environmental racism assignment

Russell Millner/Alamy

Defend Our Planet and Most Vulnerable Species

Your donation today will be triple-matched to power NRDC’s next great chapter in protecting our ecosystems and saving imperiled wildlife.

What Is Environmental Racism?

This form of systemic racism disproportionately burdens communities of color. 

The soil at the former West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago, Indiana, was found to contain high levels of lead and arsenic, putting residents’ health at risk. It has since been demolished.

Joshua Lott/Getty Images

• Share this page block

The lead in Flint, Michigan’s water , the toxic petrochemical plants in Lousiana’s “Cancer Alley ,” the raw sewage backing up into homes in Centreville, Illinois , and the oil and gas projects that overburden some U.S. tribal reservations all have at least one thing in common: They’re examples of environmental racism.

Environmental justice (EJ) advocates have fought these types of injustices for decades, but addressing the root causes has been a protracted and difficult road. Here’s why environmental racism is a systemic issue, how the problem is global in scope, and what we can begin to do in allyship with those who have long sought to dismantle it. 

What exactly is environmental racism?

The phrase environmental racism was coined by civil rights leader Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. He defined it as the intentional siting of polluting and waste facilities in communities primarily populated by African Americans, Latines, Indigenous People, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, migrant farmworkers, and low-income workers. 

Study after study has since shown that those communities are disproportionately exposed to fumes, toxic dust, ash, soot, and other pollutants from such hazardous facilities located in their midst. As a result, they face increased risks of health problems like cancer and respiratory issues. 

Of course, low-income communities of color have long complained of being treated as dumping grounds for environmental polluters. However, it wasn’t until 1982—after a rural Black community in North Carolina was designated as a disposal site for soil laced with carcinogenic compounds—that those complaints garnered national attention. 

The incident prompted civil rights leaders to converge on Afton, North Carolina, where they joined residents in marches and demonstrations. The waste site went in anyway, and it later leached compounds into the community’s drinking water, but a spotlight had been turned on the pattern. This is part of what helped launch the environmental justice movement, which was the response by civil rights leaders to combat environmental racism. In 1983, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who was at the Afton protests went on to request a General Accounting Office (GAO) study that found 75 percent of hazardous waste sites in eight states were placed in low-income communities of color. The subsequent landmark report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States , coauthored by Chavis and Charles Lee for the United Church of Christ, revealed this pattern was even more widespread, and replicated across the entire country. 

Eminent sociologist Robert Bullard, known as the “father of environmental justice,” identified additional examples and helped solidify the growing movement. He also expanded the definition of environmental racism as “any policy, practice, or directive that differentially affects or disadvantages (where intended or unintended) individuals, groups, or communities based on race.”

At the time, and in the years since, countless other environmental justice leaders—from Richard Moore to Hazel M. Johnson —also played a significant role in shedding light on environmental racism and its ongoing impacts. 

Oscar Sanchez, a participant in the General Iron hunger strike, speaks during a protest near Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot’s home.

Max Herman/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Why does environmental racism exist?

It’s a form of systemic racism. And it exists largely because of policies and practices that have historically, and to this day, favored the health, well-being, and consumer choices of white communities over those of non-white, low-income communities. Case in point: General Iron is a metal-shredding business that operated in Chicago’s predominantly white, wealthy Lincoln Park neighborhood. In 2018, e-mails showed that city officials from then mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration pushed the business to move out of this neighborhood after community members complained and to make way for a multibillion-dollar private real estate development. The city then struck a deal to relocate the polluting operation to Chicago’s predominantly Latine, low-income, and working-class Southeast Side neighborhood.

Bullard and others call such land use decision-making by local governments a form of systemic oppression, where race is a dominant factor. While no one wants hazardous waste in their backyard, primarily white, middle- to higher-income communities have always been more successful at preventing it. Conversely, poor communities of color are often perceived as passive and don’t have the clout or resources to challenge the dumping of poison where they live. 

And how did those circumstances arise? 

Many communities of color still suffer from the legacies of segregation and redlining, which were shaped and enforced through land use policies and local zoning codes. These racist practices discouraged investment in these areas, which eroded asset values and the tax base, leading to crumbling housing and public infrastructure. According to a report by the Tishman Environment and Design Center, polluting industries sought to locate their facilities where the value of land was low, and cities responded by zoning these already-struggling communities for industrial use. Their rights to healthy, thriving spaces were further squandered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has a well-documented history of favoring white communities. 

A recent study by the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University illustrates some of the current effects. It found African American and Latine communities that had been redlined under the discriminatory Home Owners’ Loan Corporation program have twice as many oil and gas wells today than mostly white neighborhoods. That’s no accident. 

As is typical for targeted communities, Chicago’s Southeast Side was largely left out of the decision to move the General Iron facility into its neighborhood. So in the fall of 2020, the community fought back by filing a civil rights complaint against the city with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It was initiated by community leaders, including Peggy Salazar of the Southeast Environmental Task Force (with her successors Olga Bautista and Gina Ramirez ) as well as Cheryl Johnson of People for Community Recovery, and supported by partners like NRDC. There was also a hunger strike the following year by other local activists like Oscar Sanchez of the Southeast Youth Alliance and Breanna Bertacchi, a member of United Neighbors of the 10th Ward.

Soon after, Michael Regan, the first African American to serve as EPA administrator, requested that the city conduct an environmental justice analysis as part of the local permitting process. Then in July 2022, in response to the civil rights complaint, HUD announced that an investigation had found Chicago engaging in a pattern of civil rights violations through planning, zoning, and land use policies that routinely relocated polluting businesses from white communities to African American and Latine ones. The city still held out its opposition to HUD following this federal finding, but in May 2023, HUD, the city, and Southeast Side EJ activists announced a precedent-setting settlement, committing the city to a set of reforms to address its racist land use and environmental history and policies.

What forms can environmental racism take?

Environmental racism plays out in many ways and has several cumulative impacts. These include mental and physical health issues, economic inequality, the desecration of cultural spaces, and disproportionate levels of pollution. Given its systemic nature, we could not begin to cover every instance, but here are some examples:

Students at Eisenhower Elementary School in Flint, Michigan, being tested for lead after the toxic metal was found in the city's drinking water in 2016.

Carlos Osorio/Associated Press

• Flint and Benton Harbor , Michigan: In 2014, a water system contaminated by lead turned into a crisis for the city of Flint. Four years later, neighboring Benton Harbor experienced the same thing.   Both communities, which are predominantly Black and low-income, already suffered from a history of state and local government mismanagement. A subsequent failed response to this crisis resulted in years of lead leaching through pipes into drinking water. Lead exposure is linked to health consequences from heart and kidney disease in adults to impaired brain development in children.   Water experts, community leaders, lawyers, and advocates came together with residents to resolve the crises, which included replacing lead pipes and securing alternative water sources and/or filters. What happened in Flint and Benton Harbor also helped galvanize a national conversation calling for a systemic solution to lead exposure. The Biden administration has since committed to replacing all U.S. lead service lines within the next 10 years. 

A group of water protectors on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, North Dakota.

Jolanda Kirpensteijn

• Dakota Access Pipeline : The construction of this 1,200-mile pipeline for transporting crude oil began in 2016. Oil and gas giant Energy Transfer Partners initially proposed a path across the Missouri River just north of the predominantly white community of Bismarck, North Dakota. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected that route, in part because of the threat it posed to the state capitol’s water supply. But then the Army Corps approved the pipeline to cross under the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s primary water source, and it disregarded their concerns over the desecration of tribal sites and potential water contamination in the event of an oil spill.   The tribe’s yearlong protests and legal challenges drew international attention. Then, in response to the tribe’s lawsuit, a federal court ruled in 2020 that permits for the project were illegally approved. It ordered the government to conduct the thorough review of environmental impact initially sought by the Standing Rock Sioux. The review is ongoing. 

Cancer Alley stretches  85 miles from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where a dense concentration of oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and other chemical industries reside alongside suburban homes.

Giles Clarke/Getty Images

• Louisiana’s Cancer Alley : Over the last several decades, this 85-mile stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans became the de facto sacrifice zone for mile after mile of gas and oil operations. This has resulted in an alarming number of health risks for the majority Black and low-income communities, which is how the area got the nickname “Cancer Alley.” In fact, 7 of the 10 census tracts with the country’s highest cancer risk levels from air pollution are found here.    For a time, Cancer Alley residents protested these corporate polluters with little success. But that’s begun to change, and Sharon Lavigne is leading the way. She’s helped organize other residents in her community to push back against new polluters seeking to set up shop in their parish—and won. Plus, the EPA finally weighed in too. In a 56-page letter , it accused local and state officials of turning a blind eye to residents being subjected to large amounts of cancer-causing chemicals spewing into the air, soil, and water. 

Does environmental racism only happen in America?

It happens all over the world—although what it’s called or how it’s framed can be different. Race is used as the primary mechanism to distribute environmental benefits and harms in the United States, but in other countries, caste, ethnicity, and class can function in similar ways. Still, the outcomes are the same. In northern Mexico, for example, the mass shipment of used car batteries from the United States and other nations to metal recyclers—located there to profit from lax occupational and environmental laws—have led to high levels of lead poisoning among workers, and the contamination of soil, air, water, and livestock.

Meanwhile, at least 23 percent of e-waste from developed nations is exported to informal recycling operations in China, India, and West Africa’s Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria. The local populations doing the work use rudimentary techniques because they lack the technology to handle e-waste more safely, and there isn’t much in the way of environmental regulations. That has exposed entire towns to toxic materials, which have caused illness and contamination.

Environmental racism also rears its ugly head in the overall climate crisis. The world’s wealthiest economies produce 80 percent of global emissions from coal, oil, and gas, but it’s developing nations that bear the brunt of global warming’s impacts. 

An e-waste dumpsite in the Agbogbloshie slum of Accra, Ghana, was a former wetland in the 1960s and the home of refugees who fled the conflict in northern Ghana during the 1980s.

Cristina Aldehuela/AFP via Getty Images

What must we do to begin to end environmental racism?

There’s so much to do, and we can all play a part. First, it’s important to recognize that the answers are rooted in the environmental justice movement. As environmental justice leaders who met at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 made clear: If environmental racism is forcing poison upon low-income people of color, justice then does not entail shifting those inequities to others (in the United States or abroad), but remedying them as well as preventing them in the future. 

That starts with listening to the communities most impacted by environmental racism and the broader climate crisis. It means ensuring they have a leading role in the decision-making processes regarding the policies that shape where they live and work. And it means holding those in power accountable for honoring the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities. In other words, true environmental justice requires dismantling the racist structures that created this problem. 

This is finally being acknowledged on a global scale. A recent United Nations report stated, “There can be no meaningful solution to the global climate and ecological crisis without addressing systemic racism.” Global efforts have also given birth to a dynamic and vocal climate justice movement that centers intersectionality and cross-border solidarity. The goal is to advocate for solutions that lead with and drive social transformation. At the most recent U.N. Conference of the Parties (COP27), environmental justice advocates successfully pushed the U.S. Department of State to drop its opposition to the global loss and damage fund. That said, leaders, particularly in the Global North, must do more, including meeting global commitments to climate mitigation, adaptation, and funding. 

Leaders of Benton Harbor, Michigan, announced in November 2021 that the city is accepting bids from contractors for an ambitious project to replace all lead water pipes no later than 2023.

Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via Associated Press

In the United States, the Biden administration created the Justice40 Initiative to direct 40 percent of all climate and clean energy federal investments to communities identified by the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool as overburdened by pollution. And both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provide millions to fund this work. Those are important steps forward, but as NRDC community solutions advisor Mikyla Reta noted , there are also provisions in the IRA that support polluting industries, like oil and gas drilling. In addition, with segregation and its legacy still very much alive, implementing IIJA and IRA, and spending the money in equitable ways, poses challenges.  

There’s also a continued role to play by environmental organizations like NRDC. Historically, Big Green—primarily white environmental organizations—has had little or no involvement in the environmental struggles of people of color. That’s what prompted environmental justice leaders in 1990 to cosign a widely shared letter to these groups, including NRDC, accusing them of racial bias and challenging them to address issues in EJ communities. In response, some mainstream environmental organizations began to diversify their organizations and developed their first environmental justice initiatives, but much work remains. First, these organizations must actively continue to become more diverse spaces that reflect the communities disproportionately impacted by environmental issues. Also, they must continue finding ways to serve as allies to environmental justice partners and center them when helping to shape policy. 

And though the response must largely be systemic, there are some things you can do too. For example, you could learn about the environmental hazards in your community and, if necessary, demand your representatives address problems. You can also read up on the environmental justice movement and find local EJ organizations to support so that they can continue to do this critical work.

Helping to end environmental racism is going to take all of us. For low-income communities of color besieged by it, the change can’t come soon enough.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can’t resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can’t republish our material wholesale or automatically—you need to select stories individually; you can’t republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should drop us a note to let us know when you’ve used one of our stories.

Related Stories

Air Pollution: Everything You Need to Know

The Environmental Justice Movement

Climate Tipping Points Are Closer Than Once Thought

When you sign up, you’ll become a member of NRDC’s Activist Network. We will keep you informed with the latest alerts and progress reports.

Yes, the Environment Can Have Racist Effects, Too

Not all environmental degradation is equal. Segregation and other forms of systemic oppression have placed a greater burden on communities of color, which often leads to unequal suffering.

Social Studies, Civics, Health, Conservation, Ecology, Sociology

Loading ...

In the fall of 1982, more than 500 people were arrested while protesting the creation of a landfill in Warren County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina.

Every day for six weeks, residents brought signs, chanted, and lay down on the road to prevent construction. The toxic landfill was filled with 60,000 tons of soil contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a cancer-causing chemical. The state government had chosen to build the landfill in Warren County, whose residents were mostly Black and mostly poor.

The Washington Post described the protests as “the marriage of environmentalism with civil rights.” This led to the creation of the term environmental racism. Even though the landfill was ultimately built, the demonstrations in Warren County sparked awareness and activism against environmental racism and toward environmental justice .

Environmental Racism

Benjamin Chavis was one of the lead organizers of the Warren County protests and later served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He defined environmental racism in his report “ Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States .” Chavis described it as “racial discrimination in environmental policy making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of color from leadership of the ecology movements.”

The Warren County protests and Chavis’s definition gave a name to how power imbalances and systemic racism intersect with the environment. Communities of color around the world are disproportionately burdened with climate change and environmental hazards. Those in harm’s way are subject to air pollution, radiation , lead poisoning, poor water quality, and a lack of sanitation . These phenomena can cause a variety of health problems, including cancers, asthma, high blood pressure, and low birth weights. Environmental racism is often systemic, reflecting regulations , policies, and decisions made by governments and large corporations.

Why Does Environmental Racism Happen?

Many examples of environmental justice across the world connect back to discriminatory segregation laws and policies. Examples include redlining in the United States and apartheid in South Africa. Even though these policies are no longer in place, their effects persist. Formerly redlined communities tend to have fewer trees and parks, making them hotter, because the concrete they contain stores heat from direct sunlight. According to a 2017 study by the Clean Air Task Force, African Americans are 75 percent more likely to live in communities that border a toxic plant and are exposed to 38 percent more polluted air than white Americans, on average. Similarly, neighborhoods that were previously redlined have temperatures up to 10.5 degrees Celsius (13 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than those that were not, according to a study done in 108 urban areas. Increased temperatures can lead to heat stroke and other health hazards. Temperature is just one environmental factor that affects communities of color more harshly.

Examples of Environmental Racism

Instances of environmental racism exist around the world, many stemming from chemicals and pollution in racially diverse neighborhoods.

“Cancer Alley” is a 137-kilometer (85-mile) stretch of land in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Historically, enslaved people of African descent were forced to work here. Now, it is the site of approximately 150 oil refineries , plastics plants, and chemical facilities. Its name comes from the highly toxic chemicals in the air, leading to local cancer rates 50 times the national average. According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the cancer risks in the African American districts of this area are 104 and 105 cases per million. Meanwhile, the rates in its predominantly white districts range from 60 to 75 cases per million.

In another example of environmental racism through pollution, in December, 1984, the city of Bhopal, India, experienced one of the world’s deadliest chemical disasters. Union Carbide, an American corporation, funded the construction of a pesticide plant in India rather than the U.S. because the chemical and safety laws were less restrictive and expensive there. The plant leaked 40 tons of highly toxic gas, exposing more than 600,000 people. An Amnesty International report, “ Clouds of Injustice ,” estimates 7,000 to 10,000 people died in the first three days. Another 15,000 have died in the years since. Another 100,000 continue to suffer untreatable diseases. Almost 40 years after the toxic leak, survivors still have not received compensation or adequate medical treatment. Toxic materials from the plant site have still not been cleaned up.

Environmental racism can also manifest in water quality and access, or a lack thereof. A key example is the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, United States, a majority-Black city where many residents are economically impoverished . In 2014, as a cost-saving measure, city officials changed the city’s water source to the Flint River. Up till then, the city used treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River. Residents reported concerns about the taste, smell, and appearance of their new water. Government officials ignored these reports, until scientific studies revealed lead contamination in the water supply. Tens of thousands of Flint residents were exposed to dangerous levels of lead. Outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, a bacterial lung infection, killed at least 12 people and caused sickness in many more. Children are particularly at risk from the long-term effects of lead poisoning, which can cause intellectual and physical disabilities , even death. In 2016, President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint. Later that year, UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston said , “Decisions would never have been made in the high-handed and cavalier manner that occurred in Flint if the affected population group was well-off or overwhelmingly white.”

Across the world, Indigenous populations face environmental racism from corporations and governments taking advantage of the weaker land laws in their protected lands. For example, an estimated one million Indigenous people from more than 400 different communities reside in the Amazon Basin. Their livelihoods are under threat from governments and corporations seeking the resources in their lands. Nemonte Nenquimo, a member of the Waorani tribe, led her people in suing the Ecuadorian government in 2019. This step came after officials failed to consult the tribe before trying to sell huge plots of land in the Amazon rainforest to oil companies. “As indigenous people, we must unite in a single objective: that we demand that they respect us. The Amazon is our home and it is not for sale,” Nenquimo said in an interview with the UN .

Indigenous people in the United States face similar challenges. In North Dakota and South Dakota beginning in 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe protested against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline transports crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois to support oil production without the need for transport trucks and trains. Tribe members opposed the construction because the pipeline was set to travel underneath the Missouri River, the primary drinking water source for the tribe. The tribe’s leaders argued that even the smallest spill could damage the tribe’s water supply and that the pipeline traverses a sacred burial ground. Despite years of protests, Energy Transfer Partners began operating the pipeline in 2017.

Environmental Justice

In response to environmental racism, many countries and organizations are raising awareness about environmental justice. The EPA describes environmental justice as “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.” To achieve this goal, in 2021, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution proposed by Costa Rica, Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia, and Switzerland that recognizes that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a human right.

Some environmental justice work is done by large governmental and international organizations. A lot also happens locally, performed by the people most affected by environmental racism. For example, WE ACT for Environmental Justice is an organization in Harlem, New York, a neighborhood with high asthma rates due to polluted air. The organization aims to give people of color and low-income residents the information and language to be able to participate directly in environment and health policymaking decisions. This way, they can fight against the environmental racism that has affected them directly. Mboni ya Vijana , or “the Eyes of the Youth,” is an organization in Kasulu, Tanzania, that works with rural communities and young people to access clean and safe water, better agriculture, environmental protections, and community development.

To get involved in the fight for environmental justice, find a local organization near you and work with community members most impacted by the issues of environmental racism.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Production Managers

Program specialists, last updated.

March 29, 2024

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources

• Ways to Give
• Contact an Expert
• Explore WRI Perspectives

Filter Your Site Experience by Topic

Applying the filters below will filter all articles, data, insights and projects by the topic area you select.

• All Topics Remove filter
• Climate filter site by Climate
• Cities filter site by Cities
• Energy filter site by Energy
• Food filter site by Food
• Forests filter site by Forests
• Freshwater filter site by Freshwater
• Ocean filter site by Ocean
• Business filter site by Business
• Economics filter site by Economics
• Finance filter site by Finance
• Equity & Governance filter site by Equity & Governance

Search WRI.org

Not sure where to find something? Search all of the site's content.

Pollution Is a Racial Justice Issue. Let’s Fight it that Way.

• human rights

Around the world, communities of color and marginalized groups disproportionately feel the effects of pollution and other environmental impacts. Whether it’s residents living along the polluted Cooum River in Chennai, India ; Louisiana’s petrochemical-dense Cancer Alley ; Thailand’s toxic hot spot Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate ; or children living near a battery recycling factory in Naucalpan De Juárez, Mexico , environmental racism has long exposed poor people and people of color to dangerously high levels of lead, contaminated water and bad air . These communities suffer from high incidences of related ailments, such as cancer and asthma. Many have also witnessed the desecration of cultural landmarks .

A Natural Resources Defense Council report issued last year, Watered Down Justice ,  found that race is the factor that bears the strongest relationship to slow and ineffective enforcement of the federal drinking water law in communities across the United States. In Ecuador, the water pollution in Esmeraldas province, linked to palm oil plantations and mining, has caused skin rashes, genital infections and other serious illnesses. More than 90% of the Afro-Ecuadorian population living in Esmeraldas lack access to basic health care, protection or education, while 70% live below the poverty line. Government failure to enforce environmental controls has led to contamination of the water supplies, which local communities continue to use for drinking, bathing and washing their clothes, leading a UN Special Rapporteur to highlight the situation as an example of environmental racism. A 2015 report by the Inter American Commission on Human Rights also found pervasive problems associated with mining projects in territories where Indigenous Peoples and people of African descent live in the Americas, including contamination of soil and water and other negative health effects.

And yet, pollution and other environmental problems aren’t always viewed as examples of racial inequity. Groups around the world tend to treat environmental injustice and racial injustice as separate issues, when the reality is that environmental injustices often spring from systemic racism .

Groups may ignore the pattern of indigenous communities and other minority groups marginalized by race, poverty, caste and religion living on the frontline of the pollution crisis. The reality is that because of this marginalization, mitigating the impacts of pollution is often not a priority for government action. Connecting the two concepts can help advocates strengthen their environmental injustice work by fighting the root causes of discrimination and ensuring that marginalized communities have a voice in decision making.

Environmental groups in the United States offer inspiring lessons for communities around the world on how fighting environmental injustices through the lens of racial inequity can curb pollution while improving equity.

Examples from the United States

The term “environmental racism” was coined in the United States in 1982 by African American civil rights leader  Benjamin Chavis .  A landmark 2007 study by academic Dr. Robert Bullard, the “father of environmental justice,” found “race to be more important than socioeconomic status in predicting the location of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities.” Bullard helped elevate the issue in the United States as an important target for advocacy.

Since then, community groups have successfully fought environmental problems by highlighting the underlying connection to systemic racism. For decades, environmental justice organizations across the United States have led the way, working alongside disenfranchised communities to combat environmental racism — both safeguarding low-income neighborhoods and people of color from toxic pollution, as well as dismantling the policies, laws and institutions that disproportionately expose these communities to greater environmental health risks. Even the current Black Lives Matter movement, while largely focused on ending police brutality, includes environmental justice in its list of legislative demands .

Here are a few examples, and the lessons they offer:

WE ACT for Environmental Justice : New York City’s first environmental justice organization, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, successfully led efforts to mandate statewide lead testing of schools’ drinking water, citing evidence that this type of pollution was more prevalent in communities of color. The group also forced upgrades at a noxious sewage treatment plant that brought respiratory illness to poor neighborhoods in West Harlem and cleaned up air pollution from diesel buses that mostly affect these communities. The priority for all their work is ensuring people of color and/or low-income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. Their approach offers lessons on the importance of working with local universities on community-based participatory research and advancing grassroots campaigns with communities of color to improve environmental policy on environmental health and justice.

WE ACT’s efforts expanded awareness on the disproportionate impacts of pollution on communities of color and strengthened city, state and federal policies on environmental health and justice for all people. This includes the country’s first Safe School Water Act, passed in 2016, which mandates testing and remediation for lead in all New York State schools. The organization also helped pass New York City’s Environmental Justice Study Bill and Environmental Justice Policy Bill, which provide New Yorkers more information to identify and address environmental injustices.

• Louisiana Bucket Bridge : The Louisiana Bucket Brigade has been leading the fight to end the negative effects of the petroleum industry on communities in Louisiana, with a focus on the expansion of the industry and its impact on historically African American communities. The group advocates for moving away from fossil fuels, collaborating with communities and amplifying their voices to help them achieve protection of their health and homes. The organization does this by working directly with “fence-line communities,” a term used to describe people living right next to polluting facilities, on the discriminatory impacts oil and chemical pollution is causing to their homes, health and lives. They are also building tools that communities can use for pollution monitoring, such as mapping resident-reported pollution incidents; using low-cost air pollution sensors approved by the Environmental Protection Agency to document pollution; and collecting pollution monitoring data needed to support advocacy to address enforcement gaps. The Bucket Brigade has revolutionized the idea of communities monitoring toxic air emissions. They have promoted these monitoring techniques throughout refinery belts across the United States and influenced other organizations around the globe.
• Utah Diné Bikéyah : Diné Bikéyah (pronounced di-NAY bi-KAY-uh) means “people’s sacred lands” in the Navajo language. They are working with the five sovereign Tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition to protect the Bears Ears National Monument, an ancestral site, from mining and future development. This site has held cultural significance for generations of Diné, Hopi, Zuni, Pueblo and Ute peoples. Their strategy includes raising awareness and identifying solutions that address the stark discrimination over access to water for Diné (Navajo) people, and ensuring Native people’s voter rights are protected and that they have appropriate representation in local government leadership. This strengthened voice in development decision-making helps overcome historical barriers to participation.

Taking it Global

The United States has hardly solved issues of systemic and environmental racism. Indeed, for every positive example of progress, there are countless more of continued injustices. But environmental justice groups have waged some hard-won battles — ones that could inspire communities around the world to tackle environmental issues as the racial injustices they often are.

These successes offer critical lessons to organizations working with minority groups around the world, including to start with the principle of Indigenous Peoples’ and communities’ self-determination; understand that fighting pollution often requires fighting long-term injustices that have had intergenerational impacts; and seeing pollution as preventable, but part of a struggle to address inequality and social injustice.

Learning from these approaches of environmental justice organizations across the United States, WRI’s Strengthening the Right to Information for People and the Environment (STRIPE) project supports locally led, community-determined fights against pollution around the world. Working with local civil society organizations in Asia, Latin America and Africa, STRIPE builds poor and marginalized communities’ capacity to leverage their rights to information and participation — internationally recognized human and environmental rights — to campaign for a clean, healthy and safe environment. This rights-based approach, pioneered by many environmental justice organizations, amplifies voices too often ignored, enabling local people to develop, advocate for and implement solutions that directly address their concerns. It also helps these same communities hold powerful government officials and polluters accountable. Developed in partnership with STRIPE’s partners, WRI’s Community-Led Action Toolkit , offers practical, tactical and strategic support to use these environmental rights as a vehicle for advocacy and justice.

It’s time to acknowledge that environmental injustice including cases of environmental racism are a political choice that pervades environmental decision-making and threatens to further entrench systemic inequalities. Moving forward, governments, political leaders and other multilateral institutions must recognize that the fight for sustainable development and poverty eradication is a fight for environmental justice. Environmental and social justice funders must also start prioritizing finance for environmental justice, including local and community-led fights. Legal and policy solutions can no longer ignore the unfair, racist price being asked of the world’s poor and minority communities.

Relevant Work

A community action toolkit: a roadmap for using environmental rights to fight pollution, how you can help.

WRI relies on the generosity of donors like you to turn research into action. You can support our work by making a gift today or exploring other ways to give.

Stay Informed

World Resources Institute 10 G Street NE Suite 800 Washington DC 20002 +1 (202) 729-7600

© 2024 World Resources Institute

Envision a world where everyone can enjoy clean air, walkable cities, vibrant landscapes, nutritious food and affordable energy.

Reporting on Environmental Racism

Students will:

• Explore the terms environmental racism and environmental justice.
• Use print sources and fellow students' knowledge to collect information about environmental racism.
• Use the newsgathering questions Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why? and How? to record notes.
• Make inferences and draw conclusions about environmental racism.
• Create a mock newscast to share their findings with others.
• Copies of University of Michigan case studies on environmental racism:     o " Emelle, Alabama: Home of the World's Largest Hazardous Waste Landfill "     o " Maquiladora Workers and Border Issues "     o " The Dearborn, Michigan Arab American Community and Industrial Air Pollution "     o " The Yucca Mountain High-Level Nuclear Waste Depository and the Shoshone "

Environmental racism refers to the fact that communities of color are more likely to bear the brunt of environmental degradation than white communities. Environmental justice seeks to provide fair treatment to all people, regardless of race, culture, gender or income.

By creating a mock news broadcast to cover an instance of environmental racism, your students will build understanding of the news values that shape media coverage, while exploring the concept of environmental justice.

Suggested Procedure

Tell students that today we are going to learn about some of the basic values and techniques that drive and shape the news coverage they see on television and the Internet.

Ask if any of your students know the "Five W's" of news reporting. Explain to them that every news story strives to answer the basic questions of Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why? and How? Ask students to make notes as you discuss these elements: students will soon be asked to create their own news stories.

Ask students if they know what makes a story newsworthy. They may identify key elements of newsworthiness such as timeliness, proximity, human interest, impact and so on. Fill in any elements the students do not mention, and remind students to make notes as you discuss.

Tell your students they are going to create a mock news broadcast on environmental racism. Explain the concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice. Invite students to list examples from community, state, and global incidents. For example, the cleanup of Hurricane Katrina, toxic waste sites near poor and minority communities, asbestos or peeling lead paint in poor schools, the shipping of hazardous materials from developed nations to developing ones, etc. Encourage students to share their opinions and feelings.

Divide students into teams of four and give each group a copy of all four case studies from the University of Michigan. Tell students they are producers and reporters in a television newsroom, looking for stories to cover on the evening news. Each student in the group should read one of the case studies, and then students should come together to discuss the case studies they read. Students will select one case study as the subject of their news report – or, if they have personal knowledge of another instance of environmental racism, they can report on that topic instead. (For instance, a student who lives near an industrial site or waste dump may want to tell her own story.)

Tell students to script and create a mock television news report on their example of environmental racism. One person should be assigned to play the reporter, and the other three should play "sources" – fictitious people who provide additional insight on the problem. Remind students to keep the "Five W's" and the elements of newsworthiness in mind while writing their scripts.

Each group will perform its news story for the entire class.

Recommended Resources

• Websites: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , Environmental Justice Case Studies ,
• Media: Chester, Pennsylvania Environmental Justice

Extension Activity

If you have access to a computer lab, students can do their own research to find cases of environmental racism. Encourage them to look for instances in their own city or state, so they can draw on their background knowledge of the area. If you have access to digital video recorders, your students can create videos in which student presenters report on an environmental problem – with suggestions for possible solutions. Post the results to YouTube or to a vlog.

• Google Classroom

Sign in to save these resources.

Login or create an account to save resources to your bookmark collection.

Learning for Justice in the South

When it comes to investing in racial justice in education, we believe that the South is the best place to start. If you’re an educator, parent or caregiver, or community member living and working in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana or Mississippi, we’ll mail you a free introductory package of our resources when you join our community and subscribe to our magazine.

Get the Learning for Justice Newsletter

• Bipolar Disorder
• Therapy Center
• When To See a Therapist
• Types of Therapy
• Best Online Therapy
• Best Couples Therapy
• Best Family Therapy
• Managing Stress
• Sleep and Dreaming
• Understanding Emotions
• Self-Improvement
• Healthy Relationships
• Student Resources
• Personality Types
• Guided Meditations
• Verywell Mind Insights
• 2024 Verywell Mind 25
• Mental Health in the Classroom
• Editorial Process
• Meet Our Review Board
• Crisis Support

Understanding Environmental Racism

Zuva Seven is a freelance writer and editor focused on the nuanced exploration of mental health, health, and wellness.

Ivy Kwong, LMFT, is a psychotherapist specializing in relationships, love and intimacy, trauma and codependency, and AAPI mental health.  

Peeterv / Getty Images

• A Global Issue
• Combatting Environmental Racism

Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color due to racial discrimination in policy-making, directives, and the enforcement of regulations and laws that intentionally or unintentionally disadvantage individuals, groups, or communities based on race.

Usually, when people think of racism , most solely think of the prejudices individuals have toward a particular group of people or the systems of power and oppression. However, environmental racism is an important aspect of this broader system of oppression. In the United States, environmental racism disproportionately affects Black Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Latino populations.

For example, industrial infrastructures are often placed in proximity to communities of color as they lack the resources to fight back. In contrast, communities with high numbers of White residents tend to receive health-protective infrastructure, like green places (land in urban areas that is reserved for greenery, trees, shrubs, or other vegetation).

This finding was supported by a 2019-study that found that environmental racism was instrumental in developing White spaces. The researchers of this paper coined the term “creative extraction” to describe the process of taking resources from Black places to invest in White places. The study highlighted how development, infrastructure, and environmental harm were linked through political and legal contestation and resource distribution. Thus, creative extraction involved multiple seemingly unconnected interests working towards a mutual goal.

Often, communities of color face cumulative health impacts from multiple co-occurring exposures, yet they are regularly excluded from participating in decision-making boards, commissions and regulatory bodies.

This article discusses environmental racism and its impacts on BIPOC communities, the history of environmental racism, examples of it, and what can be done to mitigate this issue.

The History of Environmental Racism

The effects of environmental racism were first recognized by the United States General Accounting Office’s 1983 report. They compared people living near plastic plants, power stations, and highways, finding that 75% of communities near these sites were predominately Black.

A Civil Rights Issue

Since then, newer research has found that the consistent proximity of communities of color to these hazardous environments is a systemic civil rights issue.

For example, in the 1930s, redlining — a discriminatory mortgage appraisal practice by the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) — denied people of color (who were located in urban areas) mortgages. This meant that they were prevented from buying homes in certain locations and unable to secure loans to renovate their houses. In the end, many individuals from these communities secured housing in areas classified “D” for hazardous.

This policy was repealed; however, its effects are still felt today. For instance, a 2022 study found a strong correlation between air pollution levels in 2010 and the historical patterns of redlining.

But that is not all; researchers have pointed to redlining as one factor behind the wealth disparities between Black and White Americans today. It has also been estimated that Black families have lost at least $212,000 in wealth over the past 40 years due to the discriminatory housing practice.

Consequently, this shows how this practice has continued to shape environmental exposure disparities in the United States.

Nevertheless, while wealth does contribute to an individual’s exposure to these pollutants, research suggests that the association between race and environmental hazards is much stronger.

This means environmental racism is primarily a race issue. After all, the geographical segmentation (and segregation) of communities is a fundamental part of racism.

Impact of Environmental Racism

When it comes to environmental racism, communities of color primarily bear the disproportionate brunt of the air, water, and waste problems. As a result, these communities are more likely to experience drinking water violations in the United States when compared to White communities.

Research into this has shown that these toxins threaten these individuals’ endocrine, neurological , respiratory, and cardiovascular health.

Sperm Quality

Environmental exposure has also been found to negatively affect sperm quality. The research is not conclusive; however, it is suspected that environmental toxins such as pesticides, lead , air pollution and plasticizers are the cause.

Unfortunately, even though the burden of (exposure) risk is higher for men of color, research in this area is primarily conducted on White men, which highlights the limits of research in this field.

Environmental racism also substantially impacts children due to their biological vulnerabilities. For example, a landmark 2007 study found that Black children were five times more likely to experience lead poisoning from proximity to waste than White children.

In addition, a different study found a higher prevalence of asthma, lead poisoning, and obesity in children exposed to environmental hazards.

Examples of Environmental Racism

Below calls out two higher profile instances of racism in the United States.

The Flint Water Crisis

In April 2014, Flint, Michigan, switched to the Flint River as a temporary drinking water source without implementing corrosion control. Within ten months, water collected by residences for sampling was discolored and showed rising water lead levels .

In September 2015, a blood analysis conducted on the children of Flint showed spiking lead levels, and a state of emergency was declared. However, within the 18 months it took for any action to be taken, at least 12 residents died from Legionnaires’ disease (a type of pneumonia), and many others experienced hair loss, skin conditions and other symptoms.

Flint's Water Crisis continued until the boil filtered water advisory was lifted for the city of Flint on February 13, 2023.

Dakota Access Pipeline

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is a 1,172-mile pipeline used to transport crude oil in the northern United States. It was announced to the public in June 2014 and construction began in June 2016. However, the pipeline’s proposed location was just half a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Encroachment on Native Territory

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe argued its construction violated Article II of the Fort Laramie Treaty, which guaranteed the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe “undisturbed use and occupation” of reservation lands surrounding the pipeline.

Initially, it was reported that the pipeline would cross the Missouri River near Bismarck; however, it was moved over concerns that an oil spill would contaminate the state capital’s drinking water.

Therefore, the pipeline was considered to pose a serious risk to the Tribe’s survival due to water contamination. In addition, building the DAPL would require the digging up of old burial grounds, sacred spots, and cultural resources.

Mass protests occurred from 2016 to 2017, however, the Tribe and its allies was unable to stop the pipeline and it was built, desecrating the Tribe's ancestral burial grounds for the benefit of majority White crude oil customers at the expense of an Indigenous community's health and well-being.

Environmental Racism Is a Global Issue

While the examples above speak to the American context, it’s important to recognize that due in part to globalization and technological advancements; environmental racism is a global issue. However, responsibility is far from equal.

After all, the Global North is responsible for 92% of excess global carbon emissions. Nevertheless, while they may carry more responsibility, many of the countries in the Global North are instead using the Global South as a dumping ground for toxic waste.

Take the disposal of waste electronic and electrical equipment (e-waste) as an example. The process is hazardous if not done correctly due to the toxins released. However, a 2014 study estimated that 75% to 80% of the 20–50 million tons generated yearly would be shipped to either Asia or Africa for recycling and disposal.

A different 2021 study focusing on the African context found that when these products were dismantled for valuable metals in informal settings, it resulted in significant human exposure to toxic substances. They also found that e-waste dismantling (and burning) was often conducted at e-waste sites located either inside or near homes.

As a result, children and other residents close to these activities continue to be exposed to toxic substances. Therefore, while environmental racism does impact communities of color across the world, those located in the Global South are facing even more harm.

How to Combat Environmental Racism

Action needs to be taken on both the national and global stage to tackle environmental racism. But what does this look like?

• Financial help : Firstly, both the public and global government bodies must accept that environmental and social issues are inextricably linked. From here, legal and financial resources need to be made available to those most affected by environmental exposure.
• Greater inclusivity in the environmental movement . In addition, more effort needs to be made to make the environmental movement more inclusive — including academic studies into the effects of environmental exposure. Engage and involve those most affected.
• Support grassroots organizations . Lastly, more support needs to be given to grassroots movements fighting for environmental justice. After all, a global issue can not be solved alone. Look into sites like Grassroots International or GreenAction to donate or spread awareness on these causes. You can also take a stand and raise proceeds on your own through special events or through sales of your own goods.
• Inform others. Educate and increase awareness about environmental racism and the importance of climate justice
• Collaborate across industries to scale impact. Have businesses center climate justice and racial equity in climate activities.
• Practice intersectional environmentalism . Intersectional environmentalism seeks justice for the colonization of stolen land, an end to environmental racism, equitable access to green space, and equitable representation and access for the LGBTQIA+ and disabled communities in the outdoors. Intersectional environmentalism advocates for the protection of both people and the planet. This form of activism recognizes that climate justice requires social justice, and vice versa.

The fight for climate justice can feel like a tall order, but it’s important not to underestimate the impact you can have. Feelings of hopelessness are valid, but it’s important to know that you are not in this battle alone. If you’d find it more beneficial to have support in your activism, it may be helpful to pursue collective environmental action, such as outreach and advocacy.

In addition, if you are someone who has been impacted by environmental racism, it may be beneficial to contact a mental health professional for emotional support. In addition, you can reach out to others in your community for advice, support or perhaps start your own movement.

Bullard RD. The threat of environmental racism . Natural Resources & Environment . 1993;7(3):23–56. 

Seamster L, Purifoy D. What is environmental racism for? Place-based harm and relational development . Environmental Sociology . Published online July 22, 2020. DOI:10.1080/23251042.2020.1790331

General Accounting Office. Siting of Hazardous Wasteland Fills and Their Correlation With Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities .

Gauna E. Environmental law, civil rights and sustainability: three frameworks for environmental justice . Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law . 2012;19(1):34. 

Lane HM, Morello-Frosch R, Marshall JD, Apte JS. Historical redlining is associated with present-day air pollution disparities in US . Cities. Environ Sci Technol Lett . 2022;9(4):345–350. DOI:10.1021/acs.estlett.1c01012

Brookings. America’s formerly redlined neighborhoods have changed, and so must solutions to rectify them .

Mikati I, Benson AF, Luben TJ, Sacks JD, Richmond-Bryant J. Disparities in distribution of particulate matter emission sources by race and poverty status . Am J Public Health . 2018;108(4):480–485. DOI:10.2105/AJPH.2017.304297

Zalla LC, Martin CL, Edwards JK, Gartner DR, Noppert GA. A Geography of Risk: Structural Racism and Coronavirus Disease 2019 Mortality in the United States . Am J Epidemiol . 2021;190(8):1439–1446. DOI:10.1093/aje/kwab059

Grineski SE, Collins TW, Morales DX. Asian Americans and disproportionate exposure to carcinogenic hazardous air pollutants: A national study . Soc Sci Med . 2017;185:71–80. DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.05.042

McDonald YJ, Jones NE. Drinking Water Violations and Environmental Justice in the United States, 2011–2015 . Am J Public Health . 2018;108(10):1401–1407. DOI:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304621

Chakraborty J, Collins TW, Grineski SE, Maldonado A. Racial Differences in Perceptions of Air Pollution Health Risk: Does Environmental Exposure Matter? . Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2017;14(2):116. Published 2017 Jan 25. DOI:10.3390/ijerph14020116

Lafuente R, García-Blàquez N, Jacquemin B, Checa MA. Outdoor air pollution and sperm quality . Fertil Steril . 2016;106(4):880–896. DOI:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2016.08.022

Bullard RD, Mohai P, Saha R, Wright B. Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: Why Race Still Matters After All of These Years . Environmental Law . 2008;38(2):371–411.

Landrigan PJ, Rauh VA, Galvez MP. Environmental justice and the health of children . Mt Sinai J Med . 2010;77(2):178–187. DOI:10.1002/msj.20173

Pieper KJ, Tang M, Edwards MA. Flint water crisis caused by interrupted corrosion control: investigating “ground zero” home. Environ Sci Technol . 2017;51(4):2007–2014. DOI:10.1021/acs.est.6b04034

Nelson KN, Binney ZO, Chamberlain AT. Excess pneumonia mortality during a 2014–2015 legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Genesee county, Michigan . Epidemiology . 2020;31(6):823–831. DOI:10.1097/EDE.0000000000001240

Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access Pipeline . Native Knowledge 360. 

The New Yorker. A pipeline fight and America’s dark past .

Whyte K. T he Dakota Access Pipeline, Environmental Injustice, and US. Colonialism . Social Science Research Network; 2017. 

Pardikar R. Global north is responsible for 92% of excess emissions . Eos . 2020;101. DOI:10.1029/2020EO150969

Hickel J. Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary . The Lancet Planetary Health . 2020;4(9):e399-e404. DOI: 10.1016/S2542–5196(20)30196–0

Okafor-Yarwood I, Adewumi IJ. Toxic waste dumping in the Global South as a form of environmental racism: Evidence from the Gulf of Guinea . African Studies . 2020;79(3):285–304. DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1827947

Perkins DN, Brune Drisse MN, Nxele T, D. Sly P. E-waste: a global hazard . Annals of Global Health . 2014;80(4):286. DOI:10.1016/j.aogh.2014.10.001

Lebbie TS, Moyebi OD, Asante KA, et al. E-Waste in Africa: A Serious Threat to the Health of Children . Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2021;18(16):8488. Published 2021 Aug 11. DOI:10.3390/ijerph18168488

Environmental racism: time to tackle social injustice . The Lancet Planetary Health . 2018;2(11):e462. DOI:10.1016/S2542–5196(18)30219–5

• NRDC. How to Unite the Fight for Racial Equity and Environmental Action .

By Zuva Seven Zuva Seven is a freelance writer, editor, and founder of An Injustice!—an intersectional publication based on Medium—who writes along the intersections of race, sexuality, mental health, and politics. She has a Diploma in Health Sciences from the University of Leeds and has written for several publications, including Business Insider, Refinery29, Black Ballad, Huffington Post, Stylist, ZORA, Greatist, and many more.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Amazon Music
• Amazon Alexa

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

Hope And Skepticism As Biden Promises To Address Environmental Racism

Rebecca Hersher

President Biden has promised to address the environmental impacts of systemic racism. On Wednesday, he signed an executive order on environmental justice. Carolyn Kaster/AP hide caption

President Biden has promised to address the environmental impacts of systemic racism. On Wednesday, he signed an executive order on environmental justice.

Devon Hall has lived most of his nearly seven decades in Duplin County, N.C. The land is flat and green there in the southeastern part of the state, about an hour's drive from the coast. It's lovely unless you live downwind of one of the county's many industrial hog farms.

"It can get really bad," says Hall, the co-founder of the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help in Duplin County.

There are about 2 million hogs in the county, outnumbering residents by 29 to 1 , and they produce a lot of waste. Because farmers spray the pig waste on fields as fertilizer , microscopic pieces of feces pollute the air and water. For decades, residents have complained that just breathing can make your eyes water and your throat itch and can cause nausea and dizziness.

Hall worked with researchers in the early 2000s to study the health effects of farm pollution. Studies found that families living near hog farms have higher rates of infant mortality, kidney disease and respiratory illness. And in Duplin County, it is people of color who are disproportionately harmed .

"If you look at the maps," Hall says, "and you begin to look at where these facilities are located, it's pretty much in communities of color."

Across the country, disproportionate exposure to pollution threatens the health of people of color, from Gulf Coast towns in the shadow of petrochemical plants to Indigenous communities in the West that are surrounded by oil and gas operations. Generations of systemic racism routinely put factories, refineries, landfills and factory farms in Black, brown and poor communities, exposing their residents to far greater health risks from pollution than those in whiter, more affluent places.

The federal government has known of environmental injustice for decades. Presidents have promised to address it. But a legacy of weak laws and spotty enforcement has left Black, brown and poor communities mired in pollution and health hazards.

The federal government, for instance, has repeatedly acknowledged that hog farm pollution is dangerous and that people of color get hit the hardest. But after studies and community meetings, lawsuits and federal programs meant to address environmental racism, Hall is as frustrated with the government as he is with the polluting companies.

"The community has been crying out for years, you know, petitioning EPA," he says, and yet the Environmental Protection Agency has not finalized a method to estimate air pollution from hog farms, let alone cracked down on that pollution. "Nothing changes," Hall says. "It's frustrating."

The Biden administration has pledged an aggressive, broad-based approach to achieve environmental justice. Among a raft of executive actions on the climate Biden signed on Wednesday was one creating a White House council on environmental justice and a pledge that 40% of the benefits from federal investments in clean energy and clean water would go to communities that bear disproportionate pollution.

There are other indications of the administration's willingness to address the environmental effects of systemic racism. Biden's nominee to run the EPA, Michael Regan, would be the first Black man to lead the agency, and top positions in other agencies and within the White House are being filled by people who have spent their careers working on equitable climate and environment policies.

But academics, former federal officials and activists warn that the administration will need to rebuild the government's relationship with people living in communities where little has changed over the decades and where the Trump administration's regulatory rollbacks, the pandemic and escalating climate-driven disasters have led to rising death tolls.

"Trust has been broken," says Mustafa Santiago Ali, who ran the Office of Environmental Justice at the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama. "For communities, especially vulnerable communities, there have been so many broken promises over the years."

Protesters attempt to block the delivery of toxic PCB waste to a landfill in Warren County, N.C., in 1982. It was in response to the state's decision to locate a hazardous waste landfill in a low-income, predominantly Black area of Warren County that the term "environmental racism" was first used by the Rev. Ben Chavis. Jenny Labalme hide caption

Protesters attempt to block the delivery of toxic PCB waste to a landfill in Warren County, N.C., in 1982. It was in response to the state's decision to locate a hazardous waste landfill in a low-income, predominantly Black area of Warren County that the term "environmental racism" was first used by the Rev. Ben Chavis.

A long history

The federal government's role in responding to environmental racism makes sense when you consider that it created the problems in the first place.

"I think the concept of environmental justice goes way back way before the founding of the Republic, when you had the invasion of this hemisphere by the Europeans," says Quentin Pair, who teaches at Howard University in Washington, D.C., who served for 35 years as a lead trial attorney on environmental cases at the Department of Justice and led much of its work on environmental justice. "It always seems to be the people who suffer these indignities are people of color and the poor."

Pair draws a line from the early exploitation of Indigenous and Black people in North America to the modern movement for environmental justice, which began to gather strength in the mid-20th century with the broader civil rights movement in the U.S.

In February 1968, Black sanitation workers of Memphis began a strike to demand better working conditions and higher pay. On March 29, striking workers march past Tennessee National Guard troops with fixed bayonets during a 20-block march to City Hall. Charlie Kelly/AP hide caption

One early example were the United Farm Workers demonstrations of the 1960s, which, among other things, connected worker illness to pesticides. In 1971, Black residents of Shaw, Miss., filed a civil rights lawsuit over the lack of adequate sewer service in their neighborhoods — a problem that still plagues many communities. In the 1970s, a group of Native Hawai'ians launched protests against the U.S. military in an effort to reclaim and restore an island used for target practice, a fight that lasted decades, and in the late 1970s, residents of a majority-Black neighborhood in Houston fought to block construction of a landfill on civil rights grounds.

Meanwhile, changes within the federal government suggested that environmental racism might finally be addressed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in federal spending, and the Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970. By the early 1980s, there was a growing environmental justice movement across the country. In 1982, large-scale protests against a toxic dump planned for a majority-Black neighborhood in Warren County, N.C. grabbed national headlines after dozens of protesters were arrested. The dump was built despite the protests.

In the wake of the North Carolina protests, national civil rights groups began a decadelong effort to further document the effects of pollution on communities of color and push the federal government to act. A flurry of studies and testimonies described how race was often the strongest predictor of proximity to toxic sites and the inequitable way that environmental regulations are both created and enforced.

"Race is a major factor related to the presence of hazardous wastes in residential communities across the United States," wrote the authors of a landmark 1987 report by the United Church of Christ, which found that Black and Latinx Americans were significantly more likely to live near sources of toxic pollution. "We are releasing this report in the interests of the millions of people who live in potentially health-threatening situations."

Striking farmworkers march 300 miles to the California state capital in 1966 to demand safer working conditions. Walter Zeboski/AP hide caption

Those studies helped inform the 1994 executive order on environmental justice signed by President Bill Clinton. "The basic theory behind the executive order was to clearly identify those unprotected communities, to define what an environmental justice community was," says Gerald Torres, who helped write the order. He was the deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton administration.

The order was a meaningful step, but it was limited, Torres says. It wasn't designed to fix pollution disparities on its own. For one thing, the order is not a law, so communities can't use it to fight pollution in court. Instead, the order was designed to push federal bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department to think explicitly about the health of historically marginalized people as they created and enforced pollution and land use regulations.

The executive order required agencies to at least look for injustices and come up with a plan to address them. "We did have a theory of change," Torres says. "It wasn't dramatic, like, 'OK, we're going to overturn every process, root and branch right now.' But if you don't look for something, you don't see it."

Incremental change

The 1994 executive order is the basis for virtually all federal action on environmental racism in the last 26 years, including the development of an Obama-era tool for identifying which communities might be most vulnerable to pollution. But almost three decades after it was signed, pollution disparities have barely budged.

A 2007 study found that low-income and minority populations were not benefiting proportionately from the federal government's largest toxic waste cleanup program. A 2014 study by a group of leading civil rights scholars examined the legacy of the executive order and found that, although the phrase "environmental justice" had gone from mainstream in the years since the Clinton order, many people living in polluted communities felt that the federal government's efforts were not serving them, despite renewed focus by the Obama administration.

When Flint, Mich., switched its water supply in 2014, residents of the majority-black city where 40% of people live in poverty started complaining about the quality of the water. City and state officials denied that there was a serious problem for months. Residents (left) gather for lead poisoning testing in 2016. Protesters (right) take to the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in 2018. Brett Carlsen; Brittany Greeson/Getty Images hide caption

"We made progress, but there have also been tremendous setbacks," says Suzi Ruhl, who served on the Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice during the Obama administration.

She says the Trump administration did enormous damage by backing off on enforcement of environmental regulations. That included approving oil and gas pipelines that run through Indigenous land despite opposition from residents, allowing the dangerous pesticide chlorpyrifos to remain on the market even though it can cause dizziness and nausea in farmworkers who use it, and neglecting the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice.

The Two-Way

Lead-laced water in flint: a step-by-step look at the makings of a crisis.

Key Moments In The Dakota Access Pipeline Fight

But, she argues, it is not sufficient for the Biden administration to simply undo what happened under the Trump administration. She says the new president will need to go beyond what the Obama administration did to address environmental racism, including updating the Clinton executive order. President Biden appears to agree: The new environmental justice council he created on Wednesday has been tasked with looking for ways to update the Clinton executive order.

Ruhl says she hopes to see much more dramatic action from the administration in the near future, including providing money to help communities deal with the double whammy of the pandemic and chronic pollution.

"In a sans-COVID world, we could simply appreciate the emerging progress being made" to create the environmental justice council, she says. "But, that world does not exist. And the deaths in communities of color continue to escalate because there is still a disconnect about the real-world, real-time conditions in these communities."

Others feel that even an updated executive order would be too weak to reverse centuries of environmental racism and address climate change in ways that don't reinforce existing inequities. Researchers are already seeing evidence that federal disaster relief after climate-driven storms and access to solar electricity are following familiar lines that put people of color at a disadvantage and threaten their health .

Vehicles line a road near a blocked bridge next to the Oceti Sakowin camp where protesters gathered in Cannon Ball, N.D. Much of the Dakota Access pipeline project controversy has been over a small portion running under the Missouri River. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation lies just downstream, worry that a leak could contaminate their drinking water and sacred lands. David Goldman/AP hide caption

Vehicles line a road near a blocked bridge next to the Oceti Sakowin camp where protesters gathered in Cannon Ball, N.D. Much of the Dakota Access pipeline project controversy has been over a small portion running under the Missouri River. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation lies just downstream, worry that a leak could contaminate their drinking water and sacred lands.

Some legislators feel a new law could help reverse those trends. As a senator, Kamala Harris sponsored legislation that would establish a legal demographic definition for low-income communities and communities of color, and allow those communities to sue the government over disproportionate pollution. "We're trying to deal with the systemic issues of racism and discrimination," says Rep. Raul Grijalva, who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources and is one of the bill's sponsors in the House.

Grijalva says it's important that communities be able to sue over environmental racism — something that even an updated executive order would not enable. And, he says, a law would be more binding because future presidents couldn't unilaterally remove it.

For North Carolina environmental advocate Devon Hall, the most important things the new administration and Congress can do is listen to the concerns of the people who live in polluted places. "I think the EPA should spend some time in these communities," Hall says.

And, Hall says, those who want to use their power to address environmental racism should ask themselves two questions: "How do you give a voice to the voiceless? Who are you going to listen to, and for how long?"

• climate change
• air pollution
• Environmental Protection Agency
• environmental justice

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Environ Health Perspect
• v.129(5); 2021 May

Confronting Environmental Racism

Joel d. kaufman.

1 Environmental Health Perspectives , National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

2 Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

3 Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

4 Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Anjum Hajat

The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Racism systematically constructs inequities by conferring advantages upon one racial/ethnic group at the expense of others. Power and privilege are distributed unevenly across space and time—as are the characteristics of the human environment—enabling racist structures and institutions to influence the environments in which people live, play, and work. Environmental racism is a critically important component of this broader system of oppression.

Environmental racism impacts individual communities of color in several ways. Over many decades, the discriminatory policies and practices that constitute environmental racism have disproportionately burdened communities of color, specifically Black Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives (AIs/ANs), Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanic (sometimes called Latinx) populations. Frequently, these communities are located next to pollution sources such as major roadways, toxic waste sites, landfills, and chemical plants. Environmental racism has also concentrated disadvantaged populations in substandard housing, where hazardous exposures are much more likely. Manifestations of environmental racism have been documented in several other exposure situations. Often communities of color face cumulative health impacts from multiple co-occurring exposures.

To understand environmental racism is to understand, in part, the inequity that drives health disparities in communities of color. Notwithstanding substantial within- and between-group heterogeneity, many communities of color face higher rates of infant mortality as well as death from diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, homicide, and human immunodeficiency virus, compared with White counterparts ( National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities 2011 ). Black Americans and AI/AN people are also more likely to die younger overall ( Shiels et al. 2017 ). Yet these populations (and other racial/ethnic groups) tend to be underrepresented in studies of many of the chronic diseases that affect them disproportionately ( Oh et al. 2015 ).

In the summer of 2020, Environmental Health Perspectives ( EHP ) curated a collection of articles that represent a variety of exposures and health outcomes relevant to environmental racism, specifically as it pertains to Black Americans. We are updating this collection with several recently published articles that shed new light on this topic.

Kenneth Olden’s eponymous lecture highlighted the many social, economic, and health consequences of ever-increasing income inequality ( Olden 2021 ). His call for a unified struggle of working-class people of all races and ethnicities is reminiscent of the position of many Civil Rights leaders in the 1960s. Olden, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, strongly believes that only government action can help remedy income inequality. This belief is aligned with many calls for structural change ( Bassett and Galea 2020 ; Bidadanure 2019 ) as the antidote needed to begin moving toward racial equity.

In a recent study, Nardone et al. ( 2021 ) evaluated the association between historically redlined communities and current day access to greenspace as measured by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values. Redlined communities are those that were designated in the 1930s as “hazardous” prospects for federal mortgage lending owing to their worse housing quality, industrial exposures, and low-income, ethnically diverse makeup ( Nelson et al. 2021 ). Accounting for 1940 neighborhood characteristics, Nardone et al. ( 2021 ) found that redlined communities had lower NDVI values in 2010, suggesting that the legacy of racist policies continues to drive environmental inequality. While hardly surprising to see these persistent impacts, the paper provides concrete evidence of an environmental effect of redlining. This study has important implications for other differentially distributed environmental hazards given that future research could tie environmental injustice and health disparities more closely to our nation’s history of systemic racism and discrimination.

Nwanaji-Enwerem et al. ( 2021 ) applied the exposome concept to environmental aging biomarkers. They called for the incorporation of social and other contextual factors in the development of environmental aging biomarkers that reflect the unique stressors faced by individuals subjected to racism. This effort must be supported with a renewed focus on recruiting and retaining diverse study populations and researchers. The use of community-based participatory research by environmental health researchers is one way to build trust and create equitable, beneficial partnerships that improve the recruitment and retention of diverse populations. The authors also called for journals and editors to serve as an additional safeguard against the inappropriate use and interpretation of race in studies, an idea that the editors of EHP fully support.

The use and interpretation of race in studies is explored further in a commentary by Payne-Sturges et al. ( 2021 ). These researchers addressed specific actions that environmental health scientists can take to move their disciplines toward an anti-racist future. These involve not ascribing racial differences to biological differences, a deeper understanding of the role of racism in environmental health disparities research, developing new measures of racism for the environmental health sciences, considering structural racism as a factor in risk assessment, and developing guidelines for discussions of race and ethnicity in environmental health science reporting.

Finally, a recent EHP News article ( Nicole 2021 ) discusses one of the heightened risks imposed by environmental racism: the increased risk of fenceline communities experiencing a so-called natural hazard–triggered technological disaster (natech) event. These events occur when a natural hazard such as a hurricane or earthquake causes an infrastructural failure such as a chemical spill or nuclear reactor meltdown. Few, if any, guidelines exist to address community health during these compound disasters.

New Policies for Authors and Reviewers

As a journal, EHP is taking steps to ensure that scholarship on health disparities meets the most rigorous expectations. As has been suggested by Boyd et al. ( 2020 ), we are now requiring investigators to define race in their studies (i.e., to report how and by whom “race” or “ethnicity” was assigned to participants and why it was included as an analytic variable). Because race is a social construct, investigators should not assume genetic or biological explanations for racial health disparities. As stated by Nwanaji-Enwerem et al. ( 2021 ), “the notions of genetic ancestry and the social construct of race must be intentionally and explicitly disentangled.” Because many environmental health studies are interested in genetic influences on health, researchers should take care not to conflate race or ethnicity with genetic ancestry in their studies ( Oni-Orisan 2021 ).

When considering racial or ethnic differences in health or exposure risks, authors must also describe the potential role of racism in the questions under study. That is, they should explore how racism underpins social, economic, and environmental disparities that influence health. We expect authors to be thoughtful in considering these aspects rather than assigning health effects to race or even specific measurable impacts of racism such as segregation. To use segregation as an example, the persistence of segregated communities reflects the effects of longstanding structural racism and the unequal distribution of resources that can be associated with health impacts. Some of the health effects of segregation can be understood by known pathways, such as economic status, whereas some of its apparent impacts may work through other, unmeasured mechanisms that accompany segregation. As shown by Nardone et al. ( 2021 ), the consequences of segregation manifest in differential exposure to environmental factors like greenspace.

In addition, we urge investigators to disaggregate race and ethnicity data to the fullest extent possible in health disparities research. Inappropriately collapsing racial/ethnic groups masks important variation in environmental exposures and health, and it results in the erasure of certain subpopulations in data collection, analysis, and reporting ( Urban Indian Health Institute 2021 ). Importantly, the absence of data does not imply that disparities in exposures and health do not exist.

Reviewers are also being provided guidance on the importance of critically examining studies that provide biological explanations for racial health disparities. EHP is updating its author guidelines to emphasize the importance of interrogating racial explanations for health and disease. In addition, EHP has renewed its commitment to expanding opportunities for a diverse slate of reviewers and editors to gain experience in scholarly publishing, experiences that provide privileges historically enjoyed primarily by White men. Editorial experience and roles can directly and indirectly benefit the careers of scientists, thereby underscoring the important role journals can play in promoting a diverse scientific workforce. Representatives from underrepresented groups bring rich substantive knowledge and insight to all topics, and essential voices on environmental racism and health disparities.

From a style perspective, we have also adopted the uppercase B for the demographic term “Black.” We agree with the sentiment expressed by New York Times editors Dean Baquet and Phil Corbett when they wrote, “We believe this style best conveys elements of shared history and identity, and reflects our goal to be respectful of all the people and communities we cover”—and that, as editor Marc Lacey further stated, it is the difference between a color and a culture ( Coleman 2020 ). We encourage authors to use “Black” (and “White”) while recognizing that, for some populations, “African American” will continue to be the more appropriate term.

As we continue this period of reckoning, it is timely to reflect on our own ability, as environmental health scientists and as a scholarly journal, to shine a light on racism as not just a social determinant of health but a public health crisis. To this end, EHP invites authors to submit papers that explicitly address environmental racism, including not just associated exposures and outcomes, but also potential interventions and mitigation activities.

• Bassett MT, Galea S. 2020. Reparations as a public health priority—a strategy for ending Black–White health disparities . N Engl J Med 383 ( 22 ):2101–2103, PMID: 33031653, 10.1056/NEJMp2026170. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bidadanure JU. 2019. The political theory of universal basic income . Annu Rev Polit Sci 22 ( 1 ):481–501, 10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-070954. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Boyd RW, Lindo EG, Weeks LD, McLemore MR. 2020. On racism: a new standard for publishing on racial health inequities . Health Affairs Blog, 2 July 2020. 10.1377/hblog20200630.939347. [ CrossRef ]
• Coleman N. 2020. Why we’re capitalizing Black . New York Times , online edition, Times Insider section, 5 July 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black.html [accessed 7 April 2021].
• Nardone A, Rudolph KE, Morello-Frosch R, Casey JA. 2021. Redlines and greenspace: the relationship between historical redlining and 2010 greenspace across the United States . Environ Health Perspect 129 ( 1 ):017006, PMID: 33502254, 10.1289/EHP7495. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities. 2011. National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity . Bethesda, MD: Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/npa/files/Plans/NSS/CompleteNSS.pdf [accessed 7 April 2021]. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nelson RK, Winling L, Marciano R, Connolly NDB. 2021. Mapping inequality: redlining in New Deal America. [Website] . https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=4/36.71/-96.93&text=intro [accessed 7 April 2021].
• Nicole W. 2021. A different kind of storm: natech events in Houston’s fenceline communities . Environ Health Perspect 10.1289/EHP8391. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nwanaji-Enwerem JC, Jackson CL, Ottinger MA, Cardenas A, James KA, Malecki KMC, et al.. 2021. Adopting a “compound” exposome approach in environmental aging biomarker research: a call to action for advancing racial health equity . Environ Health Perspect 129 ( 4 ):045001, PMID: 33822649, 10.1289/EHP8392. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Oh SS, Galanter J, Thakur N, Pino-Yanes M, Barcelo NE, White MJ, et al.. 2015. Diversity in clinical and biomedical research: a promise yet to be fulfilled . PLoS Med 12 ( 12 ):e1001918, PMID: 26671224, 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001918. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Olden K. 2021. The Inaugural Olden Distinguished Lecture: economic inequality and health disparities . Environ Health Perspect 129 ( 4 ):041001, PMID: 33861142, 10.1289/EHP8631. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Oni-Orisan A, Mavura Y, Banda Y, Thornton TA, Sebro R. 2021. Embracing genetic diversity to improve Black health . N Engl J Med 384 ( 12 ):1163–1167, PMID: 33567186, 10.1056/NEJMms2031080. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Payne-Sturges DC, Gee GC, Cory-Slechta DA. 2021. Confronting racism in environmental health sciences: moving the science forward for improving racial inequities . Environ Health Perspect 10.1289/EHP8186. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shiels MS, Chernyavskiy P, Anderson WF, Best AF, Haozous EA, Hartge P, et al.. 2017. Trends in premature mortality in the USA by sex, race, and ethnicity from 1999 to 2014: an analysis of death certificate data . Lancet 389 ( 10073 ):1043–1054, PMID: 28131493, 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30187-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Urban Indian Health Institute. 2021. Data Genocide of American Indians and Alaska Natives in COVID-19 Data: A Report Card Grading U.S. States’ Quality of COVID-19 Racial Data and Their Effectiveness in Collecting and Reporting Data on American Indian and Alaska Native Populations . Seattle, WA: Urban Indian Health Institute. https://www.uihi.org/projects/data-genocide-of-american-indians-and-alaska-natives-in-covid-19-data/ [accessed 7 April 2021]. [ Google Scholar ]

Background on Environmental Justice and Racism

• Reference work entry
• First Online: 05 April 2023
• pp 1007–1026
• Cite this reference work entry

• Alice Kaswan 2  

53 Accesses

Beginning with its roots in the USA in the 1980s, the idea of environmental justice has expanded around the globe. Like the term “sustainable development,” the term environmental justice provides a big tent, supported by key principles. Within, differing principles of justice, applicable at differing scales and to differing communities and contexts, can fit comfortably. There are, however, important methodological and conceptual debates. Understanding both the overarching principles and areas of difference are key to understanding environmental justice.

This chapter begins by briefly assessing the relationships between environmental justice and sister movements, including sustainable development, energy justice, and climate justice. It describes the genesis of the environmental justice movement in the USA, and then describes how the principles have diffused into international environmental politics as well as environmental disputes within nations in both the Global North and Global South. Turning to principles of environmental justice, the chapter explores distributive, participatory, recognition, corrective, and social justice principles, addressing select methodological and conceptual issues.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Adger WN, Paavola J, Huq S, Mace MJ (2006) Fairness in adaptation to climate change. The MIT Press, Boston

Book   Google Scholar  

Ageyeman J, Bullard R, Evans B (2002) Exploring the nexus: bringing together sustainability, environmental justice and equity. Space Polity 6(1):70–90

Google Scholar  

Alston D (1992) Transforming a movement: people of color unite at summit against ‘environmental racism.’. Sojourners 21(1):30–31

Arthur J, Shaw WH (1978) Justice and economic distribution. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River

Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (2021a) Intersections of environmental justice and sustainable development: framing the issues. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–19

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) (2021b) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Baker S (2011) Unmasking project finance: risk mitigation, risk inducement, and an invitation to development disaster. Tex J Oil Gas Energy L 6(2):273–334

Baker S (2021) Revolutionary power: an activist’s guide to the energy transition. Island Press, Washington

Baker S, DeVar S, Prakash S (2019) The energy justice workbook. Initiative for Energy Justice, Boston

Been V, Gupta F (1997) Coming to the nuisance or going to the barrios? A longitudinal analysis of environmental justice claims. Ecol Law Q 24(1):1–56

Bhutta N, Chang AC, Dettling LJ, Hsu JW (2020) Disparities in wealth by race and ethnicity in the 2019 survey of consumer finances, Feds Notes. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928.htm . Accessed 29 Sept 2021

Blais L (1996) Environmental racism reconsidered. N C Law Rev 75(1):75–152

Bullard RD (ed) (1993) Confronting environmental racism: voices from the grassroots. South End Press, Boston

Bullard RD (1994) Dumping in dixie: race, class and environmental quality, 2nd edn. Westview Press, Boulder

California Strategic Growth Council (2021) Transformative climate communities: community-led transformation for a sustainable California. https://sgc.ca.gov/programs/tcc/ . Accessed 1 Oct 2021

Carley S, Konisky DM (2020) The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition. Nat Energy 5:569–577. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0641-6

Article   Google Scholar  

Chavis BF Jr (1993) Foreword. In: Bullard RD (ed) Confronting environmental racism: voices from the grassroots. South End Press, Boston, p 3

Cole LW (1992) Empowerment as the key to environmental protection: the need for environmental poverty law. Ecol Law Q 19(4):619–684

Cole LW, Foster SR (2000) From the ground up: environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement. NYU Press, New York

Commission for Racial Justice, United Church of Christ (1987) Toxic wastes and race in the United States: a national report on the racial and socioeconomic characteristics of communities with hazardous waste sites

Coolsaet B, Néron PY (2021) Recognition and environmental justice. In: Coolsaet B (ed) Environmental justice: key issues. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 52–63

Cutter SL (1996) Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Prog Hum Geogr 20(4):529–539

Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change (2009) Principles of climate justice. http://www.ejnet.org/ej/

Equitable & Just National Climate Platform (2019). https://ajustclimate.org/index.html#platform

Fears D, Dennis B (2021) ‘This is environmental racism:’ how a protest in a North Carolina farming town sparked a national movement. The Washington Post (April 6, 2021)

First National People of Color Leadership Summit (1991) The principles of environmental justice. https://www.communitycommons.org/entities/f5511283-eaa3-4c01-9c63-31ba3a4a6ad9 . Accessed 29 Sept 2021

Flocks JD (2012) The environmental and social injustice of farmworker pesticide exposure. Georget J Poverty Law Policy 19(2):255–282

Foster S (1998) Justice from the ground up: distributive inequities, grassroots resistance, and the transformative politics of the environmental justice movement. Calif Law Rev 86(4):775–841

Gauna E (1995) Federal environmental citizen provisions: obstacles and incentives on the road to environmental justice. Ecol Law Q 22(1):1–88

Holland B (2021) Capabilities, well-being, and environmental justice. In: Coolsaet B (ed) Environmental justice: key issues. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 64–77

Hossain K, Punam NP (2016) Climate change impact and human rights of rural women in Bangladesh. In: Abate R (ed) Climate justice: cases studies in global and regional governance challenges. Environmental Law Institute, Washington, D.C., pp 493–515

Kaswan A (1997) Environmental justice: bridging the gap between environmental laws and “justice.”. Am Univ Law Rev 47:221–301

Kaswan A (2003) Distributive justice and the environment. N C Law Rev 81(3):1031–1148

Kaswan A (2014) Domestic climate change adaptation and equity. Environ Law Rep 42(12):11125–11143

Khan SA (2021) Chemical pollution and the role of international law in a future detoxified. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 243–256

Konisky DM, Reenock C (2018) Regulatory enforcement, riskscapes, and environmental justice. Policy Stud J 46(1):7–36

Kuehn RR (2000) A taxonomy of environmental justice. Environ Law Rep 30:10681–10703

Lambert T, Boerner C (1997) Environmental inequity: economic causes, economic solutions. Yale J Regul 14:195–234

MacGregor S Gender matters in environmental justice. In: Coolsaet B (ed) Environmental justice: key issues. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 234–248

McGregor D (2021) Indigenous environmental justice and sustainability. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 58–71

McGurty EM (1997) From NIMBY to civil rights: the origins of the environmental justice movement. Environ Hist 2(3):301–323

Mohai P, Saha R (2015) Which came first, people or pollution? Assessing the disparate siting and post-siting demographic change hypotheses of environmental injustice. Environ Res Lett 10. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/115008

Natarajan U (2021) Environmental justice in the global south. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 39–57

Nguyen Q, Tsang L, Yang T (2021) China’s cancer villages. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 257–270

Nozick R (1974) Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books, New York

Olawuyi DS (2021) Gender, indigeneity, and the search for environmental justice in postcolonial Africa. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 208–224

Outka U (2012) Environmental justice in the renewable energy transition. J Environ Sustain Law 19(1):60–122

Outka U (2017) Fairness in the low-carbon shift: learning from environmental justice. Brooklyn Law Rev 82(2):789–824

Principles of Environmental Justice (1991). https://www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.html

Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Belknap Press, Boston

Rodriguez I (2021) Latin American decolonial environmental justice. In: Coolsaet B (ed) Environmental justice: key issues. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 78–93

Rothstein R (2017) The color of law: a forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York

Salcido R (2016) Reviving the environmental justice agenda. Chicago-Kent Law Rev 91(1):115–137

Schlosberg D (2004) Reconceiving environmental justice: global movements and political theories. Environ Polit 13(3):517–540. https://doi.org/10.1080/0964401042000229025

Smith AA, Scott DN (2021) Energy without injustice? Indigenous participation in renewable energy generation. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 383–397

Straw LJ Jr (1995) Environmental justice: racial gerrymandering for environmental siting decisions. Virginia Environ Law J 14(4):665–686

Talmadge M (2019) What is holding back renewable energy development in Indian Country? Clean energy finance forum, Yale center for business and the environment. https://cleanenergyfinanceforum.com/2019/12/11/what-is-holding-back-renewable-energy-development-in-indian-country

Temper L, del Bene D, Martinez-Alier J (2015) Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas. J Polit Econ 22:255–278

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2021) EJSCREEN: Environmental justice screening and mapping tool. https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen . Accessed 1 Oct 2021

United Nations (2015) Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development (A/RES/70/1). United Nations, New York. https://sdgs.un.org/publications/transforming-our-world-2030-agenda-sustainable-development-17981

United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future, Report Of The World Commission on Environment and Development. Oxford University Press, Oxford

United Nations World Summit for Social Development (1995) Copenhagen declaration on social development

Walker G (2012) Environmental justice: concepts, evidence and politics. Routledge, London

Warner EAK (2021) The indigeneity of environmental justice: a Dakota Access pipeline case study. In: Atapattu SA, Gonzalez CG, Seck SL (eds) The Cambridge handbook of environmental justice and sustainable development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 354–367

Zimmerman R (1994) Issues of classification in environmental equity: how we manage is how we measure. Fordham Urban Law J 21(3):633–670

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of San Francisco School of Law, San Francisco, CA, USA

Alice Kaswan

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alice Kaswan .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

Robert Brinkmann

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Kaswan, A. (2023). Background on Environmental Justice and Racism. In: Brinkmann, R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01949-4_70

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01949-4_70

Published : 05 April 2023

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-031-01948-7

Online ISBN : 978-3-031-01949-4

eBook Packages : Social Sciences Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

What is environmental racism and how can we fight it?

Systemic disadvantage extends to the very air we breathe. Image:  Reuters/Damir Sagolj

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Peter Beech

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} Air Pollution is affecting economies, industries and global issues

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:, air pollution.

Poisoned tap water in Flint , Michigan. Toxic waste dumps in the Lower Rio Grande Valley . A town in China where 80% of children have been poisoned by old computer parts. What do these things have in common?

All are examples of environmental racism , a form of systemic racism whereby communities of colour are disproportionately burdened with health hazards through policies and practices that force them to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste such as sewage works, mines, landfills, power stations, major roads and emitters of airborne particulate matter. As a result, these communities suffer greater rates of health problems attendant on hazardous pollutants.

It was African American civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis who coined the term “environmental racism” in 1982, describing it as “racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of colour for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of colour from leadership of the ecology movements”.

Have you read?

Solving india's air pollution can boost economy and business. here's how, the best ways to reduce air pollution and tackle climate change together, how china is tackling air pollution with big data.

In practice, environmental racism can take many forms, from workplaces with unsound health regulations to the siting of coal-fired power stations close to predominantly non-white communities. It can mean citizens drinking contaminated groundwater or being schooled in decaying buildings with asbestos problems.

Many of these problems face low-income communities as a whole, but race is often a more reliable indicator of proximity to pollution. A landmark 2007 study by academic Dr Robert Bullard – the “father of environmental justice” – found “race to be more important than socioeconomic status in predicting the location of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities”. He proved that African American children were five times more likely to have lead poisoning from proximity to waste than Caucasian children, while even black Americans making $50-60,000 a year were more likely to live in polluted areas than their white counterparts making $10,000 . In the UK meanwhile, a government report found that black British children are exposed to up to 30% more air pollution than white children .

Lead astray & environmental racism

The case of Flint, Michigan, is a prime example of environmental racism. In 2014, to save money, the city changed its water source to the Flint river, but failed to treat the new supply adequately, exposing the city’s 100,000 majority-black inhabitants to dangerous levels of lead from ageing pipes and other contaminants such as E.coli. Between 6,000 and 12,000 children drank tap water containing high levels of lead , a neurotoxin, while 12 citizens eventually died from Legionnaires’ disease . However, for 18 months, residents’ complaints of foul-smelling and discoloured water, of hair loss and skin rashes, were dismissed until community pressure forced the city to reconnect to the former supply and admit wrongdoing. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission concluded that the slow official reaction was a “result of systemic racism” .

Indigenous populations often suffer from environmental racism. In the US, Native Americans communities continue to be subjected to large amounts of nuclear and other hazardous waste , as corporations take advantage of weaker land laws, whereby the federal government holds land in “trust” on behalf of the tribes . Decades of uranium mining on the land of the Navajo of New Mexico have caused longstanding problems in the community. From 1951 until 1971, the US Public Health Service performed a massive human medical experiment on 4,000 Navajo uranium miners , allowing them to work without informing them of the effects of radiation. The effects were predictable: elevated levels of lung cancer and other diseases from breathing in radon.

The 2016-17 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline were another example where the tribes came up against the power of policy and lost. The 1,172-mile oil pipeline was considered a threat to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation’s water supply, as well as sites of historic importance and culturally sensitive burial grounds. Though unsuccessful, the protests caught the public imagination, drawing solidarity marches and support from Bernie Sanders. All too often however, environmental racism occurs because communities lack the resources to raise awareness or fight a costly legal battle – resources which are available to wealthier white communities, who are better able to divert airport expansions, power stations or landfills elsewhere in a process known as NIMBYism – standing for “not in my backyard”.

Environmental racism is a planet-wide problem

Globalization has increased the opportunity for environmental racism on an international scale. It refers to the dumping of pollutants such as e-waste on the global south, where safety laws and environmental practices are more lax. More than 44 million tonnes of e-waste was generated globally in 2017 – 6kg for every person on the planet – and of that, each year around 80% is exported to Asia . One e-waste hub is the town of Guiyu in China, where heaps of discarded computer parts piled by the river contaminate the water supply with cadmium, copper and lead. Water samples showed lead levels 190 times higher than WHO limits. Even a slight increase in lead levels, meanwhile, can affect IQ and academic performance in children. Other examples include the mass shipment of spent American batteries to Mexico , where illegal waste dumps from plants operated by American, European and Japanese companies have resulted in soaring rates of anencephaly (when babies are born without brains).

So what is being done? The environmental justice movement works to raise awareness of the plights of vulnerable populations through academic studies, media pressure campaigns and public activism. Grassroots movements make use of social media, along with civil disobedience and marches, to make their views heard. The European Union, where most documented cases of environmental racism affect the Romani people, has funded initiatives including the Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade project, which ran from 2011-2015 and brought together scientists and policy-makers from 20 countries across the world to advance the case of environmental justice. As environmental laws tighten in developed countries however, many fear that dumping activities will shift towards the global south.

Combating environmental racism may risk falling down the policy in the age of COVID-19 – and yet with non-white people more likely to die from the virus , the higher instances of complicating factors such as asthma and heart disease brought about by exposure to pollution are likely to play a part. Environmental racism is part of the broader picture of systemic racism, which must be fought to bring about a fairer society.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Related topics:

The agenda .chakra .wef-n7bacu{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-weight:400;} weekly.

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Nature and Biodiversity .chakra .wef-17xejub{-webkit-flex:1;-ms-flex:1;flex:1;justify-self:stretch;-webkit-align-self:stretch;-ms-flex-item-align:stretch;align-self:stretch;} .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

Critical minerals demand has doubled in the past five years – here are some solutions to the supply crunch

Emma Charlton

May 16, 2024

The fascinating link between biodiversity and mental wellbeing

Andrea Mechelli

May 15, 2024

These Japanese volunteers are planting seagrass to fight climate change

Scientists expect global heating to exceed 1.5°C, and other nature and climate stories you need to read this week

May 13, 2024

Scientists have found 700 species in a Cambodian mangrove forest

Funding the green technology innovation pipeline: Lessons from China

May 8, 2024

 / 

A residential street alongside a major oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, a city that is more than two-thirds African American and Latino. AP Photo/David Goldman

Unequal Impact: The Deep Links Between Racism and Climate Change

Activist Elizabeth Yeampierre has long focused on the connections between racial injustice and the environment and climate change. In the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the outsized impact of Covid-19 on communities of color, she hopes people may finally be ready to listen.

By Beth Gardiner • June 9, 2020

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans have cast stark new light on the racism that remains deeply embedded in U.S. society. It is as present in matters of the environment as in other aspects of life: Both historical and present-day injustices have left people of color exposed to far greater environmental health hazards than whites.

Elizabeth Yeampierre has been an important voice on these issues for more than two decades. As co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance , she leads a coalition of more than 70 organizations focused on addressing racial and economic inequities together with climate change. In an interview with Yale Environment 360 , Yeampierre draws a direct line from slavery and the rapacious exploitation of natural resources to current issues of environmental justice. “I think about people who got the worst food, the worst health care, the worst treatment, and then when freed, were given lands that were eventually surrounded by things like petrochemical industries,” says Yeampierre.

Elizabeth Yeampierre

Yeampierre sees the fights against climate change and racial injustice as deeply intertwined, noting that the transition to a low-carbon future is connected to “workers’ rights, land use, [and] how people are treated,” and she criticizes the mainstream environmental movement, which she says was “built by people who cared about conservation, who cared about wildlife, who cared about trees and open space… but didn’t care about black people.”

Yale Environment 360: You’ve spoken about the big-picture idea that climate change and racial injustice share the same roots and have to be addressed together, and that there is no climate action that is not also about racial justice. Can you describe the links you see connecting these two issues?

Elizabeth Yeampierre : Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery. A lot of times when people talk about environmental justice they go back to the 1970s or ‘60s. But I think about the slave quarters. I think about people who got the worst food, the worst health care, the worst treatment, and then when freed, were given lands that were eventually surrounded by things like petrochemical industries. The idea of killing black people or indigenous people, all of that has a long, long history that is centered on capitalism and the extraction of our land and our labor in this country.

For us, as part of the climate justice movement, to separate those things is impossible. The truth is that the climate justice movement, people of color, indigenous people, have always worked multi-dimensionally because we have to be able to fight on so many different planes.

When I first came into this work, I was fighting police brutality at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. We were fighting for racial justice. We were in our 20s and this is how we started. It was only a few years after that I realized that if we couldn’t breathe, we couldn’t fight for justice and that’s how I got into the environmental justice movement. For us, there is no distinction between one and the other.

In our communities, people are suffering from asthma and upper respiratory disease, and we’ve been fighting for the right to breathe for generations. It’s ironic that those are the signs you’re seeing in these protests — “I can’t breathe.” When the police are using chokeholds, literally people who suffer from a history of asthma and respiratory disease, their breath is taken away. When Eric Garner died [in 2014 from a New York City police officer’s chokehold], and we heard he had asthma, the first thing we said in my house was, “This is an environmental justice issue.”

The communities that are most impacted by Covid, or by pollution, it’s not surprising that they’re the ones that are going to be most impacted by extreme weather events. And it’s not surprising that they’re the ones that are targeted for racial violence. It’s all the same communities, all over the United States. And you can’t treat one part of the problem without the other, because it’s so systemic.

With Hurricanes Maria and Katrina, the loss of lives came “out of a legacy of neglect and racism.”

e360: Can you more explicitly draw the connection between climate change and the history of slavery and colonialism?

Yeampierre: With the arrival of slavery comes a repurposing of the land, chopping down of trees, disrupting water systems and other ecological systems that comes with supporting the effort to build a capitalist society and to provide resources for the privileged, using the bodies of black people to facilitate that.

The same thing in terms of the disruption and the stealing of indigenous land. There was a taking of land, not just for expansion, but to search for gold, to take down mountains and extract fossil fuels out of mountains. All of that is connected, and I don’t know how people don’t see the connection between the extraction and how black and indigenous people suffered as a result of that and continue to suffer, because all of those decisions were made along that historical continuum, all those decisions also came with Jim Crow. They came with literally doing everything necessary to control and squash black people from having any kind of power.

You need to understand the economics. If you understand that, then you know that climate change is the child of all that destruction, of all of that extraction, of all of those decisions that were made and how those ended up, not just in terms of our freedom and taking away freedom from black people, but hurting us along the way.

It’s all related. You can’t say that with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans the loss of lives was simply because there was an extreme weather event. The loss of life comes out of a legacy of neglect and racism. And that’s evident even in the rebuilding. It’s really interesting to see what happens to the land after people have been displaced, how land speculation and land grabs and investments are made in communities that, when there were black people living there, had endured not having the things people need to have livable good lives.

These things, to me, are connected. It’s comfortable for people to separate them, because remember that the environmental movement, the conservation movement, a lot of those institutions were built by people who cared about conservation, who cared about wildlife, who cared about trees and open space and wanted those privileges while also living in the city, but didn’t care about black people. There is a long history of racism in those movements.

Demonstrators march in Sunset Park, Brooklyn last September in support of community-led climate justice initiatives. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

e360: So how do you have a fight for climate action that is intertwined with a fight for racial justice? What are the steps, the policies, that we should be thinking about looking forward?

Yeampierre: With the Green New Deal, for example, we said that it wasn’t a Green New Deal unless it was centered on frontline solutions and on ensuring that frontline leadership would be able to move resources to their communities to deal with things like infrastructure and food security. When that happens, we’ll be able to move the dial much more efficiently. In New York, for example, we passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which is aggressive legislation that looks at how you move resources to frontline communities and how you invest in those communities.

Nationally, we need to be looking at stopping pipelines — reducing carbon but also reducing other pollutants. We need to start focusing on regenerative economies, creating community cooperatives and different kinds of economic systems that make it possible for people to thrive economically while at the same time taking us off the grid.

In every community there are different things people are doing, everything from putting solar in public housing to community-owned solar cooperatives. This is not the ‘60s or the ‘70s or the ‘80s where we follow one iconic leader. This is a time where we need to have numerous people really taking on the charge of directing something that’s big and complex.

e360: Can you talk a little bit about the idea of a just transition to a low-carbon future and how that dovetails with anti-racism efforts?

Yeampierre: A just transition is a process that moves us away from a fossil fuel economy to local livable economies, to regenerative economies. Those are different economies of scale that include not just renewable energy but healthy food and all of the things that people need in order to thrive. The word justice here is important because for a long time people would talk about sustainability, that you could have sustainability without justice, and the climate movement focused on reducing carbon but didn’t really care about other pollutants.

“Climate activists talk about moving at a big, grand scale, and we talk about moving at a local scale.”

A just transition looks at the process of how we get there, and so it looks at not just the outcomes, which is something that the environmentalists look at, but it looks at the process — workers’ rights, land use, how people are treated, whether the process of creating materials that take us to a carbon-neutral environment is toxic and whether it affects the host community where it’s being built. It looks at all those different kinds of things.

I can give you one example in New York City. We have been advocates of bringing in offshore wind. One of the things that we learned is that in order for that to happen, the pieces have to come from Europe and be assembled in New York and they would be coming in these huge container ships. Now these ships operate by diesel, and so what happens is they park themselves on the waterfront of an environmental justice community and the climate solution becomes an environmental justice problem. The climate solution is we reduce carbon, but the environmental justice problem is we dump tons of nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides and PM2.5 [particles] into the lungs of the host community.

We need the climate solution, but then we need to talk about how we electrify the industrial waterfront and how these ships can plug in so they’re not burning diesel. While we’re doing that, we also need to look at how we create the market instead of following the market — wind turbines that are built in the United States so we don’t have to bring the parts in from Europe.

These are the kinds of things that we think about when we’re thinking about a just transition. A climate activist will be like, “Okay, we need offshore wind” — right, that’s it. But a climate justice activist will be like, “Okay, let’s look at it a little closer and let’s figure out what the process looks like and how we can engage in remediation to make sure we are not only reducing carbon but we’re also reducing co-pollutants, and let’s make sure that the people that are hired are hired locally.” So there are all of these other pieces that are involved in a just transition. Climate activists talk about moving at a big, grand scale, and we talk about moving at a local scale, and then replicating those efforts.

e360: Racial justice would presumably have to be at the heart of that.

Yeampierre: It has to be at the center. For example, in Sunset Park [Brooklyn, where Yeampierre runs the Latino community group UPROSE ], we just launched the first community-owned solar cooperative in the state. Okay, we want renewable energy. We need to be able to prioritize the people that are going to be most impacted. Low-income communities. People of color. It has to matter to white folks because when our communities succeed and get what they need, everyone benefits from that.

“These [environmental groups] have to get out of their silos and out of their dated thinking.”

With the cooperative, the community actually owns the utility, owns the energy source. People will be able to access renewable energy, at a reduced cost, be hired locally to build it — and have ownership. So it’s really exciting. We’re hoping this model will birth more projects like this.

Now, we’re is reaching out to small businesses. They’re struggling because of how Covid-19 has affected the economy. When we started this project, we were thinking it would provide resilience to disruptions of the grid and other systems from extreme weather events. We hadn’t anticipated the disruption would be something like Covid. But these models become a real benefit in moments like this where you don’t know where your next paycheck is coming from. You have access to energy that is both renewable — which means it has a health benefit — and also benefits your pocketbook.

e360: With the pandemic and its racially disparate impact, and then the killing of George Floyd and the protests that have followed, we’re at this moment where these longstanding racial disparities and racism are on vivid display. What would you hope the climate movement and the environmental justice movement take away from this moment and apply going forward?

Yeampierre: I think that this is a moment for them to start thinking internally and thinking about some of the challenges that they’re having. I think it’s a moment for introspection and a moment to start thinking about how they contribute to a system that makes a police officer think it’s okay to put his knee on somebody’s neck and kill them, or a woman to call the police on an African-American man who was bird-watching in the park.

These institutions [environmental groups] have to get out of their silos and out of their dated thinking, and really need to look to organizations like the Climate Justice Alliance and Movement Generation and all of the organizations that we work with. There are so many people who have been working with each other now for years and have literally put out tons of information that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. It’s all there.

There has to be a fundamental change in the culture of these institutions. If they were thinking strategically, they would be saying, “Hey, let me see. I’m in New York. Who’s doing this and how can we support them?” We’ve had groups of white young people who have contacted us and have said to us, “How can we support you? How can we best use our resources and our skills to support the work that you’re doing?” And, we’ve been like, “You know what? That is the right question. Let’s do this together.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Related Articles

Tracking illicit brazilian beef from the amazon to your burger, how one south african community stopped shell oil in its tracks, will new leader end progress in saving indonesia’s forests.

By Fred Pearce

More From E360

How an el niño-driven drought brought hunger to southern africa, in seawater, researchers see an untapped bounty of critical metals, in a dammed and diked mekong, a push to restore the flow, dire straits: can a fishing ban save the elusive european eel, scientists are trying to coax the ocean to absorb more co2, marina silva on brazil’s fight to turn the tide on deforestation, solomon islands tribes sell carbon credits, not their trees, with sea turtles in peril, a call for new strategies to save them, jared kushner has big plans for delta of europe’s last wild river.

Resources on Environmental Racism & Environmental Justice

Here are some of the resources we’re using to educate ourselves on environmental racism and environmental justice.

Climate Justice and Racial Justice Resources Pacific Risa

Green in Black and White Claudia Polsky, Legal Planet

I’m a black climate expert. Racism derails our efforts to save the planet. Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, The Washington Post

Read Up on the Links Between Racism and the Environment Somini Sengupta, New York Times

We Don’t Have To Halt Climate Action To Fight Racism Mary Annaïse Heglar, Huff Post

• CEO and Chairperson
• Focal Points
• Secretariat Staff

Stakeholder Engagement

• GEF Agencies
• Conventions
• Civil Society Organizations
• Private Sector
• Feature Stories
• Press Releases
• Publications

Recognizing and addressing environmental racism

Maria Gabriella Rodrigues de Souza is a law student from Brazil who will be part of her country’s negotiating delegation to COP28  with support from the GEF and the Climate Reality Project . In an interview, she explained how her interests in law, social justice, and environmentalism have aligned and shared a message for today’s political and business leaders.

What is your area of focus?

I am a law student at the Federal University of Tocantins. I have dedicated myself to research because I believe it will help me have the most effective social impact. In addition to my coursework, I am a member of the Racial Ethnic Equality and Education Research and Extension Group, where we discuss how the concept of race relates to the law and other themes. I have also participated in programs and projects focused on gender equality, public service, and youth leadership, and have been working at the Global Law Institute, an organization that focuses on researching the just energy transition in Brazil. I have a strong interest in research and academia, as I believe that education plays a significant role in transforming our world.

When did you become interested in environmental issues?

I became interested in environmental issues through my racial studies. I had been working on research for a few years, and environmental issues began to emerge within our group, raising questions about how various people experienced the consequences of environmental degradation differently.

This is when I came into contact with the term "environmental racism," and everything I was experiencing started to make much more sense. I am a young Black woman from the outskirts of a city called Porto Nacional, in Tocantins. My state is naturally hot; however, due to climate change resulting from the degradation of the Cerrado and Amazon biomes, temperatures can reach unbearable levels of 43 degrees Celsius. Large landowners who engage in deforestation are causing the devastation of two vital Brazilian biomes, and a significant portion of the poor and racialized population bears the consequences of this. Recognizing and identifying this situation motivated me to engage in these discussions and fight against environmental racism and climate change.

What message do you have for today’s political and business leaders?

My message is that the time we have long feared is happening now! We are losing our planet! It is crucial that leaders worldwide understand the seriousness of this situation and take decisive action to combat the underlying causes of climate change.

Additionally, it is essential that these leaders recognize and address environmental racism, an issue intrinsically linked to the climate crisis. Environmental racism deepens inequalities because marginalized communities often disproportionately bear the negative impacts of climate change and environmental degradation.

Why is it important to you to be in the negotiating room at COP28?

Being closely involved in the negotiations that will directly affect me and my community is very important to me. The chance to be present and to advocate for the formulation of policies and strategies to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while remembering the most affected people and negotiating for a better future for all, is a true honor.

What issue will you be most focused on in Dubai?

I am interested in following the topics of climate change mitigation and adaptation, which are directly related to the issue of environmental racism. It is crucial to recognize that these impacts are not equally experienced, as limited access to essential resources and services hinders vulnerable communities' ability to adapt to climate change. I am also interested in participating in discussions related to a fair energy transition.

What are your hobbies and other interests?

I enjoy spending my time reading and I also play handball at the university. In addition to studying environmental issues, I also research ethnic-racial equality and gender-related topics.

The GEF sponsors 13 youth ambassadors for COP28 climate summit

Related news, what is the capacity-building initiative for transparency.

Driving ambitious climate action through stronger collaboration on transparency

Empowering the next generation to succeed in high stakes negotiations, gef updates.

Subscribe to our distribution list to receive the GEF Newsletter.

• climate change

Why the Larger Climate Movement Is Finally Embracing the Fight Against Environmental Racism

T he 2019 fire at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery started with a simple failure: one leaky elbow pipe in a 1,400-acre facility covered with pipes, tanks and industrial towers. Within a few hours last June, enough gaseous propane had seeped into the air to ignite the facility into a fiery hellscape with an explosion hurling human-size pieces of industrial equipment into the air and shaking the ground miles away. Workers rapidly shut down the facility, which had for decades converted crude oil into usable products.

The workers escaped with only a few minor injuries, but the facility had already spent decades killing its neighbors in South Philadelphia. The refinery–the largest on the East Coast, dating back to the early days of the oil industry in the 19th century–was single-handedly responsible for more than half of the city’s cancer-causing air toxics, according to a report from the city. And it contributed to the 125 premature deaths that the American Thoracic Society and New York University say result from air pollution in Philadelphia each year. The South Philadelphia area surrounding the facility, where 60% of residents are Black, has some of the highest asthma-hospitalization rates in the city, where asthma numbers top those in all but a few U.S. cities. The explosion “was kind of a wake-up call for the rest of the city,” says Derek S. Green, an at-large city-council member in Philadelphia. “If you’re living there every day, the pollution is something that you were constantly dealing with.”

Eight months later and five miles away, a group of Black voters from across Philadelphia filed into a bland conference room of a downtown office building for a focus group on climate change organized by Third Way , a center-left Washington, D.C., policy think tank. The warming planet ranked low on the attendees’ list of priorities, at least at first, but the conversation turned passionate when it came to the pollution in their own backyard.

“You come out and it’s hard to breathe on most days,” said one attendee. Another noted that in Southwest Philadelphia, “all the African Americans grew up with asthma.” The Energy Solutions refinery drew near universal condemnation. “All y’all did was put out the fire,” said another attendee, pointing to the government response. “You didn’t do nothing for those thousand houses who have to breathe in this air. It’s messed up.”

These dynamics are nothing new. For decades, environmental-justice advocates in the U.S. have worked to bring attention to the heightened environmental risks faced by communities of color: higher levels of lead exposure, higher risks of facing catastrophic flooding, and poorer air quality, to name just a few. But progress has been slow on the national stage as the most powerful groups fighting for environmental rules, not to mention government leaders, have largely ignored them.

Today, that conversation is changing. With partisanship at record levels and Republicans still skeptical of climate rules, environmental activists have realized they need a big coalition to pass legislation, and that means getting the enthusiastic backing of people of color. To do that, they are not only talking about the environmental hazards faced by people of color but also putting their concerns at the core of their campaigns.

“Silo activism is exactly what the extremists want,” the minister and activist William J. Barber II told me ahead of a speech at a climate event last year. “Historically, the only way we’ve had great transformation in this country is when there’s been fusion of all coalitions.”

COVID-19, which is killing Black Americans at twice the rate of their white counterparts in large part because of environmental issues like pollution-caused asthma and heart disease, has only advanced the urgency for climate backers.

And so as the U.S. approaches an election and, potentially, a once-in-a-decade opportunity to pass climate legislation, finding a way to address centuries of systemic environmental racism has emerged as a key concern. The stakes are high: failure means not only that people of color will continue facing disproportionate environmental hazards, but also the possible failure of efforts to reduce emissions and take humanity off a crash course with dangerous global warming.

Long before the phrase I can’t breathe became a rallying cry for Black Lives Matter activists protesting the deaths of Black people at the hands of police, environmental-justice activists warned that pollution was choking and killing people of color in the U.S.

They had good reason: study after study in the 1970s and 1980s emerged to document how minority groups–and Black people in particular–suffered disproportionately from a slew of environmental hazards, and resonated with many who saw this in their own backyards. The research was crystallized in a landmark 1987 report called “Toxic Wastes and Race.” Across the country, race was the single greatest determining factor of whether an individual lived near a hazardous-waste facility, which in turn contributed to a range of ailments. Three of five landfills were in predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods, the study found, affecting 60% of Americans in those groups.

Scholars explained the problem simply as environmental racism: discriminatory housing policy throughout the country forced people of color into the same neighborhoods, and racist lending practices meant land in those neighborhoods was worth less just because minorities resided there. This made the land ripe for polluting industries, which need large spaces for their facilities and were able to get local buy-in in part by arguing they created jobs. Moreover, the companies that owned and operated these facilities knew that minority groups largely lacked the political power to stop them.

With this in mind, hundreds of early environmental-justice advocates gathered in Washington, D.C., for the first People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, in 1991. Over four days, the attendees discussed their experiences with environmental racism, from widespread cancer on Native American reservations where nuclear waste was dumped to higher-than-average asthma rates in predominantly Black communities near industrial sites. Going forward, their mission would be to put these concerns at the heart of environmental policy; they drafted 17 principles to reflect that. “That first People of Color conference is where environmentalism and conservationism were redefined,” says Richard Moore, co-coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance.

For a few years afterward, progress seemed to come quickly. In 1992, the 17 principles were distributed to thousands of environmental activists from around the globe who gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the U.N. Earth Summit. In subsequent international meetings, poorer nations would use the principles to argue for climate action that addressed their needs. In the U.S., President Bill Clinton signed an Executive Order in 1994 requiring agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency to consider environmental justice in their policies.

But when it came to the domestic conversation around new laws to address climate change specifically–already emerging as the defining environmental challenge of the time–some of the national environmental groups paid the activists little attention, fearing that concerns about racial justice would distract from efforts to reduce emissions. “We were taken for granted,” says longtime environmental-justice leader Beverly Wright, executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, “like a gnat that just wouldn’t go away.”

The philosophy–focus first on stopping greenhouse gases and worry later about how to fix the disparate socioeconomic effects–still guides many climate activists to this day, but thus far it has proved a mistake. Not only did ignoring environmental-justice concerns leave people of color behind, but the decision also alienated a bloc whose support would have helped pass climate legislation.

The George W. Bush presidency saw little progress on climate issues, but when President Barack Obama took office in 2009, national environmental groups sensed an opportunity. To capitalize on it, they partnered with some of the country’s biggest corporations and lobbied for cap-and-trade, which would have set a limit on carbon-dioxide emissions and required companies to pay if they exceeded it. This was, in many ways, a smart compromise: cut emissions without alienating businesses that had the ear of the GOP.

Environmental-justice activists were furious. Not only were they left out of the discussion, but they argued that cap-and-trade would worsen the plight of people of color by allowing Big Industry to continue polluting minority communities so long as they cleaned up their act elsewhere. That argument, largely theoretical at the time, has since been backed up by research, including a 2016 study by researchers from four California universities that showed the state’s cap-and-trade program reduced the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change but did nothing to alleviate the toxic pollution facing communities of color.

With those concerns in mind, the environmental-justice activists, along with many other progressives, actively fought against a federal cap-and-trade system. “We were brought in after they made their decisions,” says Wright. “Whatever decision they made, we were throwing bricks at the window.”

The legislation passed the House in 2009 by only seven votes, and the grand coalition supporting cap-and-trade fell apart before it could be brought to the Senate floor. Sensing the lack of a mandate for the policy, many of the corporate leaders who had supported cap-and-trade reversed their position. They had come to the table in hopes of a compromise, but they were just as happy to let the legislation fail and avoid new rules altogether.

The lack of support from environmental-justice activists didn’t doom cap-and-trade on its own, but a slew of analyses of why the bill foundered cited a failure to earn grassroots support. And there was a clear missed opportunity: both groups shared a common rival in the fossil-fuel industry, which is responsible for both greenhouse-gas emissions and air pollution and uses its deep pockets to fight regulation.

Since then, significant opportunities to advance the climate cause in the U.S. have been few and far between. Obama enacted a range of rules to slow emissions and cut pollution, most notably the Clean Power Plan, which targeted coal. But even members of his Administration have said the initiatives fell short.

Climate activists hope they will have another chance to pass bold legislation to reduce emissions if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the presidential election in November. With the 2009 failure in mind, environmental groups have sought to build grassroots support. That effort includes partnering with youth activists like the Sunrise Movement, which advocates for a Green New Deal. These groups have been widely credited with changing the climate conversation and helping the public understand the connections of climate to everyday life, but the environmental-justice activists have played a significant role too. National groups that once avoided talking about race have adopted the language of environmental-justice activists, pointing out that climate change will hit the most vulnerable the hardest and talking about the other social benefits of stemming emissions. “Centering reducing toxic pollution in frontline communities is both the right thing to do, and it’s also essential to building the power that we need to have the overwhelming support we need to overpower the fossil-fuel industry,” says Sara Chieffo, vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters.

The new alliance may be young, but it has quickly become deep and wide. Most important, national environmental groups, Democratic political organizations and members of Congress alike have allowed environmental-justice leaders to take the reins in crafting policies to address environmental racism. Last summer, after months of consultation, a group of leading environmental-justice activists announced a coalition under the banner of an Equitable and Just Climate Platform. The platform committed groups like the Center for American Progress, a mainstay of the Democratic political establishment, along with environmental groups like the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council to combatting “systemic inequalities” alongside climate change. “We need to address greenhouse-gas emissions,” says Cecilia Martinez, a professor at the University of Delaware’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, who helped lead the effort. “But we cannot do that divorced and disconnected from the other types of legacy pollution that have been harming our communities.”

On the campaign trail, Biden has spoken about racial disparities as a top concern for climate policy and appointed longtime environmental-justice leaders like Martinez to help. He framed the climate plank of his platform during the primary campaign, a $1.7 trillion spending proposal, as a plan for a “clean-energy revolution and environmental justice.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats say they are now privileging the solutions proposed by communities affected by environmental racism. Representative Donald McEachin, a Virginia Democrat, described his proposed Environmental Justice for All Act as a collection of solutions–from amending the Civil Rights Act to allow people who face disproportionate pollution to sue, to requiring federal employees to receive environmental-justice training–suggested by those affected by environmental injustice. “This is a unique bill in that I didn’t have any part in authorship,” he says of the legislation.

Democratic leadership is taking note too. In late June, the House Committee on the Climate Crisis, formed in early 2019 by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, released a 500-plus-page report outlining a path forward on climate change. The opening of the report references the police killing of George Floyd, and the document incorporates a slew of policies to address environmental racism from the Environmental Justice for All Act.

Speaking on Capitol Hill in June, Pelosi cited the work of environmental-justice leaders among others in a coalition needed to pass legislation. “They have transformed the conversation,” she said. “We cannot succeed without the outside mobilization that they bring.”

On the surface, the environment and climate change may look like minor concerns in the scheme of issues facing Black Americans and other people of color today, especially when you take a cursory glance at the past five months. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit African Americans especially hard, killing them at twice the rate of their white counterparts. The economic challenges have hurt too, leaving the unemployment rate substantially higher for Latinx, Asian and Black Americans than for their white counterparts. And the highly publicized killings of African Americans like Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and others have jolted the country into recognizing the systematic mistreatment of Black Americans by law enforcement.

And yet environmental racism is at the center of this moment: COVID-19 has hit Black people hard in large part because environmental hazards like air pollution lead to conditions like asthma and heart disease, which in turn make a person more likely to suffer the worst of the virus. To address systemic racism, the country needs to address environmental racism, and vice versa. “The system that created inequality in terms of pollution choking our neighborhoods is the same system that’s choking Black people and brown people when it comes to policing,” says Robert Bullard, a scholar of urban planning and environmental policy whose work earned him the moniker “the father of environmental justice.”

Climate change is only going to make the challenges for people of color worse. Just look at how Hurricane Katrina, a taste of superstorms to come, displaced New Orleans’ Black community; how Latinx agricultural workers are more likely to suffer in the stifling heat of farms; or how urban communities can be 22°F warmer than nearby areas that are less developed. Research has even linked higher temperatures to increased crime and police brutality. These realities may explain why surveys have shown people of color to be more concerned about climate change than their white counterparts.

This understanding has come slowly, but the increased attention to systemic racism and the urgency of climate change has made for a unique opportunity: address centuries of racism while saving the world from a global warming catastrophe. Indeed, tackling the two together may be a political necessity.

–With reporting by MARIAH ESPADA, MADELINE ROACHE and JOSH ROSENBERG

More Must-Reads from TIME

• The New Face of Doctor Who
• Putin’s Enemies Are Struggling to Unite
• Women Say They Were Pressured Into Long-Term Birth Control
• Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is
• Boredom Makes Us Human
• John Mulaney Has What Late Night Needs
• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Write to Justin Worland at [email protected]

10 egregious examples of environmental racism in the US

• Communities of color in the US are often victims of environmental racism, which describes the disproportionate impact on their lives because of living near hazardous pollution.
• Numerous studies have shown that Black and Hispanic communities are exposed to higher proportions of air pollution, toxic waste sites, landfills, lead poisoning, and other industrial complexes compared to white counterparts.
• An estimated 70% of contaminated waste sites are located in low-income neighborhoods, and an upwards of 2 million Americans live within a mile of sites that are vulnerable to flooding — the majority of which are in Black and brown communities.
• The list goes on and on, but here are a few of the many alarming examples of environmental racism across the country. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories .

The environmental justice movement began in the late 1960s, when people of color began pushing back against a disproportionate level of exposure to hazardous waste, air pollutants, and chemicals.

Half a century later, the issue still persists across the country.

Today, people of color are far more likely to live in areas with higher rates of air pollution, toxic waste facilities, landfills, and lead poisoning.

Studies have shown that non-Hispanic whites have the lowest exposure rates to air pollution, as opposed to Hispanic and Black Americans, and that over half of the people who live in close proximity to toxic waste facilities are people of color.

A 2018 study conducted by the EPA showed that at the national, state, and county levels, non-white Americans are disproportionately burdened by particulate matter — or air pollution consisting of automobile fumes, smog, soot, oil smoke, ash, and construction dust — than white people.

This type of pollution has been named a definite carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and it's been declared by the EPA as a contributor to adverse health conditions, including lung issues, heart attacks, and premature death.

Environmental racism can exist in many forms. Here are some of the more blatant examples of injustice across the country.

Cancer Alley, Louisiana

Cancer Alley is an 85-mile stretch of land along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that's lined with oil refineries and petrochemical plants. 

The location got its sinister name "Cancer Alley" because residents of the area are 50 times more likely to develop cancer than the average American — and those who live there are predominantly Black. 

Because of this, Cancer Alley has been referred to as the "frontline of environmental racism." The situation is so bad that Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, who has been helping communities fight the injustice for years, referred to it as a new kind of slavery. 

"It is killing people by over-polluting them with toxins in their water and in their air," he told Rolling Stone in 2019. "This is slavery of another kind."

Pahokee, Florida

Residents of the Glades in Pahokee, Florida, face a harrowing reality every October: The arrival of "black snow," or a thick level of soot that pollutes the area due to sugar burning .

Florida's sugar cane farmers legally set their fields on fire prior to harvest in order to burn down everything but the cane, resulting in major amounts of pollution hitting predominately poor, Black communities. 

In 2015, a study funded by the US Education Department found that residents of the Glades who are exposed to pollution from sugar field burning experience a greater amount of respiratory distress, and locals have complained of suffering immune systems and an increase in asthma.

Cheraw, South Carolina

Up until the 1970's, cancer-causing PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were dumped in a creek in Cheraw, South Carolina by Burlington Industries.

Decades later, the effects are still being felt. 

In 2018, five families were displaced from their homes after Hurricane Florence hit and triggered remains of the chemicals to wash up from the creek into houses and yards. Additionally, the toxic waste was found within the soil of a local playground, which had to be closed down and barred from use. 

Uniontown, Alabama

In 2008, over a billion tons of deadly coal ash spilled into the Emory River Channel in Kingston, Tennessee . The catastrophe left workers who cleaned the mess to suffer from brain cancer, lung cancer, and leukemia.

Then, in 2010, the Tennessee Valley Authority transported 4 million cubic yards of coal ash from the spill into Uniontown, Alabama, a predominantly low-income Black community. Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the EPA deemed the coal ash nonhazardous in Uniontown, and therefore provided the community with no protection against the highly dangerous substance.  

The Bronx, New York City

The Bronx is among the most racially diverse boroughs in New York City — and it bears the burden of a disproportionate level of pollution . Air pollution rates are so bad that in some neighborhoods, an estimated 20% of children have asthma. 

The South Bronx itself has been nicknamed "Asthma Alley," where hospitalizations operate at five times the national average and at 21 times the rate of other New York City neighborhoods. 

Flint, Michigan

The water crisis of Flint, Michigan has been called one of the most " egregious examples of environmental injustice " by Paul Mohai, a founder of the movement and a professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. 

The crisis occurred when the city failed to properly treat its municipal water system after changing water sources , resulting in the mass lead poisoning of hundreds of children and adults from April 2014 to December 2015.

Despite a high level of complaints and reports of sickness from local residents — a majority of which were low-income people of color — city management failed to adequately respond and treated the matter with indifference .

Houston, Texas

The Harrisburg/Manchester neighborhood of Houston is 98% Hispanic – and home to a concentrated region of oil refineries, chemical plants, sewage treatment facilities, and hazardous waste sites. 

Each year, up to 484,000 pounds of toxic chemicals are released throughout the area from 21 surrounding Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) facilities. The situation is so bad that even the local elementary school was forced to shut down and move location because of highly concentrated levels of lead found in children. 

Los Angeles, California

Studies have shown that Black, Latino, and low-income California residents are more likely to live near oil and gas wells that spew toxic pollution, and people of color are more likely to live among power plants, oil refineries, and landfills.

Additionally, an Exide Technologies battery recycling plant in Vernon, California closed down in 2015, but toxic levels of lead left in its wake have still not been cleaned up , effecting the primarily working-class Latino population living nearby.

Warren County, North Carolina

After liquid contaminated with PCBs were dumped along 240 miles of road in 1978, effecting predominantly poor, Black communities, the state of North Carolina chose Warren County to house the toxic waste facility to help clean it up.

But when residents realized this would affect their health and drinking water, they fought back, holding protests and suing to stop the landfill from being placed there. They ultimately lost the legal fight , and the toxic waste facility was moved there.

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit's most polluted zip code is 71% Black, and the air pollution is so bad it can make the sky look like a fiery orange glare. 

A 250-acre tank Marathon farm that's expanded over the last several decades has received over 15 violations for surpassing federal and state emission guidelines from Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy in the past seven years.

• Main content

Environmental Racism

The phrase environmental racism came into popular use at the conference held at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Methods in 1990. Environmental racism is placement of low income or minority communities in distance of environmentally harmful or degraded surroundings, such as harmful waste, pollution and also urban decay. While there are competing views regarding an exact explanation, the interplay among environmental issues and also social indicators are usually key to its understanding.

Deep Green Resistance

Complex Society Concept

Broad and Narrow Socialization

Researchers Show that Structured Light can Enable Noise-Free Communication

Sample Leave Application format for Further Study

Define and Discuss on Regional Erosion

Discuss on Angle Sum of Polygons

Discuss on Concepts of Organizing

Landfill Gas Monitoring

Latest post.

Overvoltage – in Electrical Engineering

Dynamic Frequency Scaling

Dynamic Voltage Restoration (DVR)

Behavior of Marine Plankton may Forecast Future Extinctions

200,000 Years Ago, Two Species Interbred to Generate a New Butterfly Species

Concentrator Photovoltaics – a photovoltaic technology