The Past, Present, and Future of Environmental Justice

A celebration

This year marks a milestone for Environmental Justice in the U.S. It's been 20 years since the establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ). The OEJ has been celebrating this anniversary with a series of 20th Anniversary Videos featuring stories and interviews with Environmental Justice leaders from communities, non-governmental organizations, and public institutions. Locally, we've also been celebrating the 20th anniversary of a Boston-based Environmental Justice organization - Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE). Since 1993, ACE has been both a local and a national leader for Environmental Justice, defending and promoting disadvantaged communities through a mix of legal and technical support, policy advocacy, and community organizing. Last week, ACE held a celebratory event entitled "An Evening for ACE" at the SEIU Local 615 headquarters in downtown Boston. The event brought together a panel of ACE's leaders: the original founders of ACE, Charlie Lord and Bill Shutkin, as well as the current Executive Director Kalila Barnett, former ED Penn Loh, and REEP alumnus and ACE board member Carlos Moreno. The event was moderated by Julian Agyeman. The event was well attended by longtime friends and supporters, as well as new friends and allies. A 20th anniversary is a good time to reminisce, take stock, and look to the future.

What EJ has wrought

The fundamental insight that the Environmental Justice movement has brought to environmental debates is simply this: not everyone is affected by environmental issues in the same way. This is the case for at least two reasons. Environmental burdens (and amenities) are almost never equally distributed. Since the late 1980s, a voluminous body of research has repeatedly shown that waste sites, noxious industry, and various other forms of environmentally degrading activity are often located in lower income communities and communities of color. The converse is often true too, such that the distribution of "good" things, like parks and trees, are often not in these same communities. Second, even when it appears that some environmental issues are equally distributed (at least geographically), there can still be inequity. We're all exposed to climate change, but we're not all equally vulnerable, and we're not all equally responsible.

A second big idea that EJ has drawn attention to (a public health perspective) is that "the environment" is "where we live, work and play." The environment is not just wilderness or the oceans or scenic landscapes. It is the day-to-day places occupied and used and built by people, and for most of humanity, this means urban environments. The result of this insight is "the environment" includes the environmental quality of homes, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods - and the infrastructure that makes human-environments function and liveable. And as the EJ movement has shown repeatedly, the environmental quality of "where we live, work and play" can vary enormously from community to community, whether we're talking about air pollution, solid waste management, access to quality schools or access to transportation. When we bring these two EJ insights together, what we have is a fundamentally social perspective on the environment - one that sees environmental quality as a reflection and a consequence of the relationships between people. Degraded environments and marginalized communities go hand in hand. Improving the environment does not just mean fixing environmental problems; it means changing the relationships between people. Improved public participation, more transparency by government and the private sector, fair and realistic opportunities for well being and economic security, and honest dialogues about social challenges, goals and needs - and of course, quality science.

Where we're going and what we need

At the ACE event, Professor Agyeman asked the panelists to talk about where they saw the EJ movement heading. What kinds of topics are drawing the EJ movement's interest now and into the foreseeable future? The panelists identified a number of topics and campaigns of growing interest: food justice, transportation justice, just sustainability, green justice, and economic justice. What's striking to me is how much more attention the EJ movement has placed on solutions-based or productive initiatives - programs to develop and promote positive or constructive change in marginalized communities and for the society at large. This is a significant change from the early EJ movement which was so focused (necessarily) on identifying problems and reacting to threats. But ACE's current ED, Kalila Barnett, struck a note of caution. She acknowledged the importance of the topics identified by the others, but she reminded us that the battles of the past are still with us. ACE and other EJ activists are still dealing with problems of localized air pollution, siting of noxious industry, waste siting, and discriminatory treatment. And while the Environmental Justice movement celebrates the anniversary of the founding of important institutions and organizations, its campaigns are still woefully under-funded. Environmental Justice has changed this country's environmental conversation, but it remains marginalized in support and funding in comparison to "mainstream" and environmental causes and organizations.

There is a lot to celebrate in the Environmental Justice movement, and there is a lot yet to be done. Leaders in the movement, like those highlighted by the EPA and by ACE, deserve our thanks and praise. For the movement to make positive change, we still need more people and organizations to step up. Thanks to those who have supported this cause and to those yet to do so. This is how we improve our environment and strengthen a movement and our society.

Recycling, Climate Change, and Youth

How young is too young to learn about greenhouse gas emissions, Life Cycle Analysis, and embodied energy?

This past Monday I had the opportunity to present these concepts to a group of 40 5th graders at Brickett Elementary School in Lynn, Massachusetts.  Their teacher, Donna Whalen, had invited me a couple months back to talk about recycling or climate change.  She and her class wanted to learn more about different environmental issues so that they could develop a public project to work on.  This was no small thing.

Mrs. Whalen and her industrious students are known regionally and nationally for their environmental activities. This past spring, Mrs. Whalen's 5th grade class won the Disney Planet Challenge for their project “Think Before You Idle,” which was an effort to decrease needless vehicle idling in Lynn. Their local initiative not only reduced this pernicious source of toxic air pollution near schools, it sent her and her students on a four-day trip to Disney World. Last year, Mrs. Whalen's 4th graders launched a campaign to educate residents about the need for rain barrels and convinced a local cable company to donate the use of one of its billboards to spread their message. The campaign earned them a visit by the Mayor of Lynn, and an official declaration of Monday as Rain Barrel Day in Lynn.  Two years ago, Mrs. Whalen's 4th grade class was recognized with a River Stewardship Award, and a state legislative citation, for their efforts to promote water conservation in Lynn and throughout the state. In fact, I first learned about Mrs. Whalen and her amazing students through a casual conversation with a member of the Saugus River Watershed Council during a regional climate change adaptation planning meeting convened by the Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council. This individual gushed about Mrs. Whalen and her students.

I'm not generally used to interacting with anyone younger than my cat (i.e. college aged), but this opportunity presented an interesting challenge. I could have talked either about recycling or climate change, but I offered to talk about the connections between these two important issues.

The main link between recycling and climate change is energy.  It takes less energy to make products from recycled materials than from virgin materials (a lot less in the case of aluminum).  The amount of energy expended in making products is significant because most of the energy we use (for heating, electricity, transportation, manufacturing) comes from burning fossil fuels (e.g. coal, oil, natural gas).   Using less energy means that we produce less carbon dioxide (CO₂) - the primary greenhouse gas implicated in human-driven climate change. Other greenhouse gases, such as methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), are also reduced in certain cases as a result of reduced use of chemical manufacturing processes. Greenhouse gas emissions are the primary issue in global climate change. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have the property of allowing sunlight to enter the atmosphere (kind of like the glass of a greenhouse), while blocking (or retarding) the escape of heat back into space (kind of like a global blanket).  This "greenhouse effect" is a natural process, but human industrial activity over the past two centuries has released a lot more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than is normal (more than has been seen in 800,000 years), meaning that a lot more heat than normal has been retained in the atmosphere.  As a result, the world is warming, the climate is changing, and we are experiencing all kinds of hard-to-predict and often undesirable environmental changes.

In the spirit of show and tell, I showed and told my presentation using a few simple props: a glass drinking bottle, a plastic drinking bottle, an aluminum can, and a newspaper.  We talked about the life cycle of each of these products: how they are created (e.g. did you know plastic is made from oil and natural gas?), how they are used, and what can happen to them after we are done with them.  In each case, we identified the resource consumption (e.g. trees, minerals) and the energy use and the greenhouse gases emissions that happen in each phase of a product's life (e.g. did you know it takes 95% less energy to make aluminum cans from recycled aluminum?).  Recycling (as I showed them in a PowerPoint slide), changes the lives of these products in significant ways: reducing natural resource consumption (e.g. did you know it takes 17 trees to make one ton of newspaper?), saving landfill space, reducing energy use, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As a final exercise, we walked through the process of actually calculating the greenhouse emissions that could be prevented if their school recycled all of the glass bottles it consumed. For this last exercise, I had prepared a simple worksheet (although not so simple to produce!) that allowed them to input their own values.

I have to admit that as the day of my presentation approached, I grew increasingly nervous that my lesson plan would be too complex, or worse, too boring.  I am happy to report that my fears were groundless.  These students were really there with me the whole time.  They listened eagerly and had lots of really good, clarifying questions.  Which recycled product has the biggest impact on energy and greenhouse emissions? The least?  If plastic is made from oil, is it possible to get that oil back?  How do all those tons of gasses stay up in the atmosphere?  I was equally impressed by what they already knew - about natural resource consumption, about recycling, about pollution. When we walked through the exercise to calculate their school's greenhouse gas emissions from glass consumption, they called out the answers at each step, and even corrected me when I made a couple of mathematical mistakes. Whoa.

I feel compelled to point out that these students are from a largely non-White, and low income community. These are not privileged kids - or at least not from a socioeconomic perspective. They are, however, clearly advantaged by the quality of this teacher and this institution.

These young people (e.g. 8 - 9 years old) are also clearly capable of understanding and engaging with complex environmental topics.  They need to be.  The social and environmental challenges that face us will undoubtedly span generations, and these young people will inherit these problems, as will their children.  I am hoping that this type of education, and its level of sophistication, can become the new norm.  Understanding the importance of environmental stewardship the way we understand and teach about the importance of washing our hands - something based on decades of complex, scientific research, but in the end comes down to a simple idea: it's good for our own health and welfare and those around us.

The Food Project 20th Anniversary Gala

On Wednesday evening Neenah and I attended The Food Project's (TFP) 20th Anniversary gala "20 Years of Growing Together". It was a spectacular event. It was held at the WGBH studios in Brighton and the venue was packed with TFP staff, supporters, and guests, and food stations featuring locally grown cuisine (a good portion grown by TFP youth) prepared by some of the area's top eateries. The gala was a celebration of TFP's accomplishments and growth, and an invitation for continued support of this amazing organization.

The guest speakers for the event were Gordon Hamersley, one of the most respected chefs in Boston, and Frances Moore Lappé, author or co-author of 18 books including Diet for a Small Planet. However, I have to say that our emcee, Robert Lewis, Jr., VP for Programs at The Boston Foundation, really made the event. Toward the end of the night he acted as the auctioneer, helping to auction off a variety of donated items and services, from catered dinners prepared and served by TFP youth, to a beautiful quilt. Two things really struck me: One, I had never seen a man speak so quickly and think even faster on his feet. Two, the level of bidding quickly rose well beyond anything I would have imagined, and I think I wasn't the only one who kept stock still for fear of signaling a bid. But it was fun to watch and gratifying to see individuals with the means and desire to support The Food Project. Of course, TFP relies not just on big donors for support. This organization needs the support of many people, at all levels, to keep doing its work for another two decades.

Since 1991, The Food Project has engaged high school students from diverse neighborhoods across the greater Boston area to grow sustainable food, and through this activity, engage in both social and personal change. The youth who participate are placed in unusually responsible roles where they learn about the land, each other, and the environmental and social justice issues challenging our society - and ways to personally and collectively facilitate positive change. Food from the farms is distributed through TFP's community supported agriculture programs and farmers' markets, and donated to local hunger relief organizations.

TFP is an unusual organization that operates at the nexus of environment, youth, and community. I have been a member of the Board of Trustees of this organization for more than two years now, and I invite you to learn about this wonderful organization and its good works. You can learn more at http://thefoodproject.org/. To contribute to or get involved with the The Food Project, visit http://thefoodproject.org/get-involved.

Spread World PEAS

On Thursday Neenah and I attended the New Entry Sustainable Farm Tour in Dracut, Massachusetts. The tour was arranged by World PEAS (People Enhancing Agricultural Sustainability). We and about 100 other curious visitors were invited to see how the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project trains people with limited resources who have an interest in small-scale commercial agriculture, to begin farming in Massachusetts AND to see how the food that the World PEAS CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) sells is grown. This is the second year that Neenah and I have been members of the World PEAS CSA and it was quite exciting to meet the people who grow our veggies and to see how the whole operation works.

We visited two working farms where a number of current trainees manage acre-sized plots (an acre is A LOT of land) to grow a variety of crops for market, to learn how to grow food organically, and to prepare to get their own commercial farms up and running. It was a beautiful day to be out - sunny, mild and dry. Of course, the nice weather belied the struggles the farmers have had with this year's unusually wet weather. Large areas of the farms were unusable because they were still too wet. Worse, the outbreak of late blight has devastated this season's tomato crop, especially for organic farmers. Nevertheless, the farmers we met were happy to share their experiences and answer questions.

The farmers we met with were a testament to the breadth of this program:

• A group of young people from inner city Lowell who are part of UTEC (United Teen Quality Center), a safe-haven program for youth development and grass-roots organizing. Teens involved in the UTEC Fresh Roots Program grow and cook healthy food to feed and educate their community. This group manages a two-acre organic vegetable plot in Dracut and a commercial kitchen in downtown Lowell. THEY DO COMMERCIAL CATERING for anyone in the Merrimack Valley. In fact, they prepared a full buffet for our visit, using the food they had grown, and it was incredible.
• Bill the farmer, an affable man and quick to laugh. When asked how he had come to the New Entry program, he said, "Through the unemployment office." He was out of work and needed to change directions. Now he's preparing a business plan for his own farm. He provided us with a bumper crop of peppers this season, and was one of the very few organic farmers to actually get red tomatoes!
• Adisson from Haiti. Adisson is a trained agronomist with experience in managing coops. He and his teenage daughter are growing a variety of vegetables with the idea of going back to Haiti to teach others how to grow food without pesticides.
• A Korean woman who already has a full time job and but manages her farm on the weekends.
• A number of farmers from southeast Asia who are experimenting with ways to grow tropical crops in Massachusetts.

The New Entry program and the World PEAS Coop represent a remarkably progressive approach to sustainable and socially just agriculture. Their goal is to advance local, organic agriculture by helping small scale farming operations by immigrants and others of modest means succeed. This is more than just environmentally friendly agriculture; it is a program to help empower otherwise marginalized people to help themselves and others.

Climate Change Squared

On Thursday I attended two very different and similar meetings on climate change.

Climate Change Meeting 1
The first meeting was with the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (REEP) - a youth-led environmental justice organization based in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. I visited with them at ACE in order to help them with their presentation on global warming. They have their script down pretty well - concise and basically right. Not surprisingly, there were some kinks and some needed clarifications:

1. The 'greenhouse effect' is actually a natural process. The problem is that we are over-enhancing it.
2. Global warming and the ozone hole are two different problems (a lot of people seem to confuse these two issues).
   
3. It's generally okay to use the terms 'climate change' and 'global warming' interchangeably, but 'global warming' should not be interpreted to mean it's just going to get warmer. The effects of climate change are not the same everywhere. The western US is getting drier and hotter, while the northeast is getting a lot more precipitation and stronger storms both in summer AND winter (including more intense ice storms).
4. The biggest immediate and chronic impacts on urban communities are heat stress and worsened air pollution. Heat stress is deadly for the very young, the very old, and the chronically ill - especially if you don't have A/C, have under-treated health conditions because you lack money or health insurance, and are stuck in a concrete environment with little or poorly maintained vegetation. Add to that the fact that smog - especially ground-level ozone and particulate matter - are enhanced by warm weather. Worse smog can be deadly, if not downright unpleasant, to the very young, the very old, and the chronically ill ... you get it. Houston, we have a problem.
   

Unlike most organizations raising the alarm about climate change, REEP is primarily interested in the meaning of environmental problems for vulnerable communities. It also means that they are looking for opportunities in this crisis. The last point is an interesting one, and it overlaps in interesting ways with the other meeting.

Climate Change Meeting 2
The second meeting (to which I arrived late because it was hard to stop talking over at ACE) was with the state's Climate Change Adaptation Advisory Committee. I've been attending the Key Infrastructure subcommittee. I need to thank Gene Benson from ACE, who was actually appointed by the Governor to the Committee, for suggesting me as a participant, as well as Brian Brodeur at DEP, for vouching for me to the subcommittee chair. The subcommittee meetings have been where the action is, but this big meeting was an opportunity to hear what all the other subcommittees have been doing regarding: coastal zones, public infrastructure, health and human welfare, terrestrial habitats, government and private business, etc. Each of the subcommittee chairs summarized their work to date, most of which had to do with identifying key vulnerabilities and suggested strategies. However, the point, as the Committee Chair reminded us, was not to "get into the weeds" on the details.

What's interesting to me, is the way in which many of the participants have seized on this crisis assessment as an opportunity for meaningful change - not just a panicked reaction to some imminent threat. As Ed Kuntz from DEP put it, we have the opportunity to change the whole paradigm of land use, economic development, and environmental management. Two strategies in particular stand out (at least to me):

1. Incorporating "nature-based" adaptation and mitigation strategies. This is similar to the idea of using "green infrastructure." Basically, this means recognizing and making use of the amazing variety and robustness of "services" that natural ecosystems provide. For example: wetlands for water filtration and buffering from storm surge; trees to provide cooling and absorption of excess water; open/green space to allow infiltration of rain and prevent excessive runoff and flooding, etc. Bob Zimmerman of the Charles River Watershed Association did an amazing presentation for the Infrastructure subcommittee on this issue.
   
2. Using the lens of community vulnerability to set priorities and design strategies. At a minimum, this means identifying those communities that are exposed to hazards AND less able to handle or recover from them - a concept known as resilience. It also means that when you look to clean things up, say by eliminating inefficient industrial practices or technologies, you begin by cleaning up the dirtiest in the most impacted neighborhoods. Finally, the lens of community vulnerability forces us to look for ways to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience by changing the very conditions that create vulnerability and low resilience - low socioeconomic status, geographic and social segregation, political influence, etc. First step: direct job and restructuring opportunities (i.e. stimulus funds) to communities most in need.
   

For all its threats, climate change presents a fascinating problem and a unique opportunity to redirect our society. Find more information on the Committee's website as well as notes from the public meetings. A final report to the state legislature is due December 2009.