Digital Commons Network^™

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Where Do We Go From Here?, Steve Carr

Black History at UNM

Dr. Assata Zerai, Vice President, UNM Division for Equity and Inclusion, identifies three areas of focus to improve equity and inclusion at UNM: diversifying faculty hiring and creating an inclusive culture that supports faculty of color, creating a culturally responsive educational environment for learners, and addressing racism in health and healthcare. This article contextualizes these goals with a larger discussion about anti-discriminatory public policies and laws, as well as political and social movements both past and present. This article is a part of the Racism: An Educational Series, produced by the UNM Newsroom.

The Complicated History Of Environmental Racism, Victoria Peña-Parr

Black History at UNM

University of New Mexico Honors College Assistant Professor, Myrriah Gómez, defines and explores environmental racism, specifically its effects in New Mexico.

Intersections Of Climate Justice, Brigid Mark, Alejandra Gallardo, Jack Pieper, Danielle Voss, Corrie Grosse, Leonardo Cumplido, Elena Lozano

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

This packet covers current information on climate justice issues in Minnesota including: Latinx immigration, public health, Black Lives Matter, native rights, LGBTQIA+ community, Somali livelihoods, and just transition.

We hope to help realize how we are connected to the climate crisis, identify action items for individuals, and build an understanding of how the crisis may affect our neighbors with different experiences. We believe that exchanging knowledge and raising awareness of local issues are essential to build a lasting and welcoming movement to secure healthy and happy livelihoods for all.

Indigenous Communities Versus Oil Companies: Identifying Trends In Tactics And Success Of Indigenous-Led Anti-Petroleum Movements In The Ecuadorian Amazon, Ella V. H. Carlson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In roughly the last 50 years, the Ecuadorian Amazon has become the epicenter of petroleum production in Ecuador. As oil companies attempt to exploit more and more of the rainforest, they have encroached on indigenous lands, leading to violations of indigenous rights through environmental destruction. As their territories have been invaded, indigenous groups throughout the Amazon have formed movements large and small in resistance to petroleum activities. Scholars have studied select campaigns in the past, but the literature lacks a comparative review of the characteristics of those movements. This paper compiles histories of seven campaigns against petroleum in the Ecuadorian …

La Justicia Medioambiental Y La Minería Aurífera: Las Implicaciones De La Deforestación Y La Contaminación De Metales Pesados En Madre De Dios, Perú, Madison Scully

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Usando un marco teórico de justicia medioambiental y de colonialidad, este informe describe, analiza e interprete los impactos ecológicos de la minería aurífera en Madre de Dios, una región amazónica del Perú. Específicamente, este informe trata las consecuencias de la deforestación y la contaminación por mercurio causadas por esta industria para la salud y el bienestar de los pueblos indígenas de Madre de Dios. A través de investigación secundaria de la literatura existente y los estudios ya realizados sobre el alcance de la degradación ecológica resultante de la minería aurífera en esta región, este informe examina la manera en que …

Centering Equity In Oregon’S 100 Year Water Vision: A Student-Led Policy Paper Prepared By The Oregon Water Stories Team At Portland State University, Clare T. Mcclellan, Sadie Boyers, Victoria Cali De Leon, Tony Cole, Laura Cowley-Martinson, Shersten Finley, Dustin Lanker, Julia Seydel, Aakash Nath Upraity, Janet Cowal, Melissa Haeffner

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this report is to provide evidence for the need to further intentionally incorporate equity into Oregon’s 100 Year Water Vision. Four case studies contextualize this need and highlight the variety of water issues throughout the state, supported by linguistic analyses of local newspapers. As Oregon policy-makers are responsible for ensuring working water systems for all Oregonians, we also suggest implementable criteria for the evaluation of equity in water issues and decision-making. This student-led and interdisciplinary report comes from the Haeffner-Cowal Oregon Water Stories research lab at Portland State University.

Urban Informality, Environmental Xenophobia, And Infrastructures Of Citizenship: The Political Lives Of Nicaraguan Migrants In The Informal Settlement Of La Carpio, Costa Rica, Nikolai Alexander Alvarado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines urban politics, environmental justice, and infrastructure from the vantage point of South-South migration. It focuses on the work of Nicaraguan migrants living in the informal settlement of La Carpio in San José, Costa Rica, as they negotiate rights in the form of urban services. Nicaraguans in La Carpio have organized politically since 1993 to self-install, demand, and negotiate services such as potable water and electricity. In the process, they successfully compel local authorities to allocate these services and grant them an implicit recognition of their right to remain and live a decent life, regardless of their status. …

Urban Green Space: Mitigator Or Multiplier Of Inequality In The Denver Metropolitan Area?, Joshua Charles Baldwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studies have shown that communities of color and low-income populations are likely to live in neighborhoods that lack access to quality green spaces, unable to directly benefit from the environmental, recreational, and cultural services they provide. The goal of this research was to determine if the green space inequality patterns seen globally and nationally exist in the Denver Metropolitan Area. Using an existing green space dataset, ecosystem services fieldwork, GIS digitizing, and bivariate correlation analysis I uncovered numerous green space inequalities based on proximity, acreage, and quality. Key findings included 1) Lakewood’s Hispanic and less-educated populations have relatively little access …

A Backbone Organization For Denver Based Environmental Justice Organizations 5280 For Environmental Justice, Allison Finnegan-Kihega

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Environmental injustices in Denver follow the same patterns that are seen throughout the country, which is that low-income People of Color are, relative to White people, disproportionately impacted by poor air and water quality, food deserts, displacement, and a phenomenon known as urban heat islands. The literature review conducted for this proposal revealed that despite the 2019 U.S Census Bureau indicating that Denver is 80.9 percent White, 29 percent Latino, and 10 percent Black, neighborhoods with predominantly Black and Latino residents are the neighborhoods experiencing environmental injustices in Denver.

For this project proposal, a literature review was conducted along with …

Critical Reflections On America’S Green New Deal: Capital, Labor, And The Dynamics Of Contemporary Social Change, Alex Stoner

Journal Articles

The increasing urgency of the current climate crisis has been accompanied by a growing desire for constructive answers on how to confront the situation effectively and meaningfully. Yet, the pace of global climate change (GCC) continues to accelerate more rapidly than societal, institutional, and individual responses can be formed. The gap between increasingly sophisticated knowledge of objective biophysical threat, on the one hand, and our ability to transform society in accordance with this awareness, on the other hand, highlights the importance of ideology. Ideological barriers have become a major stumbling block for climate change activists and researchers. Focusing on the …

การป้องกันปัญหาอาชญากรรมสิ่งแวดล้อม: กรณีศึกษาผลกระทบจากมลพิษทางอากาศในนิคมอุตสาหกรรมมาบตาพุด, กรณัฏฐ์ อัครธนบูลย์

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

การวิจัยนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาสภาพปัญหาและผลกระทบจากมลพิษทางอากาศ สาเหตุและปัจจัยที่ก่อให้เกิดปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศในมุมมองอาชญาวิทยาสิ่งแวดล้อม เพื่อเสนอแนวทางการป้องกันและแก้ไขปัญหาอาชญากรรมสิ่งแวดล้อม โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศในนิคมอุตสาหกรรมมาบตาพุดอย่างมีประสิทธิภาพและยั่งยืน ผู้วิจัยได้ทำการวิจัยเอกสารและสัมภาษณ์เชิงลึกกลุ่มตัวอย่างแบบเฉพาะเจาะจง 6 กลุ่ม ได้แก่ ประชาชนในเขตเทศบาลเมืองมาบตาพุด ผู้นำและตัวแทนชุมชนรอบนิคมอุตสาหกรรมมาบตาพุด เจ้าหน้าที่หน่วยงานราชการและรัฐวิสาหกิจ นักวิชาการอิสระ องค์กรพัฒนาเอกชน (NGOs) และบุคลากรในกระบวนการยุติธรรมทางอาญา รวมทั้งสิ้นจำนวน 24 คน ผลการวิจัยพบว่า สภาพปัญหาและผลกระทบจากมลพิษทางอากาศส่งผลต่อ (1) สุขภาพของประชาชน โดยประชาชนยังคงมีความเสี่ยงต่อโรคทางเดินหายใจ โรคมะเร็ง และภาวะความผิดปกติต่างๆ อันเนื่องมาจากการสูดดมมลพิษทางอากาศเข้าไป และ (2) สิ่งแวดล้อม ซึ่งจากการตรวจวัดคุณภาพอากาศพบว่า ยังคงมีสารมลพิษถูกปล่อยออกมาจากโรงงานอุตสาหกรรมอย่างต่อเนื่อง และมีค่าสูงกว่าค่ามาตรฐานกำหนด โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งสารประกอบอินทรีย์ระเหยง่าย (VOCs) บางประเภท สาเหตุและปัจจัยที่ก่อให้เกิดปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศ เป็นผลมาจาก (1) การพัฒนาเศรษฐกิจที่ไม่สมดุลกับสิ่งแวดล้อมหรือระบบนิเวศ (2) การบริหารจัดการของภาครัฐและหน่วยงานที่เกี่ยวข้องไม่เป็นไปตามหลักธรรมาภิบาลสิ่งแวดล้อม (3) มาตรการและระบบตรวจวัดคุณภาพอากาศไม่สะท้อนข้อเท็จจริง และ (4) การบังคับใช้กฎหมายและการบังคับโทษไม่ชัดเจน โดยสาเหตุการกระทำผิดของผู้มีส่วนได้ส่วนเสียในมุมมองอาชญาวิทยาสิ่งแวดล้อม ได้แก่ (1) ภาครัฐ ดำเนินนโยบายทางเศรษฐกิจที่สร้างความเสียหายต่อสิ่งแวดล้อมและส่งผลต่อสุขภาพของประชาชนซึ่งเป็นทั้งเหยื่อทางตรงและทางอ้อม (2) ผู้ประกอบการหรือผู้ก่อมลพิษ ไม่รู้ตัวว่ากำลังก่ออาชญากรรมสิ่งแวดล้อมอยู่ หรือ จงใจกระทำผิดเนื่องจากเห็นว่าได้รับประโยชน์จากช่องโหว่ของกฎหมายมากกว่าได้รับโทษจากกฎหมาย (3) ผู้ได้รับผลกระทบ หรือ เหยื่อทางตรงที่เป็นมนุษย์ ได้รับความเสียหายจากการก่ออาชญากรรมสิ่งแวดล้อมทั้งในระยะสั้นและระยะยาว เนื่องจากการพิสูจน์หาตัวและจับกุมผู้กระทำผิดทำได้ยาก (4) ประชาชนทั่วไป หรือ เหยื่อทางอ้อมที่เป็นมนุษย์ ขาดความรู้ความเอาใจใส่ปัญหาสิ่งแวดล้อม เนื่องจากไม่ได้ตระหนักในสิทธิการดำรงชีวิตอยู่ในสิ่งแวดล้อมที่ดี แนวทางป้องกันและแก้ไขปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศ พบว่า ภาครัฐควรให้ความสำคัญกับการควรปรับปรุงและบูรณาการกฎหมายสิ่งแวดล้อมให้มีการบังคับใช้และบทลงโทษที่ชัดเจนควบคู่กับการส่งเสริมให้โรงงานอุตสาหกรรมตระหนักถึงการดูแลและใส่ใจสิ่งแวดล้อม ซึ่งสามารถจำแนกเป็นรูปธรรมได้โดย (1) ประสานความร่วมมือกันระหว่างหน่วยงานภาครัฐ ภาคเอกชน และภาคประชาชนในการจัดการกับปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศในนิคมอุตสาหกรรมมาบตาพุดอย่างจริงจัง (2) ใช้หลักทางวิศวกรรมในการแก้ไขปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศควบคู่กับการควบคุมมาตรฐานในการปล่อยทิ้งอากาศเสีย (3) มีระบบบริหารจัดการแนวทางการแก้ไขปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศทั้งในระยะสั้นและระยะยาว

Retelling Narratives Of Eco-Memory: Settler Colonialism And Carceral Occupation Of The Jordan River, Megan Rose Awwad

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In this thesis, I retell and reclaim stories that have been shared and passed down within my family and family history in relation to our homeland, Palestine, and more specifically to the Jordan River. I argue that the construction of the dam in the 1960s on the Jordan River, by a zionist state, is an extension of both the settler colonial state and the treatment of the land/rivers as inherently linked with the treatment of Indigenous people. The carceral spaces and geographies settler states create are part of both the destruction of the land and the genocide Indigenous people experience. …

Engaged Communication Scholarship For Environmental Justice: A Research Agenda, Chad Raphael

Communication

As a discipline of crisis and care, environmental communication needs to address questions of environmental justice. This article argues that the most appropriate approach to studying environmental justice communication is engaged scholarship, in which academics collaborate with community partners, advocates, and others to conduct research. The article reviews prior engaged communication scholarship on environmental justice, and proposes four streams of future research, focused on news and information, deliberation and participation, campaigns and movements, and education and literacy.

Watering Black Roots: Exploring Black Ecological Identity Development Within Nature-Based Expressive Arts Therapy, Stormy Saint-Val

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Nature-based expressive arts therapy promotes the holistic healing and recovery of individuals by interweaving the practices of ecopsychology, ecotherapy, and expressive arts therapy. These interventions have been proven to mediate ranges of symptomologies, such as anxiety disorders and PTSD. Research conducted by the U.S. National Park Services indicates that African- Americans are less likely to have a positive relationship to nature than all other racial groups. The amplification of this report without introspection of its context perpetuates racialized generalizations. This can limit a black individual’s ability to embrace their ecological identity and be receptive of nature-based expressive arts therapy interventions. …

Engaged Scholarship For Environmental Justice: A Guide, Chad Raphael

Communication

This guide was written for distribution at the Environmental Justice and the Common Good Conference, hosted by Santa Clara University’s Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education in May 2019. The conference convened representatives from Jesuit and other universities with a broad range of community organizations to strengthen our common understanding and advancement of community-engaged scholarship for environmental justice (EJ). Given its immediate audience, the guide focuses primarily on the U.S. context, although it also discusses the major global causes and impacts of EJ, and how Americans have been inspired by engaged scholars around the world, from whom we have much to …

Barren Lands And Barren Bodies In Navajo Nation: Indian Women Warn About Uranium, Genetics, And Sterilization, Marie Bolton, Nancy C. Unger

History

Founded by Native American women in 1974, "Women of All Red Nations (WARN) insisted that the ongoing Indian public health crisis could not be properly understood exclusively within the context of the exploitation and pollution of the physical environment. It required as well an understanding of the larger context of Indian health issues evolving out of past and present cultural and political changes. This article focuses on selected health, threats affecting the Dine, or "the People," as Navajo Indians call themselves, living in Dine Bikeyah (Navajo Nation) during the mid to late 20^th century. Navajo history is marked by …

Vulnerability And Social Justice, Martha Albertson Fineman

Faculty Articles

This Article briefly considers the origins of the term social justice and its evolution beside our understandings of human rights and liberalism, which are two other significant justice categories. After this reflection on the contemporary meaning of social justice, I suggest that vulnerability theory, which seeks to replace the rational man of liberal legal thought with the vulnerable subject, should be used to define the contours of the term. Recognition of fundamental, universal, and perpetual human vulnerability reveals the fallacies inherent in the ideals of autonomy, independence, and individual responsibility that have supplanted an appreciation of the social. I suggest …

Can Reducing Income Inequality Decouple Economic Growth And Co2 Emissions, Julius Alexander Mcgee, Patrick Greiner

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the past two decades, income inequality has steadily increased in most developed nations. During this same period, the growth rate of CO₂ emissions has declined in many developed nations, cumulating to a recent period of decoupling between economic growth and CO₂ emissions. The aim of the present study is to advance research on socioeconomic drivers of CO₂ emissions by assessing how the distribution of income affects the relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions. The authors find that from 1985 to 2011, rising income inequality leads to a tighter coupling between economic growth and CO …

The Crucible Of Orthodoxy And Orthopraxy: Examining The Intersections Of Social Justice, Moral Development And Theology, Eydie Dyke Shypulski

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to better understand the relationship between moral development, theology and social justice within a Christian context. An apparent disconnect exists regarding how people of faith apply personal morals and theological perspectives when positioning themselves with regard to public policy and social justice issues. The researcher sought to extract information that would have implications for professional social practice, social work ethical and practice pedagogy, for faith-based institutions of higher learning and for the broader Christian community. A theological reflection included a brief examination of Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophies of moral and ethical development followed by …

Women And Gender: Useful Categories Of Analysis In Environmental History, Nancy Unger

History

In 1990, Carolyn Merchant proposed, in a roundtable discussion published in The Journal of American History, that gender perspective be added to the conceptual frameworks in environmental history. 1 Her proposal was expanded by Melissa Leach and Cathy Green in the British journal Environment and History in 1997. 2 The ongoing need for broader and more thoughtful and analytic investigations into the powerful relationship between gender and the environment throughout history was confirmed in 2001 by Richard White and Vera Norwood in "Environmental History, Retrospect and Prospect," a forum in the Pacific Historical Review. Both Norwood, in her provocative contribution …

Food Sovereignty: An Alternative Paradigm For Poverty Reduction And Biodiversity Conservation In Latin America, M Jahi Chappell, Hannah Wittman, Christopher M. Bacon, Bruce G. Ferguson, Luis García Barrios, Raúl García Barrios, Daniel Jaffee, Jefferson Lima, V. Ernesto Méndez,, Helda Morales, Lorena Soto-Pinto, John Vandermeer, Ivette Perfecto

Environmental Studies and Sciences

Strong feedback between global biodiversity loss and persistent, extreme rural poverty are major challenges in the face of concurrent food, energy, and environmental crises. This paper examines the role of industrial agricultural intensification and market integration as exogenous socio-ecological drivers of biodiversity loss and poverty traps in Latin America. We then analyze the potential of a food sovereignty framework, based on protecting the viability of a diverse agroecological matrix while supporting rural livelihoods and global food production. We review several successful examples of this approach, including ecological land reform in Brazil, agroforestry, milpa, and the uses of wild varieties in …

Introduction To Empowered Partnerships: Community-Based Participatory Action Research For Environmental Justice, Christopher M. Bacon, Saneta Devuono-Powell, Mary Louise Frampton, Tony Lopresti, Camille Pannu

Environmental Studies and Sciences

This article introduces a special section on empowered partnerships that deepens a dialogue initiated during the 2010 symposium titled EmPowered Partnerships: Community-Based Participatory Action Research for Environmental Justice. The articles in this section will be divided between issues 1 and 2 of the Journal. After briefly reviewing the definitions and the steps associated with community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), we identify the synergies connecting the underlying principles and values of the environmental justice (EJ) movement and CBPAR. The principles-based comparison is part of an ongoing effort to craft a framework that produces research partnerships that are simultaneously more responsive to …

Introduction: Sex, Sexuality, And Gender As Useful Categories In Environmental History, Nancy Unger

History

This book is an effort to explain these kinds of extreme gendered divisions and to offer an enriched understanding of the powerful interplay between environment and sex, sexuality, and gender. The synergy produced by that interplay has been significant throughout American history, but it cannot be adequately understood and appreciated as long as those fields are discussed as discrete entities. The fields of gender and environment are growing, but scholars have seldom joined them together in analysis or heeded historian Carolyn Merchant's call that a gendered perspective be added to conceptual frameworks in environmental history.5 They have not offered a …

The Social Dimensions Of Sustainability And Change In Diversified Farming Systems, Christopher M. Bacon, Christy Getz, Sibella Kraus, Maywa Montenegro, Kaelin Holland

Environmental Studies and Sciences

Agricultural systems are embedded in wider social-ecological processes that must be considered in any complete discussion of sustainable agriculture. Just as climatic profiles will influence the future viability of crops, institutions, i.e., governance agreements, rural household and community norms, local associations, markets, and agricultural ministries, to name but a few, create the conditions that foster sustainable food systems. Because discussions of agricultural sustainability often overlook the full range of social dimensions, we propose a dual focus on a broad set of criteria, i.e., human health, labor, democratic participation, resiliency, biological and cultural diversity, equity, and ethics, to assess social outcomes, …

Mountains Of Injustice : Social And Environmental Justice In Appalachia, Michele Morrone, Geoffrey L. Buckley

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Research in environmental justice reveals that low-income and minority neighborhoods in our nation’s cities are often the preferred sites for landfills, power plants, and polluting factories. Those who live in these sacrifice zones are forced to shoulder the burden of harmful environmental effects so that others can prosper. Mountains of Injustice broadens the discussion from the city to the country by focusing on the legacy of disproportionate environmental health impacts on communities in the Appalachian region, where the costs of cheap energy and cheap goods are actually quite high.

Through compelling stories and interviews with people who are fighting for …

Growing Greener In The City: Open Space Advocacy For Environmental Justice In Jackson Heights, Donovan Finn

School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences Faculty Publications

Local residents in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City, develop a do it yourself solution to the community's lack of park space. The case study shows how civic advocacy can address issues of environmental justice and open space access in urban communities. by harnessing local social capital and building coalitions with city agencies and non-governmental partners.

From Jook Joints To Sisterspace: The Role Of Nature In Lesbian Alternative Environments In The United States, Nancy Unger

History

Despite the depth and breadth of Catriona Sandilands's groundbreaking "Lesbian Separatist Communities and the Experience of Nature," with its emphasis on communities in southern Oregon, Sandilands does not consider her article, published in 2002, to be "the last one on the topic." Instead she hopes "fervently that other researchers will enter into the ongoing conversation [about queer landscapes)" (136). This essay is an answer to her invitation to draw further "insight from queer cultures to form alternative, even transformative, cultures of nature" (135). It examines the role of place in the history of American lesbians, particularly the role of nonhuman …

The Salt Shaker (Vol. 5, Issue 3), Valparaiso University

SALT Shaker

No abstract provided.

Environmental Elitism Vs. Environmental Justice: How Egyptian Ngos Shape Environmental Injustices Between The Elite And The Rest, Sarah Sensamaust

Archived Theses and Dissertations

[abstract not provided]

The Role Of Gender In Environmental Justice, Nancy Unger

History

Environmental Justice incorporates an inclusive definition of its subject matter, exploring the environmental burdens impacting all marginalized populations and communities. This expansive definition allows for the possibility that populations conventionally viewed as privileged can nevertheless be marginalized and suffer uniquely from environmental injustices. Employing such a definition can also reveal how an ostensibly powerless group can fight for environmental justice on its own terms—and win. Gender has played an important role in environmental justice (and injustice) throughout the history of the United States. Excerpts from my current book project, Beyond “Nature’s Housekeepers”: Gendered Turning Points for American Women in Environmental …