as cadmium, copper, lead, PBDEs, contaminate the local water supply.

[71] "According to the Western press and both Chinese university and NGO researchers, conditions in these workers' rural villages are so poor that even the primitive electronic scrap industry in Guiyu offers an improvement in income".

[74] As a consequence of improper diagnoses, treatment may have been ineffective and this was precipitated by Union Carbide refusing to release all the details regarding the leaked gases and lying about certain important information.

[74] Many today are still experiencing the negative health impacts of the methyl isocyanate leak, such as lung fibrosis, impaired vision, tuberculosis, neurological disorders, and severe body pains.

In one alleged instance, in 2006, the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau was prohibited from entering Alang, an Indian ship-breaking yard, due to a lack of clear documentation about its toxic contents.

Maquiladoras are companies that are usually owned by foreign entities and import raw materials, pay workers in Mexico to assemble them, and ship the finish products overseas to be sold.

[91] In response to this limitation, in 1987, the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice (CRJ) directed a comprehensive national study on demographic patterns associated with the location of hazardous waste sites.

As a result of the placement of hazardous waste facilities, minority populations experience greater exposure to harmful chemicals and suffer from health outcomes that affect their ability at work and in schools.

[102] Examples cited of environmental racism in the US include the Dakota Access Pipeline (where a portion of the proposed 1,172 mile pipeline would pass near to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation), the Flint water crisis (which affected a town that was 55% African American), cancer alley (Louisiana),[103] as well as the government response to hurricane Katrina (where a mandatory evacuation was not ordered in the majority-Black city of New Orleans until 20 hours before Hurricane Katrina made landfall).

Potawatomi philosopher Kyle Powys Whyte and Lower Brule Sioux historian Nick Estes explain that Native peoples have already lived through one environmental apocalypse, the coming of colonialism.

"[114] Anishinaabe scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson has also argued, "We should be thinking of climate change as part of a much longer series of ecological catastrophes caused by colonialism and accumulation-based society.

"[117] A study analyzing the approximately 3,100 counties in the Continental United States found that Native American lands are positively associated with the count of sites with unexploded ordnance deemed extremely dangerous.

[126] Additionally, UN experts have said that Afro-Ecuadorians and other people of African descent in Ecuador have faced greater challenges than other groups in accessing clean water, with minimal response from the State.