Module 3.3 Environmental Justice

The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as, 
"Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EPA has this goal for all communities and persons across this Nation. It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.”

For me, the foundations of environmental justice are built upon a population's social determinants of health. These unequal social determinants of health may result in the unequal implementation and enforcement of environmental laws within a given community. 

After reading Environmentalism Was Once a Social Justice: It Can Be Again by Jedediah Purdy (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/how-the-environmental-movement-can-recover-its-soul/509831/), this powerful editorial showed the roots of environmentalism and provided powerful examples of environmental justice. This quotation sums up what Environmental Justice means for me, "In this movement, for more than a century, activists and scholars have been engaging the themes of fairness, inequality, and political and economic power in the human environment" (Purdy, 2016). This shows the connectivity among so many different entities that constitute our environment. The examples that Purdy exhibit, from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson to Robert Marshall, show the lack of accountability in the United States in these different entities. 

The article 8 Horrifying Examples of Corporations Mistreating Black Communities With Environmental Racism by Nick Chiles (https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/02/12/8-horrifying-examples-of-corporations-mistreating-black-communities-with-environmental-racism/) show the lack of accountability and, even more horrifying, the undeniably preventable factors that play into unequal social determinants of health. Whether the policies or practices that target individuals below the policy or practice are intentional or unintentional, the examples provided were astonishing and left me flabbergasted. Particular the example of "The Tragedy of Chester, Pennsylvania show the inexcusable and completely preventable issue of proper disposal. To have the seventh largest garbage-burning incinerators right next to residential areas and public spaces absolutely left me speechless and infuriated. As a future public health professional, examples like this give me drive and purpose to go make a change.