Environmental Justice

and Health

Mariela, Maya, Nandini, Pragnya, Tanvi

PRIVILEGE POLL

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

READING DISCUSSION

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IN OUR BACKYARD

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KAHOOT

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GET INVOLVED

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Privilege Poll

Q1: Were there woods and fields near your home that you could freely roam in as a child?

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Q2: Does your family make an effort to eat organic food?

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Q1: Did you learn about environmental topics in elementary, middle, or high school?

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Q2: Have you have been to a National Park (in any country)?

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Q1: Can you assume your drinking water is safe to drink?

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Q2: Was your childhood home more than ½ mile from a freeway?

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Dr. Bullard Video

How Environmental Racism Shapes the US

Dr. Bullard Video Summary

Environmental justice

• All communities are entitled to equal protection, access, and enforcement of housing, transportation, and employment
• All communities equally involved in decision-making
• Right to live in neighborhood that is not over-polluted

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Example of environmental racism:

• Landfills disproportionately located in middle class black neighborhoods
• City council of Houston was all white

Reading Discussion

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Pull up both articles (Kolk and Frosch)

Key Vocabulary

• Participatory justice: “fair participation in decisions that could create problems or solutions for people”
• Starts with education
• Those that are most affected should be at the forefront

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• Distributive justice: “concerns how burdens and benefits should be distributed”
• Decisions should be equitable, not equal

Key Vocabulary

• Climate gap: “inequitable effects [of climate change] on racially marginalized groups” as well as effects based on class
• Also refers to how the wealthy benefit from the climate crisis

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• Gentrification: “sea-level rise is creating new gentrification pressures, as wealthier coastal inhabitants seek to move inland to neighborhoods that are at a higher elevation”, the wealthy displacing the less privileged, minorities
• Sacrifice Zones: “inequitable distribution of pollution sources, including major roadways, rail lines, ports, and industrial facilities” lead to bad health outcomes

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Summary (Kolk)

Oct. 1991: First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit

Interventions rooted in the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice

• Participatory justice
• Right to participate as equal partners in decision making
• Right to self-determination
• Legal actions affirming sovereignty & self-determination of Native Peoples
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• Distributive justice
• Right to ethical uses of land & resources
• Clean up & rebuild in balance with nature, honoring cultural integrity & providing fair access to resources
• Protection from nuclear testing & disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes

Tree Analogy (Kolk)

Roots: racism, income inequality

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Trunk & branches: distribution/storage of power & wealth

• Trunk: where decisions about resource distribution are made
• Branches: communities that need resources to thrive
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Fruit: outcome of resource distribution

Summary (Frosch)

Structural racism and inequality drive the climate gap.

• Housing and Land Use Policies Rooted in Structural Racism
• Real-estate discrimination (redlining)
• Dispossession of Indigenous land
• Sacrifice Zones
• Disproportionate industrial facilities in communities of color
• Greater pollution from privileged communities

The climate gap can be closed in part by integrating structural competency into medical and public health curricula, as well as physician advocacy for systemic change.

Pathways Leading to Inequitable Harms

Discussion Prompts

• Q1: Frosch proposes solutions to help close the climate gap, which includes physicians (and medical personnel) working with government officials to create systemic changes. How do you think people can be incentivized to do this work, especially if they are benefiting from the climate gap? What would you say/do to people who don’t acknowledge the climate gap?
• Q2: Frosch describes four pathways that lead to inequitable harms. Choose one of those pathways and propose a policy that can be implemented to reduce the disproportionate impact on low income communities and people of color.
• Q3: Based on Kolk’s description of structural racism, can you think of any other analogies? What objects or systems immediately come to mind?
• Q4: Kolk’s article covers the importance of listening to Native voices. How does involvement of all people on US territory improve overall health?

https://tinyurl.com/52ve6emh

In Our Backyard

Let’s look at what is happening in our country!

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Interactive Map

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fortress.wa.gov/doh/wtnibl/WTNIBL/

Quick Discussion

• What does the map tell us?

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• What surprised you?

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• How are the factors interconnected?

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• What is missing from the map? What would you add?

New Article: Native Voices

Native American voices are finally factoring into energy projects – a hydropower ruling is a victory for environmental justice on tribal lands

Discussion Prompts

• Q1: How does the Native voices article reflect Kolk’s ideas on participatory and distributive justice?
• Q2: What are some ways that the depth and quality of consultation from Native tribes could be improved in the future? How can the government ensure that they are included throughout the conversation (beginning to end of a project)?
• Q3: Knowing energy is an important resource, how do you think we can attain it in an eco-friendly way?
• Q4: Why is FERC’s decision to deny the proposed hydropower projects such a significant turning point for tribal nations?

https://tinyurl.com/mx637mcz

Key Highlights

Relations

Accountability

Environmental Health

They matter. We have to work together, and work through disagreements. There is a due respect to the Native people for the pain they have endured and the land they have been forced to leave. Asking for permission and not undermining minority groups.

The committee that denied the developers’ proposals were holding our nation accountable. Keeping each other accountable about exploiting minority communities will increase the health of all.

Abandoned oil mining sites have caused long lasting effects to water and agriculture on Native lands. It is important to have community members represent as representatives.

Key Takeaways

• “Over 1.1 million acres of tribal lands have been flooded by hundreds of dams built for hydropower and irrigation.”
• “under the Pick-Sloan Plan, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built five dams on the Missouri River in the late 1950s and early 1960s that flooded over 350,000 acres of tribal lands.”
• “Fossil fuel pipelines like Dakota Access in North Dakota and Line 5 in Wisconsin and Michigan carry oil across Native lands, threatening water supplies in the event of leaks or spills.”
• “Many past energy projects have left scars. Navajo lands are studded with abandoned uranium mining sites that threaten residents’ health.”

In Our Backyard

What the people have to say…

Kahoot

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Kahoot

Make groups of 2-3 and one device per team!

Call to Action

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What can YOU do?

What Can You Do?

• Environmental Policy Student Association @UW!
• Centering justice and intersectionality at the foundation of environmental policy
• Peaks and Professors/Hiking/Climbing Club
• Meet with professors to for discuss and experience the general
• https://waconservationaction.org/
• Work on racial and environmental justice through fundraising and community work
• https://www.gotgreenseattle.org/
• Working with low-income communities to sustainably work on food insecurity
• https://ecology.wa.gov/Events/Search/Listing
• Attend public events discussing WA state environmental policies and issues

Resources

• How The Principles Of Environmental Justice Can Improve Health Equity
• "Pollution is Segregated" Says the Father of Environmental Justice
• Native American voices are finally factoring into energy projects – a hydropower ruling is a victory for environmental justice on tribal lands
• The Climate Gap and the Color Line — Racial Health Inequities and Climate Change
• Washington Tracking Network A Source for Environmental Public Health Data
• Why Are Affluent Neighborhoods Clean and Tidy and Poorer Neighborhoods Dirty and Unkempt?
• Historic Discrimination to Blame for Diversity Gap in US Parks, Expert Says

Thanks!

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