Overview
You have a human right to clean air, clean water, pollution prevention, climate change, and to participate in the environmental decisions that affect your right. A clean and healthy environment is right for all, not just the few.
Environmental justice is a movement to address issues — such as clean air, clean water, and a healthy and stable climate— that affect all people, especially low-income and minority communities.
These communities are more likely to live in close proximity of industrial pollution, toxic wastes, and contaminated water, as evidence of “environmental racism.” Environmental advocates argue that discrimination against low-income and minority communities is not accidental, but results from decisions by for-profit institutions and government agencies that knowingly discriminate these groups. In this narrative, if people were to document the causes and consequences of discrimination, and organize around the issues, it might create change.
