Book•
Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics
09 Feb 2012-
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an overview of environmental justice, evidence and process in the context of urban green spaces and the politics of dumping in urban areas, and discuss air quality, inequality and flooding vulnerability.
Abstract: 1. Understanding Environmental Justice 2. Globalising and Framing Environmental Justice 3. Making Claims: Justice, Evidence and Process 4. Locating Waste: Siting and the Politics of Dumping 5. Breathing Unequally: Air Quality and Inequality 6. Flood Vulnerability: Uneven Risk and the Injustice of Disaster 7. Urban Greenspace: Distributing an Environmental Good 8. Climate Justice: Scaling the Politics of the Future 9. Analysing Environmental Justice: Some Conclusions
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how early work on environmental justice pushed beyond many boundaries: it challenged the very notion of ‘environment’, examined the construction of injustice beyond inequity, and illustrated the potential of pluralistic conceptions of social justice.
Abstract: Environmental justice has been a central concern in a range of disciplines, and both the concept and its coverage have expanded substantially in the past two decades. I examine this development in three key ways. First, I explore how early work on environmental justice pushed beyond many boundaries: it challenged the very notion of ‘environment’, examined the construction of injustice beyond inequity, and illustrated the potential of pluralistic conceptions of social justice. More recently, there has been a spatial expansion of the use of the term, horizontally into a broader range of issues, vertically into examinations of the global nature of environmental injustices, and conceptually to the human relationship with the non-human world. Further, I argue that recent extensions of the environmental justice frame move the discourse into a new realm – where environment and nature are understood to create the conditions for social justice.
697 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss how energy justice can serve as a conceptual tool for philosophers and ethicists that better integrates usually distinct distributive and procedural justice concerns, and present a useful decision-making tool that can assist energy planners and consumers in making more informed energy choices.
592 citations
Cites background from "Environmental Justice: Concepts, Ev..."
...Justice theorist Gordon Walker defines environmental justice’s two central issues as (1) how some consume key environmental resources at the expense of others and (2) how the power to affect change and influence decision-making is unequally influenced [28]....
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, a review traces the discourse of environmental justice from its development, through the range of principles and demands of grassroots climate justice movements, to more recent articulations of ideas for just adaptation to climate change.
Abstract: Environmental justice is a major movement and organizing discourse in the environmental politics arena, and both the movement and the idea have had a large influence on the way that climate justice has been conceptualized. While most discussions of climate justice in the academic literature focus on ideal conceptions and normative arguments of justice theory, or on the pragmatic policy of the more elite environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), a distinct discourse has developed out of the grassroots. In these movement articulations of climate justice, the concerns and principles of environmental justice are clear and consistent. Here, climate justice focuses on local impacts and experience, inequitable vulnerabilities, the importance of community voice, and demands for community sovereignty and functioning. This review traces the discourse of environmental justice from its development, through the range of principles and demands of grassroots climate justice movements, to more recent articulations of ideas for just adaptation to climate change.
For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.
450 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems (nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change) as pressing justice concerns.
Abstract: All too often, energy policy and technology discussions are limited to the domains of engineering and economics. Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns. We conclude by proposing an energy justice framework centred on availability, affordability, due process, transparency and accountability, sustainability, equity and responsibility, which highlights the futurity, fairness and equity dimensions of energy production and use.
The structure of the global energy system and the pending consequences of climate change are among the central justice issues of our time, with profound implications for human happiness, welfare, freedom, equity and due process1.
One global study distinguishing between ‘experienced’ and ‘imposed’ effects of climate change — essentially separating out primary emitters from those suffering from climate change — concluded that people in rich countries impose 200–300 times more health damage on others than they experience themselves as a result of their nation's historical emissions2. Others argue that the costs of climate change will befall the weakest and least developed countries as well as the poorest in developed nations, while the benefits, if there are any, will probably be accrued by the rich and powerful3.
Meanwhile, serious environmental burdens can arise from having too much energy (from waste, over-consumption and pollution4) or from not having enough (from lack of access to modern forms of energy, under-consumption and poverty). With increasing wealth, these environmental burdens shift in terms of severity, geographic scope and temporal reach. For instance, a decline in household environmental risks through enhanced access to modern energy services, clean water and better healthcare coincides with an increase in global risks such as climate change and other forms of transboundary environmental pollution. While solutions to some problems, such as poverty, obviously require an increase in energy consumption, solutions to other problems, such as climate change, might well require a decrease in energy consumption.
Clearly, the current fossil fuel-based global energy system has many benefits but also many disadvantages, including significant health burdens that shorten lives, undermine the conditions for happiness and impede a more just and equitable society. Yet most of us confront and frame such climate and energy risks within a moral vacuum. It has been argued that our moral systems are ill-equipped to handle the complexity and expansiveness of modern-day energy and climate problems5,6, and that individuals will work to avoid feelings of responsibility for climate change or energy insecurity; some will even have optimistic biases, downgrading any negative information they receive and counterbalancing it with almost irrational exuberance7.
In this Perspective, we argue that concepts from ethics and justice provide an important structure to think about, and approach, the world's climate and energy dilemmas. We reframe five contemporary energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as justice and ethics concerns. We then synthesize justice elements into a common framework that energy decision-makers can utilize to create a more just and equitable energy future. By ‘decision-makers’, we refer not only to the more traditional notion of policymakers and regulators, but also ordinary students, jurists, homeowners, businesspersons, investors and consumers — essentially, anyone that makes decisions or choices about energy conversion and use8. Admittedly, we take an anthropocentric perspective based on social justice principles, though there are certainly justice claims that arise with how humans interact with non-human forms of life. Some have called this human-centered approach ‘cosmopolitan justice’, as it acknowledges that all ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a collective morality9. Many scholars have taken up modern manifestations of these ideals, and have advanced the core arguments presented in Table 110,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19. These arguments underscore how all human beings have equal moral worth and, as we will argue, are deserving of ‘energy justice’.
371 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define energy justice as a global energy system that fairly distributes both the benefits and burdens of energy services, and one that contributes to more representative and inclusive energy decision-making.
367 citations
Additional excerpts
...…studies have confirmed that the poor or marginalized suffer a “triple jeopardy” of being most exposed to higher levels of pollution, being more vulnerable and more likely to suffer health impacts, and being least responsible for generating environmental problems in the first place (Walker 2012)....
[...]
...Similarly, the justice as recognition dimensions articulated by Walker (2012) and Jenkins et al. (2016a) draw heavily from the work of Nany Fraser, an American feminist and critical theorist whose work examines “participatory parity” for vulnerable groups....
[...]