Raja (Tanta) Munthe
Email: rbm38439@uga.edu
Why IMPACT?
My sister was a site leader for this exact same trip back in Spring 2017. She urged me to sign up for an IMPACT trip last year, and, upon going down the connecting hall at Tate, I was committed to signing up for a trip myself and decided on Disability/Ability Advocacy and Awareness. What brought me back and convinced me to try leading a trip was IMPACT’s focus on both service and learning, the mission of the organization, the cost of the whole trip, and the sheer amount of effort and care put into the trips and displayed by the Site Leaders. I am the typical pre-med Biology major (with a less typical minor in Statistics), but my interest in the topic of Environmental Justice lead me to put it on my list of desired topics.
Why Environmental Justice?
With the rising climate crisis, it is important to not forget the marginalized groups of people harmed by the ways we manage our resources and affect our environment. Although there are severe issues with the environment in the global scale, people should still be aware and responsive to the ways we treat our environment locally and how our attitudes towards it affect others.
Fun Fact:
Tanta is a city in Egypt, is an adverb in Spanish, means “aunt” in Indonesian, and is only part of my middle name- long story.
Alison Kaye
Email: alk70159@uga.edu
Why IMPACT?
During my second year at UGA, I happened across a link to the IMPACT application… about 3 hours before the application closed but I was pretty intrigued, so I decided to give a try. Flash forward a few months and there I was, boarding a van to Washington, D.C. to spend my Spring Break learning more about homelessness and poverty as well as the power of service. I loved my trip so much that I signed up again the next year and thought I would try again once more, but this time as a Site Leader! My two trips with IMPACT helped me realize my own passion for service and they were just the most fun (and affordable!!!) way to spend my Spring Break.
Why Environmental Justice?
During my freshman year I took an ecology class and was introduced to the effects of climate change and the challenges our environment faces today. This sparked an initial interest for me and I became pretty obsessed with lowering my ecological footprint for a while. I learned more about Environmental Justice during my second IMPACT trip where I realized the importance of green spaces and environmental regulations for the community. I think a lot of people take their access to clean, green areas for granted and don’t realize their importance until they enter a community that suffers due to a lack of regulation or total disregard for the health of the people. This makes it an interesting topic for me and I hope to commit myself throughout my life to this particular area of Social Justice.
Fun Fact:
For my 21st birthday I ran a half marathon in Amsterdam and I’m still reflecting on how I didn’t completely pass out halfway through
Key Terms
Environmental Justice: assurance that everyone, no matter their race or income-level, has a right to clean water, air, and a healthy environment. EPA Definition: “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.”
Sustainability: maintaining conditions where humans and nature can live together; ensuring the safety of our environment for years to come.
Environmental racism: “racial discrimination in environmental policymaking, enforcement of environmental laws and procedures, targeting of communities for the siting of waste disposal and polluting industries, excluding people of color from decision making boards.” (University of Washington)
Climate change: changes in global and regional climate patterns, particularly the threats of rising sea levels and increases in natural disasters due to these changes
Conservation: protecting natural resources!
History and Facts:
The Environmental Justice movement emerged out of the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s and really picked up in the ’80s. In 1982, Warren County, NC faced an environmental threat as the government decided to dump mounds of toxic-laced soil into the county. This caused a lot of fear in the poor and rural county because of the possibility of the toxins leaching into the water supply. They protested and attempted to fight the dumping through the courts but ultimately failed. However, the movement really picked up after this event due to its highly publicized nature and as attention began to grow around the environmental injustices dumped onto lower-income and historically minority communities.
In 1987, a study called Toxic Waste and Race examined the relationship between waste siting decisions and the US. The study found that “3 out of every 5 African Americans live in a community housing toxic waste sites” and concluded race was a significant factor in siting hazardous waste facilities (EJ History, Energy.gov).
In 1992, the Environmental Equity Working Group was created by the EPA as a federal response to the growth of environmental justice related protests across the country. In 1994, Executive Order 12898 under President Clinton added environmental justice to the federal government’s decision-making process. It also focused on the health of the environment in “minority, tribal, and low-income communities with the goal of achieving environmental justice.” (EJ History, Energy.Gov) It basically made environmental justice a fundamental part of federal decision making!
As far as federal agencies, there’s an environmental justice office within the EPA. Their mission is to “facilitate Agency efforts to protect environment and public health in minority, low-income, tribal and other vulnerable communities by integrating environmental justice in all programs, policies and activities.” (EPA and Environmental Justice)
You can find out more about your own community and environmental justice if you click this lil link right here https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/environmental-justice-your-community.
Environmental Justice and Athens/Georgia
Georgia is spotted with poor communities of various races, mostly black, hispanic, and white groups. Many of the poor reside in or near industrial zones with poor environmental care-taking and a plethora of environmental hazards be it unclean water, polluted air, unsafe construction materials, etc. Even among the poor there is a vast racial disparity between who shares the environmental burdens.
Learn More about EJ through these articles and videos:
- Environmental Justice page of the EPA with history, timelines, EPA roles, etc.
- What is Environmental Justice? from the University of Washington
- Ft Myers Environmental Justice Issues:
- Environmental Justice in Georgia
- Some more research papers and articles
- Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” by Julie Dermansky
- Examining Environmental Justice in Florida by Jeff Vass & Sam Wasserman :
Educational Videos
Environmental Justice, Explained
By ProPublica
A Brief History of Environmental History
By Grist
Intersectionality
Intersectionality: Expresses the overlapping nature of different identities and social justice issues. Environmental Justice relates to many other social justice issues, such as affordable housing, homelessness and poverty, and public health.
Here are some sources that talk more about how EJ relates to other social justice issues:
A Long Road Home: A look at natural disaster recovery and how Environmental Injustice relates to Housing Injustice, Homelessness and Poverty, and Income Inequality
American Environmentalism Should Embrace the Cause of Homelessness: Environmentalism is the belief that all people deserve to live in a healthy environment, but that belief is only occasionally applied to the homeless community.
The environmental “Riskscape” and social inequality: Implications for explaining maternal and child health disparities: This goes over the overlap between exposure to environmental hazards and maternal and child health.
Food Justice is Environmental Justice is Social Justice: Discusses the link between environmental justice and food security and how environmental justice affects the level of access to healthier foods.
Environment’s Effects on Human Rights: Human Rights Watch website page with videos and more articles on the effects of environmental injustices on people throughout the world.
Labor and Climate Justice: This article includes a letter from environmental justice groups to the Labor Movement about how the two go hand in hand in promoting a safe environment for workers.
A Short Course in Environmental Ethics: These writers from Santa Clara University speak about how Environmental Justice is effectively a human ethical issue that stems from society’s desire for justice and human well-being.
TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch: Van Jones takes a look at how plastic production, use, and disposal disproportionately affects poor people. By looking at this specific environmental issue, Jones demonstrates how ecological concerns and social justice issues combine and relate to form the Environmental Justice movement.
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