The idea for the RP&E Newsletter grew out of a caucus of interested people at the University of Oregon's Public Interest Law Conference, held March 14, 1990. Caucus participants recognized the importance of increased attention to the nexus of race, class, and environmental issues, and the need for a forum in which to continue their dialogue. The caucus decided on a newsletter as the vehicle to continue our dialogue, and the two of us were delegated the task of putting it out.
Since the meeting in Oregon, we have circulated questionnaires to the original group, and have talked to a number of people about the RP&E Newsletter. Many people around the country are exploring the intersection of race, poverty, and the environment. We come at it from different places. Some of us are environmental designers, some poverty lawyers, others grassroots activists. Some are students; others are part of "mainstream" environmental groups. Some are urban planners, religious workers, health care professionals, government officials. Some of us are low-income, others privileged. Some are people of color, some white, some highly educated, some self-educated. All of us are concerned about the disproportionate impact environmental hazards have on low-income and minority communities. And all of us need information to keep us abreast of activities, articles, events, and people working in the area. We hope that this newsletter will be a source of that information.
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It is important for us to talk about the challenges we still face after three decades of the environmental justice movement. When put in context, the environmental justice movement is a very young movement compared to many of the other environmental and conservation movements. The fact that it has evolved over such a short period of time makes it difficult in some ways to compare what it has been able to accomplish over three decades versus the environmental movement, which in some cases is over 150 years old. But I do think the new challenges that we face today include climate change, especially as it impacts the health and well being of vulnerable populations. As new climate policy is implemented, we have to make sure that equity and justice are brought to bear, because the communities that are hit worst, first, longest, and hardest in terms of climate change are the same communities that are also hit hardest, worst, and longest by other environmental problems, such as air quality, hazardous waste, pollution and lead poisoning.
Let me give you an example. When we develop our
transportation policy, the people impacted by cutbacks in transit are
the same people who do not own cars, oftentimes work at minimum wage
jobs or are trying to ?nd work, and who also live in cities where
nonattainment is a big problem. So, we have to ensure that our climate
policy is based on a good transportation policy and a good energy
policy, and also ensure that clean and renewable energy is available to
all without regard to socioeconomic status. Just because some people
have a lot of money and can afford to install solar panels and retro?t
their houses to save energy, they should not be the only ones able to
access energy-saving technologies. Those kinds of technologies need to
be available across the board, regardless of income, class, or
ethnicity. |
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Our reckless use of energy is creating acid rain, global warming, endangering the ozone barrier, and we're not doing enough about it. What can we do to be more effective? We can try to build better coalitions among people, among nations, among organizations. We must recognize that environmental hazards affect people as well as wilderness. Toxics, pollution, and pesticides especially affect poor people and people of color. We as environmentalists must build bridges to people affected by those hazards if our movement is to succeed. We have begun to build such bridges in our Fate and Hope of the Earth conferences. We've had these conferences in New York, Washington, and Ottawa. Last June, we had 1,200 people from 60 countries at a great conference in Managua, Nicaragua. The next conference will be in Zimbabwe in the fall of 1991. We're trying to get something going in the Soviet Union, Japan, and in other parts of the world. We're trying to get as many different kinds of organizations into this whole act of keeping the earth a livable one. An enormous amount of good can be done if we have multicultural and multi-racial teams—cross-generational, male and female—going around to various spots in the developed nations, as well as the nations of the South, to help them recover from the damage done by the industrial revolution. Their work could focus on the out-of-doors, the soils, and the forest. But it could also help to put the cities back together again, to get the hearts of cities that are deteriorated fixed up. It's a great challenge, one of the most important there is, and also one of the most important opportunities. Building organizational bridges is exactly what the International Green Corps is about and Earth Island is doing everything it can to make this project succeed. David Brower was executive director of the Sierra Club, founder of Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and Earth Island Institute. He died in 2000. |
In 1990, Carl Anthony was a board member of Earth Island Institute and a co-founder of Earth Island's Urban Habitat Program. An architect and development consultant, at that time he served on the board of the Center for Economic Conversion and Urban Ecology.
Luke Cole was the staff attorney and coordinator of the California Communities at Risk Project of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, where he was preparing a report on the impact of environmental hazards on poor people. Anthony continues to serve as a board member of Urban Habitat. Luke Cole died in 2009.
The 20th Anniversary Issue | Vol. 17, No. 1 | Spring 2010 | Credits
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