Response to Cole and Foster - Essay Example

Response to Cole and Foster According to Cole and Foster (56-57), despite momentous improvements in environmental safety over the past numerous decades, over 1.3 billion people worldwide live in dangerous and detrimental physical conditions. Unsafe waste creation and international transportation of harmful waste and toxic materials not only pose some significant environmental insecurity but also legal, health, political, ethical and dilemmas. Environmental racism is the process of putting minority or low-income communities in near degraded environments or environmentally hazardous such as pollution, toxic waste and urban decay (Cole & Foster 57). Cole and Foster (58-60) identify that there are questions arising and unanswered about environmental safety. Why is dumping done to some communities during others getaway? Why environmental guidelines are vigorously implemented in particular communities while others are spared? Can environmental fairness be incorporated into environmental security? "What institutional changes are needed in order to" attain a just and sustainable environmental society? In addition, what community systematizing strategies and public procedures are helpful tools against environmental racism? This paper studies environmental racism, why there is difficulty in redressing the situation even when it apparent and why it is important for all environmentalists to acknowledge the equity between environmental and social problems. Moreover, the paper analyses the risks associated with environmental racism and how the problem should be addressed. Environmental racism is a shape of institutionalized prejudice. America is in the leading front in terms of economic and military force globally. The US economic engine generates enormous wealth, consumerism and high living standards. Nevertheless, this growth machine also produces pollution, waste and ecological destruction. America has some of the finest environmental laws in planet Earth. However, in the genuine world, not all communities are created equal. Over an extended period, environmental regulations have lagged in achieving homogeneous benefits across all divisions of society. The laws in US allow some communities to be routinely poisoned while others are protected from environmental hazards (Cole & Foster 58). As mentioned earlier, environmental racism refers to the unequal or misappropriate distribution of environmental hazards by race or income. Between the two predictors of environmental hazard distribution, the risk is more profound in terms of race as compared to income. Studies show that the race appears to be the most-significant element when determining commercial dangerous waste facilities. Further, communities with highest numbers of hazardous waste amenities have the uppermost percentage of non-white inhabitants. More recent also show increasing disparities in racial allocation of waste facilities (Cole & Foster 59). In reference to Cole and Foster (59-60), nonwhite people worldwide must survive with unclean air and drinking water. In addition, they must contend with the location of toxic facilities such as incinerators, municipal landfills, hazardous waste treatment, disposal facilities and storage owned by private commercial industry, the military and even government. These environmental troubles are worsened by racism. Environmental racism is the environmental practice, policy or decree that dissimilarity disadvantages or affects (whether intended or unintended) groups, individuals or communities based on color, income race or. The phenomenon merges with industry practices and public policies to benefits countries in the North against the shifted costs of countries in the South. The quest for Environmental Justice Cole and Foster (61-62) outlines that, correcting environmental racism has become difficult even in conditions where the phenomenon is apparent. This can be pointed to statistical research in environmental studies about environmental racism that only establish correlations and not causation. Observers of environmental justice have questioned, in several occasions, whether the inconsistent distribution of environmental hazards has more vivid explanations or are appropriately attributed to racism. There are two explanations to the racial disparities in the environmental hazards misdistribution namely (1) lifestyle or social status and (2) free market effects. The commentators’ attribute that explanation these explanations hinder the procedures for redressing environmental hazards misdistribution. In agreement with Cole and Foster (61-64), lifestyle appeals to the description of social status the as fundamental element for misdistribution of hazardous wastes and other toxins. An equity workgroup by the U.S Environmental protection Agency in 1992 concluded that people’s activities determine their degree of hazardous environmental exposure. In addition, the workgroup concluded that environmental racism comes about because significant proportions of racial minorities not only live in metropolitan areas but also are more likely to reside near uncontrolled or commercial waste facilities. Indeed, it is true that most-racial minorities reside in metropolitans and that most of them are concentrated in dangerous workforce sectors like heavy industry and agriculture. This lifestyle makes them susceptible to environmental dangers since they face the hazards the in the air, water, food and at home hence relieves observer of all the capability of changing the situation (Cole & Foster 64). The second causation explanation, free markets or market dynamics, is the most common and possibly the most-important evidence to misdistribution of environmental hazards. This account is always addressed by the question, “between environmental hazard and class/racial makeup that one came first in the neighborhood?” However, the question does not include the period at which the waste facilities were located in different neighborhoods. The failure to address this time allows the possibility of reasoning that the location of the facilities was not disparately sited in minority of poor communities and that job market and housing dynamics led the minority people to the nuisance (Cole & Foster 64). As Cole et al outlines, the free market explanation argues that, due to the job market, individuals can choose to move away from hazardous waste facilities to better living environments leaving such areas affordable to the cultural minority groups. In such cases, even when environmental racism is apparent, redressing the situation is near impossible because of the market dynamics and status of the social minority group in the market. However, commentators argue that by failing to address the effects of waste facilities to their host communities, researchers have overlooked the possibility that the connection between the setting of these facilities and the social-economic features of the host communities may be a result of facets of the free-market system (Cole & Foster 65). According to Cole et al, proponents of market dynamics as the theory of misdistribution of hazardous wastes, however, acknowledge the influence precisely documented housing discrimination on market mobility and individual preference. The proponents note that such racial favoritism in rental and sale of housing relegates nonwhite individuals (especially African Americans) to the slightest attractive neighborhoods despite their income levels. In addition, according to the proponents, even after color people dominate a neighborhood, racial prejudice in circulation and imposition of environmental protection laws and zoning, lending performances by banks and conditions of municipal services my lead to further decline of neighborhood qualities. With additional decline, those who can leave such communities will go leaving the most-vulnerable subject to environmental racism. The two major explanations provide a blank insight to the reason for redressing environmental racism. On one hand, it may be the lifestyle of individual to choose to live in such areas of hazard wastes and, on the other hand, the market dynamic controls where and who lives in the society hence relocation of people might be difficult (Cole & Foster 65-6). Equal acknowledgement It is, therefore, important to for environmentalists of all stripes to address environmental problems, in the same way, as human social problems. It is important to have the bright idea of racism before binding environmental desperation to the term ‘racism.’ From a human point of view, racism points to the structural oppression of colored people especially African Americans in the society. The US Supreme Court regards racism as purposeful or intentional avoid motivated conduct based on race. This embeds racism action on individual actors. Therefore, labeling outcomes of environmental hazard exposure ‘racist’ require evidence the on a single actor (Cole & Foster 66-7). However, Cole et al argues that, claims of environmental racism are absent in the present judicial construction. Judicial response has always dismissed claims of environmental racism based on lack of evidence an on a discriminatory aim attached to individual perpetrators. This understanding of environmental racism by the judicial system is narrow-minded in its disappointment to contain the fact that the nature of environmental racism is more restrained than structural. It is true that, historically, disparate racial behavior was traceable to help avert racially motivated actions (Cole & Foster 68-72). However, partly to the punishments of such conduct, decision makers rarely seek such outcomes of racial intent. In agreement with Cole and Foster (72), understanding environmental racism, therefore, necessitates a conceptual framework, just like human racism, that (1) separates the dynamics within racial, environmental decision-making processes, (2) retains structural view of socio-economic forces that influence environmental racism, and (3) normatively appraisers environmental decision-making processes and social forces that contribute to misdistribution of environmental hazards. In this sense, environmental racism is not a different phenomenon but rather a manifestation of perpetual racially discriminatory practices in the society. Failing to acknowledge the idea of environmental racism is bound to several risks. Among the various risks include, (1) perpetual general racism among individuals in the society, (2) perpetual declining levels of living standards within the host communities of hazardous waste facilities, (3) increasing negative health effects to the discriminated individual arising from the toxicity of their life the in form of air, water, food and environment. Moreover, the risks will (4) support the ever-rising differences between the rich ants the poor within different races and (5) lead to the development of an ever-bitter society of the poor that is dangerous to the state (Cole & Foster 72-75). According to Cole and Foster (74-76), addressing environmental racism is a collective function of the law, the state, the citizens, the private sector and every other institution in the United States of America and worldwide in general. The law should appraise the existence of the phenomenon and address it like all other human or social problems. Research should produce adequate empirical evidence on the correlation between historical racism and environmental racism. Through addressing historical racial prejudices openly, both the government and the judicial construction will provide a platform for the citizens to acknowledge the phenomenon in the environmental perspective and take appropriate action. Nonetheless, the government and institutions should lay down fundamental methods of addressing the dynamic market to help address differences in racial job setting hence address environmental racism in such settings. Bibliography Cole, Luke W, and Sheila R. Foster. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York [u.a.: New York Univ. Press, 2001. Print. Read More