On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore is joined by Danae Hernandez-Cortes, an economist and professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University who studies environmental justice and the distributional consequences of environmental policy.
The conversation begins with a discussion of the new emphasis within environmental economics on environmental inequality, with researchers now focusing on questions related to where pollution is located with respect to disadvantaged communities and how policy affects the distribution of environmental harm. Comparing environmental inequality to general inequality is difficult to do precisely, but Hernandez-Cortes describes the distribution in environmental inequality as comparatively sharper. Race and ethnicity tend to be an additional variable, beyond income as indicator of exposure to environmental harm. Many current inequalities are the result of historical legacies of discrimination and racism. There are many moving parts when it comes to environmental inequality, and it can be hard to isolate the most important causal variables. (0:40-18:05)
Environmental inequality often correlates with other kinds of inequality where race is a factor. However, Hernandez-Cortes points out that her research suggests that health and environmental inequality are not as related as one would assume.
The conversation shifts to market-based mechanisms as solutions for mitigating environmental inequality. While they tend to have lower costs and are more efficient, Hernandez-Cortes points out that they can potentially lead to environmental disparities by reallocating pollution. The effect of market-based mechanisms on environmental inequality is theoretically ambiguous and depends on context. In her work on market-based mechanisms to control greenhouse gas emissions in California, Hernandez-Cortes has found they have actually reduced environmental inequality, despite significant skepticism from the environmental justice community.
Nevertheless, for Hernandez-Cortes, it is important to solve environmental justice problems with policies that focus on that issue even though broad environmental initiatives such as reducing aggregate pollution can sometimes reduce environmental inequality. Additionally, when it comes to policymaking, many activists look to be included in the process instead of just caring about the outcome. (18:07-47:06)
Hernandez-Cortes notes that the quality of the outcome of a policy can affect the composition of people in a place. But, to assess the role of place in environmental inequality, many details are needed as factors like housing and income also come into play. Gentrification generally only results from a policy that changes the environment significantly. Overall, environmental issues are typically multi-generational, and they interact with other place-based sources of inequality, such as housing discrimination or unequal access to schools or health care, to have long term negative consequences. At the same time, interventions to improve environmental justice can also lead to benefits far into the future, as the same dynamics play out as a virtuous cycle of improvement. (47:07-1:01:01)
Tag Archives: justice
Season 1, Episode 27
On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore interviews Gerald Torres, a professor at the Yale School of the Environment and Yale Law School and Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Justice. Torres explores the connections between environmental law and social justice from a scholarly and practical perspective.
The discussion begins with the Yale Center of Environmental Justice and its efforts to link together environmental justice initiatives across the university and community, including with local Native American tribes . (0:53 – 8:02) This raises the question of how to define work that relates to environmental justice. (8:06 – 14:11) This issue partly implicates whether environmental justice issues are a subset of a broader set of social justice claims or if they are distinctive from other areas. For Torres, one distinction is that the environment requires a broader and deeper perspective. (14:15 – 19:30) Another distinction is the focus of the EJ community on governmental decision making processes. (19:35 – 23:39)
The conversation turns to Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 12898 on environmental justice. Torres explains how the Executive Order attempted to create definitions of environmental justice communities and told agencies to incorporate environmental justice concerns in their basic processes. He compares the results of the executive order to the National Environmental Policy Act, which also had an emphasis on improving decision-making. (23:40 – 29:00) Torres emphasizes that the Executive Order responded to a broader social movement that grew out of social activism and communities mobilizing together. (29:01 – 30:57)
Livermore and Torres then discuss the relationship between environmental justice and political polarization over environmental issues. They reflect on the former bipartisan history of environmental protection and conservation and how opposition to environmentalism in the Republican party has grown increasingly intense in recent years. (31:00 – 39:00) Torres worries that the partisan nature of this debate will obscure the environmental successes that have been achieved over the last two generations. (39:01 – 43:48)
A current tension in environmental law is between local impacts of transitioning to clean energy and the need to decarbonize the economy. Torres explains the common complaint that procedural parts of environmental protection slow down decision-making, which increases the cost or permanently delays projects. But these statutes also protect the voice of disadvantaged groups. They discuss how net metering disputes in California have raised important justice issues as well. (43:50 – 54:00).
Torres reflects on the question of how well the current environmental movement has responded to EJ concerns. Torres, who is a trustee for Natural Resources Defense Council and is on the board for Earth Day, says both of these organizations have recognized the importance of integrating environmental justice concerns in the way they think about the environment. (54:02 – 57:45)
The conversation closes with Livermore asking Torres what makes him hopeful in light of the environmental challenges we face. Torres states that the broad recognition that we have to act on these issues, the social commitment in many places to environmental education, and his experience working with environmental justice communities have given him hope. (57:47 – 1:00:52)
Season 1, Episode 15
On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore speaks with Kimberly Fields, who is an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia’s Woodson Institute of African-American and African Studies. Her recent work has focused on environmental justice, race, and inequality at the state level.
The podcast begins with Professor Fields explaining why examining environmental policy at the state level is so important, emphasizing that many of the decisions that are made to implement federal policies are made by state legislatures. This results in a significant amount of variation between states not only in how aggressively they implement those policies, but also in the extent to which they are able to do so. Expanding on the variation between states, Fields finds that a number of factors can dictate how robustly a state will enforce environmental policies, from the prevalence of grass-roots activist groups in the state and the history of the state’s approach to environmental and social justice issues to the level of autonomy that a state regulatory agency has to implement federal policies. Fields also points out how disparities in equality and social justice often reflect disparities in environmental risk. (:44 – 16:30)
This leads to a conversation about how environmental advocacy compares with other forms of advocacy, and the challenges that smaller environmental advocacy groups have faced in their efforts to ensure that their concerns remain at the forefront of the legislative agenda. Important to this is the interaction between a state’s advocacy environment – how much support advocacy groups receive – and a state’s political attitude towards that advocacy – the extent to which the state legislature is open to working with advocacy groups. Professor Fields explains that partisanship has not, in her research, been a good indicator of how robust a state’s advocacy environment is. In fact, the more accurate indicator is the presence of significant minority populations in a state’s demographic make-up. Fields points to the Delta South as a region that has a strong culture of environmental justice advocacy, despite partisan politics that would suggest otherwise. This is the case for a number of reasons, from prominent politicians who are actively involved in advocating for environmental justice to a historical legacy of environmental advocacy in the South. (16:33 – 39:02)
Fields describes the state policy making process as one that is influenced heavily by local industries and the environmental concerns surrounding those industries. States also take differing approaches to race and environmental justice, with some states taking a very proactive approach to eliminating racial dimensions of environmental inequality and others adopting more neutral language. (39:08 – 46:59)
The conversation then expands into a broader discussion of the use race-focused language in environmental justice goals, why states might choose to utilize race-neutral language, and whether a race-neutral approach can adequately address the concerns of affected groups. (47:02 – 59:37)
The conversation concludes with a discussion of whether environmental justice issues at the state level reflect the same partisan polarization as is seen on so many issues at the national level. (59:41 – 1:05:29)
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