Environmental Injustice
Injustices are everywhere.
Ecological hazards and climate disasters have disproportionate impacts on people of color and those living in poverty because they typically live in areas with higher rates of pollution and most vulnerable to climate change effects. This concept is encompassed by the term environmental justice - a mixture of environmentalism and social justice. It focuses on fair treatment concerning environmental developments and detriments. Environmental injustice links to the disproportionate effects that ongoing injustices have on society.
These injustices could be as simple as the placement of a coal plant in less affluent areas to more severe effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in highly populated, low-income urban areas. For instance, "Black Brazilians are concentrated in poor, crowded urban neighborhoods, including the sprawling favelas in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where Canineu is based. Many who live in these areas lack proper sanitation, such as access to clean water, let alone soap or hand sanitizer. So the simplest and most consistent advice during the pandemic—wash your hands—isn't necessarily practical. Some families live with 10 or 12 people in a single room, which makes social-distancing impossible. Many work in Brazil's large informal sector (as, say, construction workers or street vendors) and must leave home to earn money, presenting them with an awful choice: Risk your health to protect your livelihood, or risk your livelihood to protect your health. These "are the perfect conditions for the spread of the virus," said Maria Laura Canineu, the Brazil director for Human Rights Watch.
There is no single factor that contributes to environmental injustice or any injustice. Nor does environmental injustice only affect people. Us humans have been the least affected by environmental damage compared to the 2,000 species that go extinct every year. Many factors contribute to environmental injustice, including misguided regulatory policy, unequal regulation enforcement, and unequal political power. Most experts agree that environmental injustice is rooted in several injustices. For instance, those in greater poverty tend to move to more rural areas, where they are taken advantage of yet again. Industries drain the resources of these rural communities, benefiting the wealthy, but leaving the native people left with the waste and destruction these industries have caused. This process leaves these people vulnerable to more extreme impacts, such as natural disasters.
One interview at Yale Environment with Sacoby Wilson, who has spent more than two decades focusing on environmental justice issues, explains the role of environmental injustice in COVID 19. He describes, "In this country, we have structural inequalities that are a significant driver of why we see these different social and environmental conditions in communities of color. You see, these different patterns of land use, whether it be transportation networks, large highways where you have much traffic, or industrial activity." Mr. Wilson explains how air pollution is leading to worsening of the virus, "We have a pattern in this country, where communities of color and low-income communities host more of these heavily polluting land uses - playing a major role in why we see the disparate impacts of COVID-19 as it relates to morbidity and mortality rates." According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). A study done on SARS by NCBI, a virus closely related to COVID-19, found that people who breathed dirtier air were about twice as likely to die from it. Put differently; climate change raises the death rate twice as high.
There is no set solution to environmental injustice. However, you can still take action in your community to help reduce the extent of climate change. Help your peers out by educating yourself, protesting, and taking legislative action. By tackling the impacts we are having on Earth, and how we treat it, we can perhaps surface a higher treatment of the people living on this Earth.
