environmental justice
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In the world’s slums, the worst of poverty and environmental degradation collide
This article was originally published in OrionOnline. Precarious dwellings in North Sulawasi, Indonesia. Photos: iStockphoto. A villa miseria outside Buenos Aires, Argentina, may have the worst feng shui in the world: it is built in a flood zone over a former lake, a toxic dump, and a cemetery. Then there’s the barrio perched precariously on […]
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Will an Atlanta parks and redevelopment project benefit low-income residents?
Atlanta, Ga.: the famous “Hot-lanta” of Southern heat and hospitality, home of “down-home” fried chicken and a growing black middle class, cradle of the largest historically black college community in the world, hotbed of the civil-rights movement, and … the sprawl capital of the South. As Atlanta gets greener, who will benefit? Photo: iStockphoto. As […]
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On Hollywood’s downtrodden eco-chicks, and how they’ve changed
“A working-class hero is something to be,” said John Lennon. But for Hollywood, it’s more likely to be a working-class heroine — at least when environmental issues enter the picture. Charlize Theron in North Country. Photo: 78th Academy Awards® This year, Charlize Theron’s crusading miner-activist in North Country garnered an Oscar nomination, following in the […]
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A virtual walking tour through Wisconsin’s Sokaogon Chippewa community with Tina Van Zile
Like many tribal lands across North America, the Sokaogon Chippewa reservation in Northern Wisconsin faces environmental perils that threaten not only the land, but also the livelihood and culture of the people who live on it. The Sokaogon spent close to three decades battling one of those perils: the proposed reopening of a nearby zinc […]
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An interview with integration advocate Sheryll Cashin
Space is the place where race, poverty, and the environment get sorted out, for better or worse. And the spaces where we live, work, learn, and play are the places where integration succeeds or fails, argues Sheryll Cashin. The Georgetown University law professor wrote 2004’s The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining […]
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The environmental case for integrated communities
The following passage is excerpted from The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream. (For more on this issue, read an interview with the author.) The growing concern with sprawl creates an interesting possibility for alignment of urban and suburban, white and minority, affluent and poor interests. Advocates for low-income […]
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Tirso Moreno, farmworker organizer, answers questions
Tirso Moreno. What’s your job title? General coordinator for the Farmworker Association of Florida. What does your organization do? We work to empower communities of farmworkers and the rural poor, focusing on a wide range of issues, from workplace and community organizing to disaster preparedness and response, from vocational rehabilitation to immigrants’ rights advocacy for […]
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Multiple Chemical Sensitivities can drive sufferers into poverty as well as ill health
Consider the trappings of modern life: Calvin Klein Eternity, gasoline, Gore-Tex, Aveda hairspray, paint, particle board, polyurethane iPod cases. Is this the face of the future? Photo: iStockphoto. Now imagine that you’re allergic to virtually all of them. Environmentalists usually think about chemical toxicity as either a dramatic local crisis (Bhopal, Love Canal) or the […]
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Houston kids living near a Superfund site tell their stories in pictures
Collage: Wassim Elmetni (age 11). “Many Diversified Interests” sounds like a line from a college application, or advice from a responsible money manager. In fact, though, it’s the name of a Superfund site in the Fifth Ward, one of the oldest and most disenfranchised neighborhoods of Houston, Texas. For the most part, children growing up […]
