The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution (Paperback)

~ Robert D. Bullard (Editor), Maxine Waters (Foreword) "Hardly a day passes without the media discovering some community or neighborhood fighting an attempt to build near it a landfill, incinerator, chemical plant, or..." (more)
Key Phrases: acequia farmers, land grant activists, environmental justice advocacy, Los Angeles, United States, South Africa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bullard offers a disturbing account of the environmental and human cost of the excesses of capitalism in this follow-up to Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. This volume takes a fresh look at the often unequal distribution of environmental hazards to poor and minority communities, examining locations from Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" to Nigeria. In part one, women activists detail their gutsy battles against the combined power of business and government when their minority neighborhoods were threatened by industrial pollution. Part two tells the stories of people (again, mostly minorities and the poor) living in "sacrifice zones," such as Cancer Alley—the stretch down the Mississippi River in Louisiana where "approximately 80 percent of the total African American community in the nine parishes lives within three miles of a polluting facility." Parts three and four examine Chicano struggles in the Southwest and global justice issues, including "corrupt... petro-capitalism" in Nigeria, where deep poverty persists despite the country's oil wealth. Readers can learn much about those who pay the costs in safety and health for many of modern life's conveniences. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

This much anticipated follow-up to Dr. Robert D. Bullard’s highly acclaimed Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color captures the voices of frontline warriors who are battling environmental injustice and human rights abuses at the grassroots level around the world, and challenging government and industry. policies and globalization trends that place people of color and the poor at special risk.
Part I presents an overview of the early environmental justice movement and highlights key leadership roles assumed by women activists. Part II examines the lives of people living in “sacrifice zones”—toxic corridors (such as Louisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley”) where high concentrations of polluting industries are found. Part III explores land use, land rights, resource extraction, and sustainable development conflicts, including Chicano struggles in America’s Southwest. Part IV examines human rights and global justice issues, including an analysis of South Africa’s legacy of environmental racism and the corruption and continuing violence plaguing the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Together, the diverse contributors to this much-anticipated follow-up anthology present an inspiring and illuminating picture of the environmental justice movement in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 414 pages
• Publisher: Sierra Club Books; 1 edition (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578051207
• ISBN-13: 978-1578051205
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #202,568 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Empowering, January 28, 2006

By	Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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"The Quest for Environmental Justice" by Robert D. Bullard (editor) is an excellent primer about the environmental justice ('E.J.') movement. Blending U.S. environmental and social justice activists together in the late 1970s, the E.J. movement has grown to become a significant multinational political force. The numerous authors who have contributed to this volume explore the movement's rich history and chronicle many of the noteworthy struggles that have improved the lives of many people and can provide inspiration and hope to us all.

The introductory chapters include a Foreword by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who played an important role in a campaign that successfully relocated the largely African-American community of Norco, LA away from a highly polluting oil refinery; a Preface by Peggy Morrow Shepard, who believes that the E.J. movement is key to reinvigorating the mainstream environmental organizations; and an Introduction by Mr. Bullard, who recounts how some of the core principles of the E.J. movement were institutionalized at the EPA during the Clinton adminsitration.

The book is divided into four sections.

The first section, "A Legacy of Injustice" discusses the history of the E.J. movement. "Environmental Justice in ther Twenty-first Century" by Mr. Bullard compares and contrasts the Summit I and Summit II meetings to discuss both the growth of the movement and how its organizational tactics and principles have developed over time. "Neighborhoods 'Zoned' for Garbage" by Mr. Bullard drills into the author's personal experiences fighting zoning decisions in Houston, TX that first brought the fledgling E.J. movement to prominence. "Women Warriers of Color on the Front Line" by Mr. Bullard and Damu Smith offers a series of vignettes written by seven exceptional women who have led community-based campaigns to victory, often against formidable and well-financed corporate opponents.

The second section is about "The Assault on Fence-Line Communities". Beverly Wright's "Living and Dying in Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley'" connects the legacy of slavery and racism with environmental exploitation and relates the successes of historic African-American towns such as Convent, LA in achieving a small measure of justice for its citizens against a large Japanese multinational corporation. Manuel Pastor, Jr. et al's "Environmental Inequity in Metropolitan Los Angeles" documents the myriad ill health effects that are produced by the disproportionate siting of hazardous sites in minority neighborhoods. Olga Pomar's "Toxic Racism on a New Jersey Waterfront" discusses the legacy of industrial pollution in Camden, NJ and the importance of developing legal tools that communities might use to more effectively petition government to secure their rights.

The third section is on the topic of "Land Rights and Sustainable Development". "Anatomy of the Urban Parks Movement" by Robert Garcia and Erica Flores explores the unequal distribution of parkland in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Latino community's struggle to create an inner city park at an area known as the Cornfields. "Resource Wars Against Native Peoples" by Al Gedicks weaves together the experiences of native peoples in Columbia, Ecuador and the U.S. who are resisting the sacrifice of their lands in the name of unsustainable consumption. "Tierra y Vida" by Devon Pena documents the Chicano experience in the southwestern U.S. including struggles with powerful mining, agriculture, waste disposal, real estate and water interests that have long exploited labor and land for profit.

The fourth section is "Human Rights and Global Justice". Robin Morris Collin and Robert Collin's "Environmental Reparations" calls for mainstream environmental organizations to create a more inclusive environmental movement by acknowledging the interconnectedness of rural and urban ecosystems and to fight for E.J. reparations in minority communities. Deborah Berman Santana's "Vieques" is an inspiring account of resistance by the Puerto Rican people and their struggle to create a sustainable local economy. Oronoto Douglas et al's "Alienation and Militancy in the Niger Delta" details the abysmal situation that has been created in Nigeria by the confluence of oil money and government corruption but suggests ways that might prove helpful in ending the violence and nurturing a responsible form of democracy to take root.

David McDonald's "Environmental Racism and Neoliberal Disorder in South Africa" offers perhaps the book's most insightful analytical work by demonstrating how white overaccumulation and black deprivation in South Africa may explain why neoliberalism has supplanted the apartheid system as the primary means by which the privileged class has maintained its claim on scarce environmental resources. Mr. Bullard et al's "Addressing Global Poverty, Pollution and Human Rights" provides a succinct and impassioned case for addressing inequities based on race, sex and class in order to create a sustainable global community for all to share.

I highly recommend this cogently written and empowering book to everyone.

3.0 out of 5 stars A Collection of Case Studies Not a Profound Analysis, January 30, 2009

By	Daniel Lobo (Washington, DC More often than not.) - See all my reviews

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The Quest for Environmental Justice is an interesting collection of essays that highlight several case studies of activism with a predominant USA angle to them. Edited under the supervision of Dr. Bullard the book falls short of offering a strong underpinning to the environmental justice thinking and challenges, to instead concentrate on examples of abuses, and community actions.

Additional debate and analysis around the challenges facing environmental justice, and social equity, and the different currents of policy affecting it would have made a more interesting collection. The book feels like an addendum to other volumes by Bullard that are far more focused. Here after a generic if solvent highlight of where environmental justice is at as a movement, he jumps to stress the importance of it for color communities, which while an essential part of the issue, feels somewhat unestructure as if one were working on the assumption that the preceding work of Bullard is know by the reader, and leaving a hint of excluding flavor when one takes a global perspective.

It is true that the work around environmental justice and African American communities in the USA is probably the most important contributions of Bullard, but here it feels like a drag for a volume that would have seem to aspire embracing other communities and a broader outlook. Fortunately some of the contributions explore case studies affecting other communities and a couple venture to narrate struggles outside the USA. A few of those essays do offer a very insightful analysis of environmental justice challenges and there resides the strenght of the volume. However, for a broader, more comprehensive an incisive work on environmental justice, instead of a collection of case studies one would need to go elsewhere.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Intentions, January 30, 2006

By	Natalya S. Polishchuk (GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Bullard, et al. have good intentions in that they want to correct environmental injustice and racism. However, sometimes they are too quick to call racism or get bogged down in statistics. My favorite chapter was the one on the Vieques people of Puerto Rico. If anything, I learned a lot about world politics.