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Species Composition, Demographics, And Ecosystem Services Of Residential Trees In Louisville, Kentucky., Shannon A. Scroggins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trees in urban residential neighborhoods provide valuable ecosystem services. Urban trees also face threats from disturbances, such as storms. In 2008, the Urban Forest Effects model was used to estimate abundance and species composition of residential trees and their ecosystem services in 10 of 26 council districts in Louisville, Kentucky. Ten tree species were found to compose half of the estimated 822,576 residential trees in the ten districts, with Celtis occidentalis being most numerous. The ability of sociodemographic and housing variables to predict the distribution of trees and ecosystem services was weak. The strongest relationships were found between % single …

Not Just A Walk In The Park: Methodological Improvements For Determining Environmental Justice Implications Of Park Access In New York City For The Promotion Of Physical Activity, Keith K. Miyake, Andrew R. Maroko, Kristen L. Grady, Juliana A. Maantay, Peter S. Arno

Cities and the Environment (CATE)

The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that access to parks in New York City is not equitable across racial and ethnic categories. It builds on previous research that has linked access to parks and open space with increased physical activity, which in turn may reduce the risk for adverse health outcomes related to obesity. Systematic patterns of uneven access to parks might help to explain disparities in these health outcomes across sociodemographic populations that are not fully explained by individual-level risk factors and health behaviors, and therefore access to parks becomes an environmental justice issue. This …

New York's Revived Power Plant Siting Law Preempts Local Control, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Taking most observers by surprise, the New York State Legislature on June 22, 2011, overwhelmingly passed The Power NY Act of 2011. Governor Andrew Cuomo signed it on Aug. 4. The new law revives Article X of the Public Service Law after a nearly nine-year hibernation. As before, the law creates a one-stop, state-led program for permitting electric generating facilities while preempting local requirements. But the new Article X differs from its predecessor in several important ways: It covers facilities as small as 25 megawatts (down from the prior 80 megawatts threshold), it has even more generous provisions for funding …

Changing Hearts: The Future Of The Environmental Movement, Emily Casey

Global Tides

For many, the environmental movement is a consumer fad with very little intellectual or emotional investment. Generally, sustainability is deemed a “good thing” but given low priority at both the personal level and the public policy level. In this paper, I argue that environmentalism must be modified to meet the needs of the general populace in order to gain momentum as a contemporary political movement. In other words, I examine how the environmental movement can attract the massive number of active members necessary to change public policy and conclude that this movement will need to adapt to the public in …

Introduction To The Environmental Law And Justice Symposium Issue, Randall S. Abate, Robert H. Abrams, Robert Graggs

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Racism : Exploring Suffering And Healing Through Collective Resistance, Brooke Allison Moore

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This theoretical study was undertaken to explore how trauma theory can broaden our understanding of the psychological impact of environmental racism, and how liberation theory could be utilized to better prepare social workers to identify and understand the impact of environmental racism in the lives of clients and elucidate the role the profession should play in alleviating this form of oppression. Aspiring to examine the phenomenon and each of the theories from the vantage point of a perspective that falls outside of a dominant lens, this study explored race-based traumatic stress as a crucial element of a comprehensive definition of …

The Lower Ninth Ward: Resistance, Recovery, And Renewal, Alexandra Giancarlo

LSU Master's Theses

After Hurricane Katrina of 2005, New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward became an icon for the failure of recovery efforts and the persistence of inequality and poverty in American society. However, for as long as this community has been marginalized it has been creating advocacy organizations and counter-narratives that battled discrimination and imbued its cultural practices with meaning. Residents often speak of a profound sense of community attachment, a commitment to educational prospects, and a deep historic and cultural identity. Historically, this area has been home to various social and legal campaigns, mirroring the contemporary protests that arose when residents encountered …

Park Access And Distributional Inequities In Pinellas County, Florida, Kyle Ray Hirvela

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although environmental justice research has traditionally focused on environmental disamenities and health hazards, recent studies have begun to examine social inequities in the distribution of urban amenities such as street trees and parks that provide several direct and indirect health benefits to local residents. This thesis adds to this knowledge by evaluating distributional inequities in both distribution and access to parks in Pinellas County, the most densely populated and one of the most racially segregated counties in Florida. An important objective was to determine if neighborhoods with lower levels of park access are more likely to contain a significantly higher …

The Power-Knowledge To Move Mountains: Subaltern Discourses Of Mountaintop Removal In Coal River Valley, West Virginia, Jen Osha

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research investigates the perspectives of local residents within the Coal River Valley, WV, who are concerned about the impacts of mountaintop removal (MTR) on themselves, their families and communities, and their environment. In this dissertation, the term 'subaltern' represents a heterogeneous community of resistance to MTR with multiple perspectives around intersections of gender, age, and livelihood. The objectives of my study are twofold: to illuminate how dominant legal discourse continues to subjugate the discourse of resistance to MTR, and to identify possible spaces of resistance within which the subaltern discourse can challenge the power relations that continue to permit …

New Directions In Environmental Justice, Randall S. Abate, Moderator, Robert Abrams, Moderator, Marcia Allen Owens, Moderator

Lectures and Presentations

The inaugural Environmental Law and Justice Symposium will feature an overview of the latest international, national, regional, state and local developments in environmental justice.

Poisoning The Poor For Profit: The Injustice Of Exporting Electronic Waste To Developing Countries, Eric V. Hull

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

The Relevance Of The Natural Environment To Social Work : A Comparison Of Fields That Consider The Natural Environment In Social Problems : A Project Based Upon An Independent Investigation, John D. Ritchie

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Given the natural environment's importance to humans, this study was undertaken to understand how social work has considered the natural environment in approaching social problems compared to other fields that consider the natural environment. In addition, comparing literature from several fields, the author sought to evaluate the adequacy of social work's attention to the natural environment as the field analyzes and conceives solutions to social problems and carries out its mission. The study examined the gaps in social work literature regarding the natural environment. The author compared published literature from social work, psychology, environmental health and medicine, and environmentalism to …

Dorsey Serves As Environmental Justice Ambassador, August 27, 2010, Melanie Marquez

USF St. Petersburg Campus News and Press Releases

No abstract provided.

Participatory Testing And Reporting In An Environmental-Justice Community Of Worcester, Massachusetts: A Pilot Project, Timothy Downs, Laurie Ross, Danielle Mucciarone, Maria Camila Calvache, Octavia Taylor, Robert Goble

Sustainability and Social Justice

Background: Despite indoor home environments being where people spend most time, involving residents in testing those environments has been very limited, especially in marginalized communities. We piloted participatory testing and reporting that combined relatively simple tests with actionable reporting to empower residents in Main South/Piedmont neighborhoods of Worcester, Massachusetts. We answered: 1) How do we design and implement the approach for neighborhood and household environments using participatory methods? 2) What do pilot tests reveal? 3) How does our experience inform testing practice?. Methods: The approach was designed and implemented with community partners using community-based participatory research. Residents and researchers tested …

Canaries In The Coal Mine: The Tactical Use Of The National Labor Relations Act To Aid In The Protection Of Non-Union Workers Exposed To Pollutants, Michael C. Duff

Faculty Articles

Canaries were used in times past to alert miners to the presence of dangerous gases in a mine A canary would die and the miners would thereby become aware of deadly but sometimes odorless gases Just as canaries have alerted miners to the presence of dangerous gases in mines workers exposed to dangerous pollutants and conditions in workplaces may function as societal canaries warning the broader public of environmental dangers but hopefully without having to die in the process To perform this role the workers must live to work and protest another day Section 7 of the National Labor Relations …

Background Environmental Justice: An Extension Of Rawls's Political Liberalism, Edward Abplanalp

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation extends John Rawls’s mature theory of justice out to address the environmental challenges that citizens of liberal democracies now face. Specifically, using Rawls’s framework of political liberalism, I piece together a theory of procedural justice to be applied to a constitutional democracy. I show how citizens of pluralistic democracies should apply this theory to environmental matters in a four stage contracting procedure. I argue that, if implemented, this extension to Rawls’s theory would secure background environmental justice. I explain why the theory can be viewed as a partially specified political conception of environmental pragmatism, and how it relates …

How Supplemental Environmental Projects Can And Should Be Used To Advance Environmental Justice, Douglas Rubin

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Linking Health Inequality And Environmental Justice: Articulating A Precautionary Framework For Research And Action, Sarah Wakefield, Jamie Baxter

Geography & Environment Publications

This article draws together three issues—the environment, health, and (in)justice—with the overall purpose of articulating an agenda for policy and research that works towards improved justice and sustainability in the environmental health arena. Considerable research in the United States and elsewhere has shown that both environmental exposures and poor health are more prevalent in populations that are marginalized by race and social class (typically measured as income). The logical next step has been to attempt to establish concrete cause-effect links between health effects and environmental exposures in order to mobilize government action to reduce these disparities. However, we caution against …

Reaching For Environmental Health Justice: Canadian Experiences For A Comprehensive Research, Policy And Advocacy Agenda In Health Promotion, Jeffrey R. Masuda, Blake Poland, Jamie Baxter

Geography & Environment Publications

Spatial disparities in environmental quality and practices are contributing to rising health inequalities worldwide. To date, the field of health promotion has not contributed as significantly as it might to a systematic analysis of the physical environment as a determinant of health nor to a critique of inequitable environmental governance practices responsible for social injustice-particularly in the Canadian context. In this paper, we explore ways in which health promotion and environmental justice perspectives can be combined into an integrated movement for environmental health justice in health promotion. Drawing on Canadian experiences, we describe the historical contributions and limitations of each …

Commentary: Environmental Justice And The Bp Oil Spill: Does Anyone Care About The "Small People" Of Color?, Perry Wallace

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Body Polluted: Questions Of Scale, Gender And Remedy, Dayna Nadine Scott

Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy

This paper offers a critique of tort remedies grounded in feminist theory of the body. It demonstrates how tort law is invested in a notion of an individuated legal subject, which fails to capture the critical interconnectedness of bodies in a social, political, historical, and colonial context. Taking the ‘injury’ of endocrine disruption in a Canadian aboriginal community as an example of a contemporary pollution harm, the analysis considers various torts on a conceptual level, and what they might offer the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in the way of remedies. In each case, what the tort can do depends on how …

Public Nuisance Suits For The Climate Justice Movement: The Right Thing And The Right Time, Randall S. Abate

Journal Publications

The climate justice movement seeks to provide relief to vulnerable communities that have been disproportionately affected by climate change impacts. Public nuisance litigation for climate change impacts is a new and growing field that could provide the legal and policy underpinnings to help secure a viable foundation for climate justice in the United States and internationally. By securing victories in the court system, these suits may succeed where the domestic environmental justice movement failed in seeking to merge environmental protection and human rights concerns into an actionable legal theory. This Article first examines the nature and scope of the climate …

Canaries In The Coal Mine: The Tactical Use Of The National Labor Relations Act To Aid In The Protection Of Non-Union Workers Exposed To Pollutants, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

Canaries were used in times past to alert miners to the presence of dangerous gases in a mine. A canary would die, and the miners would thereby become aware of deadly, but sometimes odorless, gases. Just as canaries have alerted miners to the presence of dangerous gases in mines, workers exposed to dangerous pollutants and conditions in workplaces may function as societal canaries warning the broader public of environmental dangers; but hopefully without having to die in the process. To perform this role, the workers must live to work (and protest) another day. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations …

Fighting The Good Fight: The Role Of Environmental Civil Rights Litigators Going Forward And The Need For A Continuance Of The Litigation Tool In The Environmental Justice Movement, Sean-Patrick Wilson

Western New England Law Review

No abstract provided.

Agenda: World Energy Justice Conference And Appropriate Technology Arcade, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law

World Energy Justice Conference (October 23-24)

The 2009 CEES Energy Justice Conference took place at the University of Colorado Law School on October 23rd and 24th, 2009. It featured 11 sessions, more than 40 speakers, and attracted over 200 attendees. The Conference brought together leading international and U.S. decision-makers in politics, engineering, public health, law, business, economics, and innovators in the sciences to explore how best to address the critical needs of the energy-oppressed poor (EOP) through long-term interdisciplinary action, information sharing, and deployment of appropriate sustainable energy technologies (ASETs).

The Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law & Policy (CJIELP) at the University of Colorado Law …

Climate Justice: Towards A Proactive Response To Social Inequities, Vivek Shandas

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Discussions about climate change have taken center stage. Claims of 'carbon neutral', and strategies for calculating and mitigating green house gas emissions (GHGs) have become common place from Beaverton to Bali. The discourse on climate change, however, remains largely an environmental one, with increasingly precise definitions of parts per million, downscaling climate models, and regional assessments for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These discussions are essential for understanding connections between local sources of GHGs and global consequences of our actions. But health and equity are equally critical dimensions of climate change, although these dimensions have had only limited investigation. Regional …

A Place Like This: An Environmental Justice History Of The Owens Valley - Water In Indigenous, Colonial, And Manzanar Stories, Monica Embrey

Pomona Senior Theses

This text provides an environmental justice analysis of the stories of the people who lived in the Owens Valley, who watered its land and cultivated its crops—pine trees, apple trees, and kabocha alike. Telling the personal stories of challenge and resistance that manifested alongside the oppressive forces of military and state domination provides the opportunity to align forcibly relocated, exploited and incarcerated people’s struggles throughout time. This text starts with The Nü’ma Peoples who were the first humans to live in the Owens Valley and continues with the struggle for empire between rival colonial empires of agriculture and distant urban …

Confronting Environmental And Social Crises: Octavia E. Butler’S Critique Of The Spiritual Roots Of Environmental Injustice In Her Parable Novels, Melissa Vargas

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

We are living in the midst of environmental and social crises. This fact was not lost on late African-American science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, whose 1993 Parable of the Sower and 1998 Nebula Award-winning Parable of the Talents depict and critique the current environmental and social crises in the United States. Speaking of Sower in an interview with Essence magazine, Butler says that all she “did was look around at the problems we’re neglecting now and give them about 30 years to grow into full-fledged disasters” (“Brave New Worlds” 164). In another interview with Randall Kenan, Butler describes environmental …

Air Toxics And Equity: A Geographic Analysis Of Environmental Health Risks In Florida, Angela Gilbert

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A large number of quantitative studies have examined social inequities in the geographic distribution of air pollution. Although previous research has made strides towards understanding the nature and extent of inequities, they have been limited methodologically in three ways. First, the presence of pollutants have been rarely linked to their adverse health effects, with many studies using proximity to sources as a proxy for risk. Second, there has been a tendency to study a single pollution source instead of assessing multiple types of sources. Finally, conventional statistical methods such as multivariate regression have been limited by their inability to discern …

Nitrate Contaminated Groundwater In Albuquerque's South Valley: Is Monitored Natural Attenuation An Appropriate Strategy?, Christina L. Keleher

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Nitrate-contaminated groundwater in the South Valley of Albuquerque has been documented since the early 1960s. Over the past four decades, nitrate concentrations have declined, but are still significantly greater than the groundwater standard of 10 mg/L. In 1980, a case of methemoglobinemia in an infant prompted the city to extend city water lines into the residential areas of Mountain View, where residents were previously dependent upon private domestic wells for drinking water. Although the nitrate-contaminated water no longer presents a human health threat to the residents of Mountain View, all groundwater in New Mexico that contains less than 10,000 mg/L …