- Environmental Justice (EJ)...refers to those cultural norms and values, rules, regulations, behaviors, policies, and decisions to support sustainable communities where people can interact with confidence that the environment is safe, nurturing, and productive. Environmental justice is served when people can realize their highest potential...where both cultural and biological diversity are respected and highly revered and where distributed justice prevails.
- Professor Bunyan Bryant, University of Michigan
Book: Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions
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- “Environmental
Justice” means equal protection from environmental and public health
hazards for all people regardless of race, income, culture, and social
class.
-State of Maryland
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- Environmental
Justice is the right to a decent, safe quality of life for people of
all races, incomes and cultures in the environments where we live,
work, play, learn and pray. Environmental Justice emphasizes
accountability, democratic practices, equitable treatment and
self-determination. Environmental justice principles prioritize public
good over profit, cooperation over competition, community and
collective action over individualism, and precautionary approaches over
unacceptable risks. Environmental Justice provides a framework for
communities of color to articulate the political, economic and social
assumptions underlying why environmental racism and degradation happens
and how it continues to be institutionally reinforced.
- Asian Pacific Environmental Network
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- Environmental
Justice, environmental equity, environmental racism. All three terms
have been used to describe a belief that poor and minority communities
suffer greater exposure to environmental pollution than other
communities: that these communities often bear a disproportionate share
of the burdens and realize few of the benefits of living near
industrial facilities; and that historically, these communities have
lacked the power or opportunity to participate in decisions affecting
them. Environmental Justice is not just an air, land and water
issue. A company's total impact on its neighboring communities -
ranging from its emissions reduction efforts to its local hiring and
purchasing practices to the scope and focus of its contributions to the
community - is now being examined by environmental advocates, the media
and regulatory agencies.
- A Plant Manager's Introduction to EJ
Chemical Manufacturer s' Association, Inc.
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- The
environmental justice movement has basically redefined what
environmentalism is all about. It basically says that the environment
is everything: where we live, work, play, go to school, as well as the
physical and natural world. And so we can’t separate the physical
environment from the cultural environment. We have to talk about making
sure that the justice is integrated throughout all of the stuff that we
do.
- Professor Robert Bullard, Clark Atlanta University.
July 1999. Earth First!
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- Environmental
justice means that, to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by
law, all populations are provided the opportunity to comment before
decisions are rendered on, are allowed to share in the benefits of, are
not excluded from, and are not affected in a disproportionately high
and adverse manner by, government programs and activities affecting
human health or the environment.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Dept. Regulation 5600-002
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- Environmental
Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people
regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to
the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws,
regulations and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people
should bear a disproportionate share of negative environmental
consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial
operations or the execution of federal, state, local and tribal
programs and policies.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),1992
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- Environment
means many things to many people. The Environmental Justice movement
defines the environment as the place where people live, work, study,
play and pray. Low-income rural, people of color, Native American,
working class, and ethnic communities are disproportionately victimized
by polluting industries. Many call this environmental racism. Many
low-income communities experience economic extortion by accepting the
presence of polluting industries in exchange for jobs and income.
Workers are subject to economic extortion by accepting health and
safety compromises in exchange for jobs and income. Alliances between
labor and the Environmental Justice movement are natural, desirable,
and crucial because workers and community residents are affected by the
same toxic releases.
- Public Health Institute and the Labor Institute,
“A Just Transition for Jobs and the Environment”
Volume 2, Pollution Prevention, Draft 2
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