Power, Justice, and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement

Scholars and practitioners assess the tactics and strategies, rhetoric, organisational structure, and resource base of the environmental justice movement, gauging its successes and failures and future prospects. For almost 30 years, the environmental justice movement (EJM) has challenged the environmental and health inequities that are often linked with social inequities, calling attention to the disproportionate burden of pollution borne by low-income and minority communities. The successes of the movement have been celebrated, and the EJM’s impact on the direction of environmental policy, research, and activism is widely acknowledged. But the literature on environmental justice lacks a real assessment of the movement’s effectiveness. This book provides just such a critical appraisal, examining EJM’s tactics and strategies, rhetoric, organisational structure, and resource base. With chapters by both scholars and activists, the book links theory and practice with the aim of contributing to a more effective movement. Power, Justice, and the Environment looks first at the progress, failures, and successes of the EJM over the years, and includes a comparison of EJM with the Civil Rights movement that draws some provocative conclusions. The book next focuses on the development of new strategies and cultural perspectives, considering, among other topics, alternative models for community mobilisation and organisational structure. Finally, the book examines the effect of globalisation on environmental inequality and how the environmental justice movement can address transnational environmental injustices.