Kimberly Fields on Environmental Justice and the States
On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore speaks with Kimberly Fields, an Assistant Professor at UVA’s Woodson Institute of African-American and African Studies. She has recent work focused on environmental justice, race, and inequality at the state level. In this episode, Fields discusses the importance of environmental policy at the state level and how disparities in equality and social justice reflect disparities in environmental risk.
Episode is an appropriate teaching tool for but not limited to the following topics & courses: environmental justice, social justice, environmental policy
Discussion Questions
- How have states become central to environmental policy implementation in the U.S.? What discretion do they have and why does this matter?
- What are some key variables Fields identifies that can help explain differences in state-level environmental justice policies?
- How does Fields characterize the relationship between a state’s partisan composition and its environmental justice policy outputs?
- According to Fields, what role does a history of environmental justice activism play in a state adopting more robust policies?
- What are some differences between race-conscious and race-neutral approaches to environmental justice at the state level? Are these approaches incompatible?
- How can focusing too narrowly on remedying environmental racism potentially foreclose building broader political coalitions? What example does Fields discuss?
- What risks or downsides exist with delegating environmental justice policy development solely to regulatory agencies?
- How might procedural environmental justice relate to substantive outcomes? What processes does Fields recommend?
- How could environmental justice policy adoption provide “valuable information” even if the eventual policies seem inadequate, according to Fields?
- See Dismantling Injustice’s website and take a look at some of their model legislations. What do you think the benefits and shortcomings of such a project are? Do you consider this useful? Appropriate?
- What was Fields’ example of environmental justice transcending political divides in Pennsylvania? Could this approach work elsewhere?
- How can insights from fields like history and social psychology aid our understanding of environmental justice policy adoption?
- What new perspectives did you gain on partisan polarization and environmental justice from this discussion?
Additional Readings
- Manann Donoghoe, Andre M. Perry, and Hannah Stephens, “The US Can’t Achieve Environmental Justice Through One-Size-Fits-All Climate Policy,” Brookings Institute (Jun. 1, 2023).
- Erik Kojola & David N. Pellow, “New Directions In Environmental Justice Studies: Examining the State and Violence,” 30 Environmental Politics (2020).
- Robert D. Bullard, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, Beverly Wright, “Toxic Wastes And Race At Twenty: Why Race Still Matters After All of These Years,” 38 Environmental Law 371-411 (2008).
- Jill L. Harrison, “Environmental Justice and the State,” 6 Environmental & Planning (2022).
- Michael B. Gerrard & Edward MacTiernan, “Emerging State-Level Environmental Justice Laws,” Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive (2021).
- Dismantling Injustice. (Group creating model legislation to be used at the state and local level by environmental organizers and advocates).
- “Surviving Cancer Alley: The Stories of Five Communities.” Report. Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.
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