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Present And Passionate: A Critical Analysis Of Asian American Involvement In The United States Environmental Justice Movement, Emily M. Ng

Pitzer Senior Theses

Communities of color are disproportionately exposed to toxins and pollution. The environmental justice movement addresses the greater health and environmental risks experienced by minority groups. Although Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in the United States, there is little known about their involvement in the movement. In this thesis, I further observe Asian American involvement in the United States environmental justice movement. By analyzing community case studies, I identify Asian American-specific mobilization challenges and strategies. Interviews with prominent Asian American environmental justice activists reveal activism and collective identity are connected, but vary greatly according to individualized Asian American experiences. …

Environment In Crisis: Seeking An Afrofuturist Perspective, Simone Wolynski

Pitzer Senior Theses

This research examines the relationship between environmental oppression and racial injustice, speculating about the need for a paradigmatic shift to better promote an intersectional justice movement. Through a presentation of literature that confronts failing environmentalism, I argue that the framework propels social injustices through its elitism and exclusivity. Current environmentalism hinders sustainable change and further contributes to prolonged inaction in socially targeted communities. Using East St. Louis as a case study on cyclic environmental and racial injustice, I present a long-term historical landscape of the city. Industrial overuse and political negligence cement the predominately Black residents in poverty and pollution. …

“Don't Frack With Us!” An Analysis Of Two Anti-Pipeline Movements, Rachael Lucille Hood

Honors Papers

This study seeks to compare grassroots organizing efforts against two different fracked gas pipelines. Rooting my analysis in the theory of social movements, I focus on the role of the ideological grounding of the resistance movements, the composition of resistance coalitions formed, and the tactics and strategies employed in opposition to these pipelines. I find that a broad-based coalition with a focus on relationship-building is important to the success of the movement. Additionally, I determine that the presence and involvement of small, medium, and large nonprofits as well as the use of direct action strongly contribute to the success of …

Human Dimensions Research For Informed Decisions About Aquatic Restoration In New Hampshire: Environmental Justice In Implementation Of Compensatory Mitigation, Simone Tania Chapman

Master's Theses and Capstones

New Hampshire’s aquatic resources provide many important ecosystem services and values, such as recreation, wildlife habitat, flood storage, nutrient reduction, community identity and aesthetic enjoyment. However, the many competing interests that seek to benefit from New Hampshire’s aquatic resources present challenges for efforts to steward public aquatic resources in the public interest. This thesis presents findings about the environmental justice outcomes of New Hampshire’s compensatory mitigation program, the Aquatic Resource Mitigation (ARM) fund, to inform aquatic restoration policy.

Previous studies have found evidence that aquatic restoration programs can lead to systemic resource relocation and patterns of inequality in outcomes. Using …

Living Rivers, Cosmopolitan Activism, And Environmental Justice In The Bengal Delta, Daniel Adel

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis explores the social movements and civil society activism to protect the rivers that flow through Bangladesh—the cradle and terminal delta floodplain of the transboundary Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river systems—, as well as ways to build regional cooperation and watershed democracy in South Asia. The research drew on four overarching fields of study: environmental justice, southern environmentalism, ecological nationalism, and environmental governance. These four bodies of scholarship helped address the overarching question: how are civil society organizations analyzing and responding to the water diversions and degradation of Bangladesh’s transboundary rivers? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with civil society organizations …

How Is Energy Justice Built Into Community Choice Aggregation? A Comparative Case Study Of The Lowell Community Choice Power Supply Program And Cape Light Compact, Massachusetts, Felicity Monk

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Community Choice Aggregation represents a potential opportunity to meet climate change mitigation aims through bulk buying renewable energy, but there remain challenges to deliver energy justice for low income communities. This thesis researched how two CCA programs - the Lowell Community Choice Power Supply Program and the Cape Light Compact - are building energy justice into their mission and activities. Archival research was conducted and eleven in-person interviews took place with experts, advocates and practitioners across the two CCA programs. Questions centered around five energy justice themes - community control, community ownership, local green jobs, low income assistance, and the …

Equity, Education, And Emergency: Examining Social Resilience Building Pilot Programs, Methods, And Successes In Massachusetts Communities, Mia Kania

Scripps Senior Theses

The concept of resilience and the methods and process of building it are as-of-yet undefined, set, or universally agreed upon. However, as the need to build resilience’s essential components, i.e. “the capacity of social, economic, and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance,” increases, the urgency to understand the driving factors behind the concept and develop effective methods to foster these capacities grows as well. To gain insight into how climate change preparations can best facilitate resilience in their target communities, therefore, this thesis explores the concept of resilience as it is built, practiced, and …

A Policy Analysis Of Lead Paint Disclosure Implementation In Residential Homes In Missoula Montana, Marissa Lein Lehner

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Using Weimer and Vining’s (2017) framework and interviews with key actors, this policy analysis evaluates the implementation of federal lead paint disclosure requirements in Missoula Montana. Lead based paint was commonly used in homes built prior to 1978. Disclosure requires landlords and any persons selling a home to disclose known lead-based paint hazards to buyers and renters. The policy was enacted to promote informed decisions to avoid or reduce the risk of lead paint exposure. Lead paint disclosure serves a critical purpose to inform citizens of risk of lead paint in older housing, because any lead exposure is particularly detrimental …

Storm On The Horizon: Climate Change, Hurricanes, And The Future Of The Eastern Caribbean, Joseph P. Odegaard

Student Theses 2015-Present

Hurricanes are a fact of life in the Caribbean. This meteorological reality has shaped the islands’ development throughout its history. However, in recent years, the Atlantic’s most fearsome storms have been unprecedented, both in strength and number. This paper explores the relationship between climate change and hurricanes and the effect this relationship has on the Eastern Caribbean. Chapter 1 uses quantitative data from a variety of sources, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of the United Nations, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the National Climate Assessment of the United …

Environmentally Responsible Land Use, Spring/Summer 2010, Issue 22

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Environmental Justice, Spring/Summer 2004, Issue 10

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Cyborgs For Environmental Justice: East Asian American Stories From The 1991 People Of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, Lisa Ng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this paper is threefold: to serve as an oral history archive of the East Asian American experience at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to analyze the role of East Asian Americans in the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM), and to fill an ideological and political vacuum that exists in East Asian American communities. This work analyses the experiences of East Asian Americans who were present at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit--an event scholars have attributed to igniting the EJM. The paper argues that East Asian Americans act as “Cyborgs”—both as their ascribed …

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.

Desiring Devastated Landscapes: Love After Ecological Collapse, Courtney Eleanor O'Dell-Chaib

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines arguments within religion and ecology, particularly within the ecospiritual movement and methodology called the new cosmology, that humans should cultivate and sustain emotional relationships with nature by caring for nonhuman others as our evolutionary kin. Focusing on the U.S. Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, and the British Petroleum oil spill, I argue that new cosmology affords few opportunities to think about intimacies with severely damaged and toxic environments. I consider how to rethink common themes in religion and ecology, like sacrality, kinship, and hope, within the context of encounters with toxic creatures and damaged ecosystems. …

Campaigning On An Environmental Justice Platform: Irmalinda Osuna For Upland City Council, District 3, Jenny Bekenstein

Pitzer Senior Theses

After successfully organizing around preserving Cabrillo Park in Upland and feeling a lack of local political representation, Irmalinda Osuna ran for Upland City Council in the 2018 midterm elections. As one of the many female candidates in the 2018 elections, Irmalinda led a grassroots, community-led political campaign in which she advocated for environmental justice and the preservation of parks, a more inclusive community, increased civic participation, a more efficient use of technology in politics, and support for small businesses.

Environmental Justice And The Hesitant Embrace Of Human Rights, Dayna Nadine Scott

Articles & Book Chapters

This chapter explores some of the tensions inherent in employing ‘rights strategies’ in environmental justice movements. Using the example of a judicial review application brought by Indigenous environmental justice activists in Canada demonstrates the symbolic power of using rights-based language for environmental justice, but also underscores the serious procedural, logistical and resource barriers that frustrate these groups in their attempts to deploy litigation tactics. Legal scholars need to think critically about ‘rights-talk’ and confront the hard questions about its utility for advancing environmental justice. In working with communities, we must learn to listen to what communities want before we default …

This Is The Moment Of Truth, Ray León, Roger Lin, Camille Pannu, Irene Vasquez

Faculty Scholarship

While everyone is taking their seats, I wanted to quickly just thank the prior panelists today and bring it full circle, back to Mustafa’s opening keynote, where he asked, “Who is fighting these fights? Who is doing this work in fighting for justice?” He pointed out that many of the people fighting these fights, many of the advocates, are people who look like you and are also the same age as you. That is why we have this panel. What can you, as students, do to get involved in the environmental justice or social justice movements?

My name is Roger …

Exploring Transit-Based Environmental Injustices In San Gabriel Valley And Greater Los Angeles, Bailey Lai

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis attempts to disentangle the multilayered interactions between Greater Los Angeles’s history, its built environment, and its inequitable treatment of different peoples, focusing on how transportation in surrounding suburban communities like San Gabriel Valley has developed in relation to the inner city of Los Angeles. Greater Los Angeles contains a long, winding trajectory of transit-based environmental injustices, from the indigenous societies being overtaken by the Spanish missions, to the railroads and streetcars boosting the farmlands and urban growth of Los Angeles, leading into the decline of transit and rise of automobile-oriented suburbia. Within the San Gabriel Valley, the suburban …

The Praxis Of Deceleration: Recovery As "Inner Work, Public Act", Marisol Cortez Ph.D.

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry (2017-2022 archives)

Originally published in Deceleration and presented at the 2017 meeting of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, this short essay details the vision and praxis behind an online journal of environmental justice co-edited by the author alongside environmental journalist Gregory Harman. In this essay, I situate the evolution of this project in relation to our precarious institutional positions as writers with disabilities who consequently work in the spaces between academia, journalism, activism, and creative writing. This positionality has in turn placed Deceleration in conversation with degrowth and allied movements around the world, which challenge the disabling …

Wood Waste And Race: The Industrialization Of Biomass Energy Technologies And Environmental Justice, Sarah Mittlefehldt

Journal Articles

In the 1980s, engineers developed new ways to use one of humanity’s oldest fuel sources—wood—to create electrical power. This article uses envirotechnical analysis to examine the development of a wood-burning power plant in Flint, Michigan, and argues that when public officials began working with major energy corporations to build industrial biomass facilities in the 1980s and 1990s, new energy technologies designed to run on renewable fuels became part of an entrenched fossil fuel–based power structure that maintained deep historical inequalities. Like other examples of environmental injustice, the burdens of industrial-scale biomass power systems tended to fall on poor, nonwhite communities. …

Justice Served Fresh: Associations Between Food Insecurity, Community Gardening, And Property Value, Micajah Daniels, Courtney Coughenour Ph.D

McNair Poster Presentations

Numerous stakeholders in Nevada have used a variety of efforts to combat the growth of food insecurity facing Nevadans. The purpose of this research project is to understand the association between food insecurity, community gardens, and property value. Following the wealth of scholarship on these topics and data collected from community garden agencies in Southern Nevada, the research questions for this project include: (1) Where are community gardens located in SNV? (2) What efforts community gardens agencies are doing to address food insecurity (most interested in their efforts using community gardens)? (3) What are the perceptions of supports and barriers …

Environmental Injustice/Racism In Flint, Michigan: An Analysis Of The Bodily Integrity Claim In Mays V. Snyder As Compared To Other Environmental Justice Cases, Joshua V. Berliner

Pace Environmental Law Review

This Note examines the merits of the “bodily integrity” claim that the Flint residents have alleged in Mays (but does not discuss any claims asserted in Earley, the case Mays was consolidated with on appeal), and asserts that they should be successful on this claim on remand, assuming that the facts alleged in the Flint residents’ complaint are true. This Note outlines the alleged facts and then discusses the existing case law on bodily integrity claims generally, both in the non-environmental justice and environmental justice fields. Following is an explanation of the specific bodily integrity claim the Flint residents have …

An Environmental Justice Assessment Of The Hanford Nuclear Waste Site Cleanup Project, Hannah Madden

University Honors Theses

Large scale restoration projects are multi-faceted and have many intricate management needs. Environmental justice can often be overlooked and not involved in considerations of these projects, and can be lacking in evaluation methods that provide support for project managers. This paper analyzes the Hanford Nuclear Waste Site Cleanup Project through the lens of an environmental justice rubric with eight separate categories designed to assess the inclusion of all stakeholders in this large scale restoration project. The Hanford Project ended up with a final score of 69% on the rubric, or a D+, with instances of both excellent and poor environmental …

A Historical, Political And Social Look Into The Problem Of Floatable Pollution In Nyc's Bronx River, Zoe L. Bellapigna

Student Theses 2015-Present

Once clean enough to be considered as a potential potable water source for New York City, the Bronx River and the overall quality of the water has steadily declined since European arrival in North America. As the socioeconomic divide between Westchester County and the Bronx developed and grew, so did the flow of floatable pollutants in the Bronx River. Quantitative data on the current number and category of floatable pollutants removed from the river in 2017 through the Bronx River Alliances’ Project WASTE is explored to provide the most up to date data on the trash in the river. Research …

Science, Advocacy, Policy, Planning: Tools For Advancing Transportation Equity, Garrett S. Mcallister

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

The theme of this portfolio is how different tools and approaches can be used for advancing transportation equity. Broadly defined, transportation equity is about fairness in transportation. There are a number of ways this fairness can be assessed. The most common way to assess transportation equity is by looking at the fairness of outcomes, distributed geographically, socially, or even by mode of transportation. Equity can also be defined by the fairness of processes. The first half of the portfolio illustrates some of the problems with the current transportation system and how it is unhealthy (Piece 1) and unjust (Piece 2). …

Environmental Injustice: A Public Health Problem In Chattanooga, Daimeshia Seay

Honors Theses

The concept of environmental injustice stems from the building of environmentally harmful infrastructure in minority communities. These communities are disproportionally subjected to increased environmental risk than other areas of society. As there is a large minority and impoverished population on the Southside of Chattanooga these issues are prevalent. Hamilton County was determined as a hotspot for childhood lead poisoning. The EPA began testing the soil for lead, but residents have not seen efforts to completely resolve the issue. In this study, a survey was used to assess community awareness of the lead contaminated soil and to highlight the aspects of …

Killing Martin County : Resiliency In A Central Appalachian Community., David Adam Sizemore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Environmental stressors, anything that poses a threat to human and environmental health, are disproportionately located in marginalized communities. Coal extraction companies produce and concentrate environmental stressors in Central Appalachia, a sub-region of Appalachia with high poverty rates and economic hardship. Through destructive coal extraction methods, the coal industry has jeopardized Central Appalachian health and environmental quality. The coal industry’s power to cause destruction in Central Appalachia is a product of historical strategic initiatives. Since the late 1800s, the coal industry has forcefully altered the culture and ideology of Central Appalachians and developed relationships with local, state, and federal policymakers to …

Worcester Community Clean Energy Project: A Preliminary Assessment Of Project Aims And Potential, Gabe J. Epstein

Sustainability and Social Justice

E4TheFuture is orchestrating two pilot Community Clean Energy Projects (CCEP) in the state of Massachusetts. This paper is a preliminary analysis of the Worcester CCEP and is commissioned by E4TheFuture. The CCEP incorporates multiple types of renewable energies and a cooperative energy approach to provide clean energy access to any community member regardless of income level or homeowner status. The paper examines the CCEP’s mission statement and project estimates, using data provided by E4TheFuture and academic literature. The analysis seeks to determine the feasibility of the Worcester CCEP, its potential impact on underserved communities, and the potential for project replication.

Using Photovoice As A Tool For Community Engagement To Assess The Environment And Explore Environmental Health Disparities, Heather M. Brandt, Venice E. Haynes, Lashanta J. Rice, Dayna Campbell, Edith Williams, *Sacoby Wilson, Saundra H. Glover

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Photovoice was used as a participatory research method to document perceived local environmental hazards, pollution sources, and potential impact on health among community members to address environmental health disparities. A convenience sample of 16 adults in Orangeburg, South Carolina participated in Photovoice. Photos depicted positive and negative implications of the environment across seven themes: recreation and leisure; food access; hazards and pollution; health, human, and social services; economic issues; beautification; and accommodation and accessibility. Positive and negative photos demonstrated a high level of interest among community members in considering how the environment influences health and health disparities.

Federalism, The Environment And The Charter In Canada, Dayna Scott

Articles & Book Chapters

This Chapter reviews the key jurisprudential developments in relation to the division of powers in Canada, exploring how the shared jurisdiction over the “environment” created by sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution has historically and continues to shape environmental law and policy. In addition to this federal-provincial struggle, the chapter considers the current trend towards local regulation of environmental matters according to the principle of ‘subsidiarity’, and the growing recognition of the ‘inherent jurisdiction’ of Indigenous peoples. The contemporary dynamics are explored through two critical policy case studies highlighting barriers to environmental justice: safe drinking water on reserves, and …