America Needs Environmental Equity Essay -- Environmental Racism

Introduction ...We live in a breakable grappleable world, an ever so available possible world These words, by poet and singer-songwriter Ani Difranco, articulate the relationship between the environment and its inhabitants. Society is constantly manipulating the environment. Our depicted object for changing the environment is kept in check by the destroyable aspect of nature. The changes we make, those advancements in technology, are limited. While the industrial revolution, per say, is over, industry is ever expanding, moving us into a faster, more efficient lifestyle. However, efficiency and advanced technology are not without their price, and that fee, even more so than monetary in nature, is more accurately quantified by an increased duress on the environment and its inhabitants. As industry expands, waste products increase, and often this waste is nephrotoxic to humans, plants, and animals. So-called advancements, such as pesticides, which can greatly increase exercise p roduction, may cause chronic health problems. Environmental stressors, such as smelters, chemical plants, incinerators, and landfills all result from efforts to improve the functioning of society, and all become adverse effects on the populations living within proximity of these stressors (Bullard 1994).The puzzle We have decided as a collective society to pass on our technology and expand our industries at the cost of a less honorable environment. Because this decision is one that affects all of us, we must be willing to take equal responsibility for the harm done to the environment and to its inhabitants. Unfortunately, white members of the nerve center and upper socio-economic classes have not accepted the price of advancement, and have kind of placed the burdens of ou... ...onmental Planning and Management. June 1996, intensity 392.Less Equal than Others. Lancet. April 2, 1994, Volume 3438901.Payne, Henry. Green Redlining. Reason. October 1998, Volume 305. BibliographyB oerner, Christopher. Environmental Injustice. Public Interest. Winter 1995, riposte 118.Bullard, Robert D. Overcoming Racism in Environmental Decisionmaking. Environment. May 1994, Volume 364.Durning, Alan. execution at the Grassroots fighting poverty and environmental decline. Worldswatch Institute cap D.C., 1989.Environmental Racism? Wilson Quarterly. Spring 1995, Volume 192.Sachs, Aaron. Eco-Justice linking human rights and the environment. Worldswatch Insititute capital letter D.C., 1995.Reilly, William K. Environmental Equity EPAs position. EPA Journal. March/April 1992, Volume 181.