Environmental Justice

Environmental justice has increasingly become part of the language of environmental activism, political debate, academic research and policy making around the world. It involves asking searching questions about how the environment has impacts on different people'¬"s lives. Does pollution follow the poor? Are some communities far more vulnerable to the impacts of flooding or climate change than others? Are the benefits of access to green space for all, or only for some? Do powerful voices dominate environmental decisions to the exclusion of others? This book focuses on such questions and the processes and complexities involved in answering them. Its aims to explore the diversity of ways in which environment and social difference are intertwined and how the justice of their interrelationship matters. It has a distinctive international perspective, tracing how the discourse of environmental justice has moved around the world and across scales to include global concerns, and examining research, activism and policy development in the US, the UK, South Africa and other countries. The widening scope and diversity of what has been positioned within an environmental justice '¬Üframe'¬" is also reflected in chapters focus on waste, air quality, flooding, urban greenspace and climate change. In each case the basis for evidence of inequalities in impacts, vulnerabilities and responsibilities is examined, asking questions about the knowledge that is produced, the assumptions involved and the concepts of justice that are being deployed in both academic and political contexts. The book will provide readers with a wide ranging and critical view of the evolving field of environmental justice scholarship. It encourages careful thinking and analysis of what is at issue, and provides a framework for understanding the claim making of environmental justice in spatial, temporal and political context. It provides compelling examples of the processes involved in producing inequalities and a clear sense of the challenges involved in advancing the interests of disadvantaged, vulnerable and excluded social groups and communities.