Environmental Injustice Case Study

Political Climate of Environmental Injustice The political climate of environmental injustice movement does not seem promising. With a very polarized, divided Congress, and powerful monopoly run corporations, advocates have to battle—harder than ever to better their communities. Vig and Kraft point out the difficulties of getting environmental legislation passed through Congress when gridlock is occurring. They dissected the issue of policy gridlock into these main indicators: the diverging policy views due to partisan differences, separated powers and bicameralism which occurs when there are major disagreements between the House, Congress, and the President, the complexity of environmental problems where the injustice is so complex that

For instance, in the case study of Emelle, Alabama, the Alabamians for a Clean Environment group formed, only through the disagreement of the approaches of how Sumter Countainians Organized for Protection of the Environment was addressing the issue. One important aspect of advocacy is unification. Thus, when environmental justice groups are combating these issue within their community, they need to unite as a collective unit to enact the change they envision. A great example of a group that unified together to achieve success is the Love Canal tragedy, where the community members unified to pressure the government to act on the waste left underneath the elementary school. If there were not unified, the constituents residing around the Love Canal may not have forced the government to listen. Hence, my recommendation is for advocacy groups to learn from one another, embody off the success of one group, and collectively set a mission and outcome plan to combat these injustices. After all, Martin Luther King, a proclaimed civil rights leader once said, “there is power in unity, and there is power in

These statements have to “describe fully all of the harmful effects of the proposed actions, and evaluate whether there are other, less harmful, ways of accomplishing the same goal including nothing [no action]” Within this process, constituents are granted the right to provide feedback on their fears of health implications being inflicted in their communities. With the opportunity to have an active voice in this process, constituents need to take advantage of the opportunity to have this platform for their