Environmental Justice is a natural confluence of civil rights concerns and human-centered environmental concerns. It is the struggle against the inequitable dumping of toxic wastes and public nuisances in the geographic communities predominantly inhabited by disadvantaged populations, particularly racial minorities, and the impoverished. In Dumping in Dixie Robert Bullard lays out these disparities and the actions that have been taken against them, as well as proposing an approach to combatting them in the future. His strategy is well thought out, but fails to address the fundamental resource constraints of these communities.
He calls for a zero tolerance policy towards pollution. This bypasses the problem of the NIMBY approach by explicitly disallowing all pollution sources regardless of location. There are several problems with that. First is defining what constitutes pollution. An extremely cautious approach, which he certainly proposes, disallows any compound not previously approved for emission. This requires testing of each and every compound emitted, and as noted in Silent Spring should also compensate for potential interactions between compounds. Additionally, tracking down immobile sources of pollution is far easier than mobile sources, particularly vehicles, including cars, trucks, and motorboats. While these challenges are not insurmountable, they would require tremendous resources to address.
He calls for networking and leadership capacity building at the community level. In particular he talks about building up the neighborhoods themselves. He discusses bringing in social services, politically organizing residents and improving the material condition of the communities. This is also challenging, particularly in economically disadvantaged communities full of the working poor. Many such people may be holding down multiple jobs, or taking on a variety of labor intensive measures to save on expenses, which reduce the time they have available to engage in efforts to unite and empower communities.
He also discusses networking disadvantaged neighborhoods together and with the broader environmental movement. He particularly focuses on making the voices of the neighborhood interests heard in the environmental groups currently organizing around the majoritarian interests. He wants to broadcast the damage of the NIMBY approach, raise awareness of environmental injustice and link with other social justice movements, to create a broader awareness of the problems. This represents an additional drain, though more on human time and political capital than on direct financial and physical needs compared to the prior elements.
The strategy Bullard outlines has many promising features. It uses the existing community strengths. It empowers the people seeking the help and it encourages them to work together. It also suggests a global solution rather than a piecewise approach of fixing a single community at a time, potentially resulting in a game of hot potato with the lulus. Unfortunately, his strategy does not discuss a means of providing resources to power this plan to assist these already disadvantaged communities. Providing that element would dramatically improve the plan’s prospects, but that may be the fundamental problem to begin with.