Climate change is making heat waves more frequent and intense around the world. Cities are hotter than surrounding areas, so urban dwellers – especially minorities and the poor – are at greatest risk.
Are all people entitled to live in a clean and healthy environment? A legal scholar says yes, and argues for using this principle to address damage from polluting industries in Appalachia.
Cleaning up and reusing contaminated sites, known as brownfields, can create jobs and promote economic growth. But it also can drive gentrification that prices out low-income residents.
Large livestock farms, known as CAFOs, have polluted air and water in many communities. A recent court decision will force CAFOs to report their air emissions from manure and other sources.
How could green groups attract more diverse volunteers? Maybe they could put more time and energy into outreach toward the people most affected by environmental injustices.
Addressing social and health inequalities from pollution is no longer a priority at the EPA. What did the Office of Environmental Justice do and what will happen if it’s shut down?
The EPA served as a conduit between the federal government and at-risk communities. Communications scholars look at how environmental justice issues could be set back in scaled-down EPA.
A Native American scholar explains why so little has changed despite the apparent victory of protesters opposing the North Dakota Access Pipeline protest.
Low-income residents in Puerto Rico are fighting disposal of toxic coal ash in their communities. They’re also campaigning to shift from coal energy – the source of the problem – to solar power.
The hostility of Scott Pruitt, Trump’s nominee to head the EPA, toward climate change rules is well-known. But his anti-regulatory stance could easily set back years of work on environmental justice.
What is the months-long North Dakota Access Pipeline protest really about? A Native American scholar connects the dots to environmental justice and the legacy of U.S. colonialism.
Hillary Clinton has elevated environmental justice to a high level as a presidential nominee, but as the Flint water crisis demonstrates, the deeper problem lies in ineffective government agencies.
Wil Burns, American University School of International Service
Despite the fanfare of signing the Paris Agreement on climate, little progress has been made on compensating poor countries for irreparable damages from climate change.
Australian cities should be made to work for all inhabitants. This involves evenly spreading the disadvantages of industrial and commercial activities as well as the advantages of good access to services.
A new model of citizen-led science is emerging – as in the case of Flint, Michigan’s poisoned water. Rather than simply supporting scientists, citizens ask their own questions and set the research agenda.
If Flint, Michigan were an affluent suburb, would residents have been exposed as long to drinking toxic water? Pioneering scholar Robert Bullard calls Flint’s crisis a classic case of environmental discrimination
How to ensure rich countries will live up to their promises of money and carbon emissions cuts? Developing countries need to look to the Allies’ unified strategy in World War II.
A narrow debate of what countries should pay to respond to climate change obscures a bigger moral discussion that touches on economics, ethics and people’s relationship to the natural world.
Environmental racism remains a reality in South Africa. It is poor, black citizens who live on the most damaged land and in the most polluted neighbourhoods.