Difference between revisions of "Category:Environmental Justice"

Environmental justice asserts that everyone should be able to live in a clean environment and be healthy, not just those who can afford it. See also Native Americans, Chemicals and Air, as well as labor and Solid Waste. See also Human Rights as well as Water.

Global Warming and climate change may be the ultimate EJ topic. Early Warning Signs from all over the world from Slate and NPR Living on Earth. See also Bangladesh article. Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting provides a view from Bangladesh, a nation already reeling from the impact of climate change.12/09 UPDATE: Oxfam report 9/12.

Extensive EJ Bibliography by Sarah Frohardt-Lane

Katrina five year anniversary shows EJ still a factor in the Big Easy, but Brad Pitt's green houses are a bright spot (audio).

News and Reports

Nail salon workers suffer chemical exposures that can be like working at a garage or a refinery 11/19 see chemicals.

How ‘Freeway Revolts’ Helped Create the People’s Environmental Law 6/19.

‘Plastic Is Lethal’: Groundbreaking Report Reveals Health Risks at Every Stage in Plastics Life Cycle 3/19 see Plastic.

EPA Adds Prison Locations to Its Environmental Justice Mapping Tool

Data faked on cleanup Bayview Hunter's Point chem/ radiation (interview audio) 4/18 see Chemicals.

African Americans Disproportionately Suffer Health Effects of Oil and Gas Facilities11/17 see Air.

The Color of Pollution: How Environmental Contamination Targets People of Color With about 42,000 active wells, Kern County, California is home to three-quarters of California's oil drilling and 95 percent of the state’s hydraulic fracturing (fracking) activity. This mainly rural region is the largest oil-producing county in the U.S. The influence of oil and gas is so great here that in late 2015 the county board of supervisors approved a new ordinance to allow drilling permits for tens of thousands of new wells to be fast tracked. Time span for the new ordinance? Two decades. Ongoing environmental review? None. Public participation? Not allowed. 10/16.

CA irrigating our crops with benzene and arsenic laden wastewater left over from fracking 1/16

Lax Regulatory Enforcement Leaves Thousands at Risk of Lead Poisoning in California 11/15.

Pesticide Exposure Linked to Abnormal Sperm 11/15.

A look at the weak regulations around oil drilling in L.A. 10/15.

Dirty Air: The Silent Killer in Black Communities: The system of discrimination that supports racist policing is the same system that supports environmental racism. 11/15.

Labor conditions are awful at chicken plants, according to big report.

Landfills see Solid Waste 11/15.

ONE OF THE FIRST FREE TOWNS FOUNDED BY FORMER SLAVES IS BEING TAKEN OVER BY BIG OIL see also here. 10/15.

6 Things to Know About the EPA’s New Pesticide Rules For the first time since 1992, the EPA has updated rules governing the use of pesticides, which will protect the more than 2 million workers who produce America's food. 10/15

THE POISONED POOR: IN POOR COUNTRIES MAN-MADE TOXIC POLLUTANTS SPREAD LIKE CANCER AND HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD CARE 8/15.

Kids and pesticides 5/15.

New York’s emergency crackdown on abuses at nail salons, explained 5/15. see chemicals.

We graded the feds on their environmental justice programs — here’s how they fared 5/15.

2/15 Convergence emerges: Yellowstone River pipeline spill (after Gulf BP spill) PLUS Torrence refinery explosion (after Richmond CA), PLUS 200 offshore CA fracking well PLUS bomb trains exploding show a pattern we can't ignore. Uprising radio (audio) with Antonia_Juhasz, author of Black Tide and The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry--and What We Must Do to Stop It , video. See also Energy.

How One Community Is Kicking The Koch Brothers' Harmful Black Dust Out Of Their Neighborhood Chicago’s struggling southeast side on the banks of the Calumet River, where the steel plants that used to give residents of a mostly Hispanic neighborhood access to a middle-class lifestyle were replaced, nearly two years ago, with black dust called petroleum coke (“petcoke”) piled five or six stories tall. 2/15. See Fossil Fuels.

2012 Chevron Richmond Refinery Fire Was Result Of Flawed Safety Culture, Report Finds 1/15.

Fracking Threatens Millions of Californians A new report shows that 5.4 million Californians—more than 14 percent of its 38.3 million population—live within a mile of an oil or gas well, and almost four million of those, or nearly 70 percent, are Hispanic, Asian or African-American, according to a new Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report Drilling in California: Who’s at Risk? Non-whites make up slightly more than 40 percent of California’s total population. 10/14. see Fracking.

California’s cap-and-trade program will fund environmental justice see EJ and CA.

Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup has been linked to a mysterious fatal kidney disease epidemic that has appeared in Central America, Sri Lanka and India. 7/14

Autism Risk Higher Near Pesticide-Treated Fields, Study Says 6/14 see Chemicals.

Research from Environment America shows that 2012 was a bigger year for toxic chemical dumping than most of us could have imagined. Industrial facilities across the U.S. dumped more than 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals into waterways in 2012, according to the “Wasting Our Waterways” report. The figures about the nation, as a whole, are stark, as are figures about individual regions and companies. For instance, Tyson Foods Inc. alone dumped more than 18.5 million pounds—about 9 percent of the nationwide total. Report pdf 6/14.

EPA’s next challenge: Protect communities in nation’s industrial dumping grounds] 5/14.

Governor Jerry Brown thinks fracking has "zero impact," but we know a few towns in the Central Valley that beg to differ. Kern County is California's most-fracked county. It also has the worst air quality in the nation, as well as highly elevated rates of cancer and respiratory illness.

Little oversight of chemical plants 5/14.

Chemical plants endanger 134 million Americans. Who gets the worst of it? 5/14.

Pesticides and school report 5/14.

Pesticides Can Lower Intelligence (includes Salinas Valley) 4/14.

Toxic Tech: Apple And Other Manufacturers Have to Stop Poisoning Their Workers 4/14.

Baykeeper recently helped scuttle proposals by developers for two dangerous new facilities to export dirty coal from the Port of Oakland. Coal breaks apart easily, forming dust that contains mercury, arsenic, uranium, and other toxic substances. Transporting millions of tons of coal in mile-long open car trains to the port, and then loading it onto ships, would send toxic dust into the Bay. It would also further pollute the air of nearby communities already suffering from disproportionate pollution. 3/14.

Interactive/ Maps

Communities Environmental Health Screening Tool (CalEnviroScreen) identifies California communities by census tract that are disproportionately burdened by, and vulnerable to, multiple sources of pollution. 11/18.

EPA Adds Prison Locations to Its Environmental Justice Mapping Tool 9/17.

How Close Do You Live to a Toxic Waste Site?

People

See Majora Carter, Van Jones, Winnona LaDuke and others on the Eco-Heroes page, as well as the links below.

Will Allen, son of a sharecropper, former professional basketball player, ex-corporate sales leader and now farmer, has become recognized as among the preeminent thinkers of our time on agriculture and food policy. The founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Will is widely considered the leading authority in the expanding field of urban agriculture. MacArthur Genius recipient.

Robert Bullard, sociologist widely regarded as the first to articulate the concept of environmental justice. See A Fierce Green Fire excerpt. One of the leaders of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991. Most recently has been writing about Hurricane Katrina as the latest environmental sacrifice zone. Professor Bullard was featured in the July 2007 CNN People You Should Know, Bullard: Green Issue is Black and White - CNN.com In this interview Bullard explains why the environmental justice movement is different than mainstream environmental organizations. (See Books below). How have hurricane responses also created Superfund sites in poor neighborhoods? Bullard discusses this in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Grist interview.

Majora Carter video ***** Environmental Justice. One of the most effective persuasion examples you'llever find, and not coincidentally one of the most-watched TEDtalks.

Lois Gibbs is a pioneering environmental activist who discovered that her son’s elementary school was built on top of a toxic waste dump in Niagara Falls, NY. Upon subsequent investigation she discovered that her entire neighborhood was built on the same dump, known as the Love Canal. (short video) Gibbs now runs The Center for Health and Environmental Justice. CHEJ can help citizens understand the technical issues and how to get support in fighting environmental injustice. Recent interview (text) with UCSC alum.

West Virginia coal activist Maria Gunnoe is used to intimidation. Gunnoe has been an activist for years, in 2009 winning the Goldman Environmental Prize (video} for her work trying to stem mountaintop-removal mining. The prize came with a $150,000 award – money she planned to use modestly: to extend the city water system to her house. But she was recently threatened with child porn charges by Republican legislators. She is in the documentary Burning the Future.

Van Jones (Oakland CA Environmental Justice). Jones, civil rights leader and founding and executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Jones has made a name for himself linking prisons and environmental injustice, working in a pro-active way to ensure that marginalized inner city youth will not miss out on the next wave of “green capitalism.”In this short one page article Van Jones argues against the environmental limits idea, but showing that the damage from Hurricane Katrina was not just the force of nature, but the negligence of the U.S. government. Good simple article for considering how environmental justice gets defined. A better sense of his ideas are in Ec0-Apartheid on green collar economy.Interview 2008 book on greening the economy. Book Excerpt. Here is an Oct 2008 interview (audio). 5/09 audio interview 5/10 audio interview, including how he got attacked and forced to resign from Obama administration). His blog. extended 2010 interview. Powershift 2011 talk (video). New book Rebuild the Dream (2012) audio interview. Videos on BigThink. Tedtalk on plastic.

Winona LaDuke Native American activist. article on native rice and GMO's..

Lopez, Anna A , who obtained her PhD in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz, wrote The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. (also Google book). She now runs Center for Farmworker Families based in Felton (volunteer?).

Wangari Mathai First environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. 11/06 Interview (audio). 2007 audio interview. A new documentary shown on PBS Taking Root, trailer )(UCSC owns it: McHenry Media Center DVD6865 and DVD7441) Living on Earth series including her history. Video of 2009 talk "Challenge for Africa." Sadly, she recently passed away at age 71.

The democratically-elected president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, has emerged as an international leader on climate change issues, since the low-lying island nation is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise. But public protest and police mutiny linked to his predecessor forced Nasheed out of office in February. audio interview with documentarian.

Penny Newman, CA Executive Director for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ), a non-profit organization working on environmental justice issues. The Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice is one of the oldest and most accomplished environmental justice/health organizations in the nation. CCAEJ’s believes the key to effectively solving community problems lies in bringing the diverse segments of the community together in democratically based, participatory organizations and networks in ways that empower. Penny Newman has gained wide recognition for her work on Environmental Justice issues with the emergence of toxic waste sites in the early 80’s. Her activities at the Stringfellow Acid Pits, California’s top priority Superfund site, led to extensive public policy changes on the state and federal level. Penny’s primary expertise on public participation methods and community organizing has made her a highly sought speaker on environmental health and justice issues.

Living under the constant threat of assassination, Francisco Pineda courageously led a citizens' movement that stopped a gold mine from destroying El Salvador's dwindling water resources and the livelihoods of rural communities throughout the country. Learn more at goldmanprize.org.

Rosa Hilda Ramos turned personal tragedy into a positive outcome for people and the planet (environmental justice).

Human Rights in Cancer Alley by Ike Sriskandarakah The residents of Mossville Louisiana live in the shadow of 14 petrochemical refineries. Community members allege that their high rates of cancer stem directly from these plants. After years of making this argument in American courts they sought a higher judicial body. Now, for the first time ever, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hear an environmental human rights case against the United States. Audio 4/10(7:30)

Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza are fighting for justice after what has been called one of the most catastrophic environmental disasters in history. They leading an unprecedented community-driven legal battle against a global oil giant. According to the plaintiffs, beginning in 1964 and through 1990, Texaco dumped nearly 17 million gallons of crude oil and 20 billion gallons of drilling wastewater directly into the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Books

The Poisoned City video talk BookTV talked to journalist Anna Clark about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. interview 11/18 see Water

Ellen Griffith Spears'Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town. see Chemicals.

In his new book, Tomatoland, food writer Barry Estabrook details the life of the mass-produced tomato — and the environmental and human costs of the tomato industry, including slavery. audio interview and excerpt 5/11

Lopez, Anna A , who obtained her PhD in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz, wrote The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. (also Google book). She now runs Center for Farmworker Families based in Felton (volunteer?).

Robert Bullard (bio), sociologist widely regarded as the first to articulate the concept of environmental justice. Dumping in Dixie (excerpt) Most recently has been writing about Hurricane Katrina as the latest environmental sacrifice zone. In this interview Bullard explains why the environmental justice movement is different than mainstream environmental organizations.

In Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children, Markowitz and Rosner chronicle the battles that have taken place over lead poisoning for the last half-century, with special emphasis on a study in which researchers from Johns Hopkins University conducted what the Maryland Court of Appeals deemed unethical research on African-American children. Knowing that some of the children in their study could be exposed to lead from old paint in the apartments they were moved into and so at greater risk for learning disorders and behavioral problems, they went ahead anyway. If it sounds to you like some dark corollary to the notorious Tuskegee experiment, in which hundreds of black men with syphilis were denied treatment with penicillin so that U.S. government researchers could study the course of the disease, you’re not alone in thinking it. The Maryland Appeals Court thought so, too. But while the Tuskegee study began in the 1930s, when protocols for protecting people from medical experimentation were lax, the Johns Hopkins research started in the 1990s, when regulations supposedly provided ample protection from harm at the hands of public health professionals.More.

Black, White, and Green is one of the first books to carefully theorize the green economy, to examine the racial dynamics of food politics, and to approach issues of food access from an environmental-justice perspective. See also Urban Agriculture.

In Sacrifice Zones, Steve Lerner tells the stories of twelve communities, from Brooklyn to Pensacola, that rose up to fight the industries and military bases causing disproportionately high levels of chemical pollution. Lerner is the author of Eco-Pioneers: Practical Visionaries Solving Today's Environmental Problems 1998) and Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor (2005), both published by the MIT Press. video

Faber, Daniel, Capitalizing on environmental injustice : the polluter-industrial complex in the age of globalization / Daniel Faber. Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c2008. Google Book

Environmental justice and environmentalism : the social justice challenge to the environmental movement/ edited by Ronald Sandler and Phaedra C. Pezzullo Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2007 S&E Stacks - GE220 .E578 2007

Organizations

EJ Resource Center.

Lopez, Anna A , who obtained her PhD in Environmental Studies from UCSC and spoke at core plenary 2013, wrote The Farmworkers' Journey (also Google book). She now runs Center for Farmworker Families based in Felton.

Hip-Hop Caucus

EarthRights International (ERI) is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization that combines the power of law and the power of people in defense of human rights and the environment, which we define as "earth rights." We specialize in fact-finding, legal actions against perpetrators of earth rights abuses, training grassroots and community leaders, and advocacy campaigns. Anti-corrpution, True Cost of Chevron.

Greenaction: To learn more about Bradley Angel's Environmental Justice work with Greenaction and what you can do to help the people of Kettleman City link

Environment Justice for All Recently did a national tour, and has posted videos (including Oakland, Silicon Valley, Hunter's Point, Delano).

LCV drive to increase Latino voices 1/14.

(S)heroes of EJ, by EJ Resource Center.

Directory of EJ organizations, including Pesticide Action Network***.

Airhugger features important grass roots monitoring by Global Community Monitor, their citizen science Bucket Brigades have gathered data on the East Bay(their community partners), including diesel exhaust as well as Chevron Richmond refinery fire. Also metal recyclers and Fracking. You can help.

Communities for a Better Environment*** had Bucket Brigade to do citizen science. Important in Richmond refinery issue. Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) is one of the preeminent environmental justice organizations in the nation, founded in 1978. They work on environmental justice mostly on refineries. See above

Bay Area EJ orgs.

Environmental Working Group chemical index, also asbestos and Health/Toxins

Pesticides overview from Encyclopedia of Earth

CA Department of Toxic Substances

CA brownfields

Toxicological profiles (Look up chemicals and what they do.

Pesticide use data

New CA law helps us protect ourselves

Sierra Club Useful Sierra Club site.

Children's Environmental Health Network

Eco-USA Superfund sites, organizations

Database search organizations

Natural Resources Defense Council

Pesticide Action Network *** has specific info on California.

Californians for Pesticide Reform

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition*** has info on electronic waste and mfg industry (run by a Slug!).

Public Justice Public Justice's Environmental Enforcement Project uses citizen suits and other litigation to force compliance with environmental laws, including mountaintop removal.

Video

(See also Environmental Films)

Majora Carter video ***** Environmental Justice.

Bangladesh: Tanneries Harm Workers, Poison Communities October 10, 2012.

2011 Goldman Prize for North America: Hilton Kelley, Port Arthur Texas, USA, now featured in a documentary Shelter in Place.

Quileute 'Twilight' Tribe Deals With Rising Sea Levels That Threaten Way of Life Nov. 26, 2012 PBS Newshour.

The Island President(synopsis) is the story of President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, a man confronting a problem greater than any other world leader has ever faced—the literal survival of his country and everyone in it. After bringing democracy to the Maldives after thirty years of despotic rule, Nasheed is now faced with an even greater challenge: as one of the most low-lying countries in the world, a rise of three feet in sea level would submerge the 1200 islands of the Maldives enough to make them uninhabitable. He was forced out in a coup. (trailer).

Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action.

Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making US Sick? PBS study of food and other factors.

Van Jones "A New Green Deal" (see Eco-heroes). 2009

Unnatural Causes is a seven hour documentary on environmental justice shown on PBS. Extensive coverage of Native Americans, food, diabetes and asthma. More information and segments ***

Maquilapolis: City of Factories

Toxic Tour (Deborah Woo's East Bay tour) / produced by Community Television of Santa Cruz County 1998 Media Center VT6652.

Toxic Imperial Valley.

Climate Refugees

The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa

Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia

The GardenThe fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis. The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers. See Urban agriculture and Food Scarcity

Ain't I a Person? new documentary on poverty in America (trailer)

Green Latinos.

Audio

Planet Harmony is FUBU green stories, including eco-heroes.

EPA Head and Cancer Alley 8/11.

The Promised Land is a public radio show about leaders and visionaries who are transforming lives and communities for/by people of color. Includes Majora Carter and Winona LaDuke.

Toxic sites in California and how we are dealing with them (includes brownfields and Hunter's Point).

Urban Forests contains stories about revitalization of the Bronx, as well well as a link to Tales of Urban Forests and

Brownfields are abandoned industrial hazardous waste sites, the most infamous is Love Canal, another site, which helped spark the third wave of the American eco-movement. CA railroads are offering land for development. Now, these are an important aspect of environmental justice.

Dr. Beverly Wright is a sociology professor at Dillard University and director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice in New Orleans. Dr. Wright says she's seeing a significant change in EPA's attitude toward environmental justice issues, starting with the new administrator Lisa Jackson.

Agricultural pesticides. Much of inland California is rural and poor, a sharp contrast with hip, upscale coastal life. Residents in the rural regions sometimes live with a high degree of pollution. LOE.org roducer Devin Robins visited three women who became activists over concerns for their communities’ health. 3/10

In collaboration with the online magazine theRoot.com, Tell Me More speaks with a panel of writers and advocates. Environmental justice activist Majora Carter, along with Dayo Olopade and Kai Wright from theRoot.com tell us what they think about being both black and green. April 22, 2009. Link

NPR's Tavis Smiley takes a closer look at how the so-called "environmental justice" movement has evolved with Barry Hill, director of the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice, and Vernice Miller-Travis, co-founder and board member of West Harlem Environmental Action. 2004.

Interview w/ Hilton Kelley, Environmental activist in Port Arthur, Texas, and 2011 Goldman Environmental Recipient for North America. 4/11 Link

RISE: Part I Sounding the Waters Series: RISE: Climate Change and Coastal Communities. Sea level rise, includes Bay Area. San Francisco Bay is the largest estuary on the Pacific coast of the Americas. Part 3: Chuey Cazares has lived all of his 21 years in Alviso, a tiny hamlet jutting into the salt ponds at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay. Part of a close, extended Chicano family, with hundreds of relatives living in town, Chuey works as a deck hand on a shrimp boat off Alviso's shores. His town's history — and its future — are defined by water. In the 1800's, farmers drained the aquifer, and the land sank thirteen feet below sea level. Then, the conversion of wetlands to salt ponds made the rivers back up during heavy rains and flooded Alviso. Now sea level rise from the Bay and more rain swelling the rivers threaten more frequent flooding. Chuey's family was traumatized by the last big flood in 1983, and although they fear the next one, they don't want to move anywhere else. Meanwhile, Mendel Stuart of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working to save Alviso by restoring wetlands. But who is Alviso being saved for? As the flood risk lessens, property values are increasing, making housing in Alviso unaffordable for Chuey and his relatives. And the wetlands conversion has driven his boss's lucrative shrimping business out of the salt ponds.

Images

Twenty-Five Stories from the Central Valley, an online exhibit, uses photos, theater, stories and sound to paint a vivid picture of the environmental toxins that “the other Cali­for­nia” lives with every day. Women leaders give us a window into the little-known lives of people who are making this region safer for everyone. Their stories are shocking, sad, and inspiring.

Photovoice from South LA.

Petrochemical America explores Louisiana's Cancer Alley, among other places; includes maps and infographics. samples Kate Orff

Local Resources

Sheila Davis is Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, which has played a valuable role in shaping environmental policy in the high-tech industry. Her research, advocacy and policy development led to a successful ban on hazardous electronic waste (e-waste) from the California municipal landfills and the subsequent passage of the first electronic recycling legislation in the nation. Sheila holds a Bachelor's Degree from the University of California and served as a journalist, state legislative aide and community development specialist before joining the staff of SVTC.

Lopez, Anna A , who obtained her PhD in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz, wrote The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. (also Google book). She now runs Center for Farmworker Families based in Felton (volunteer?).

ENVS faculty Flora Lu, accompanied by her former UCSC advisees Néstor Silva, Leah Henderson, and Yukari Shichishima, traveled to Yasuní National Park as part of Lu's National Science Foundation funded research project investigating the daily, lived experiences of local families living in zones of oil extraction. ENVS faculty Flora Lu, accompanied by her former UCSC advisees Néstor Silva, Leah Henderson, and Yukari Shichishima, traveled to Yasuní National Park as part of Lu's National Science Foundation funded research project investigating the daily, lived experiences of local families living in zones of oil extraction.

Ravi Rajan's research focuses on environmental issues in governance, corporate responsibility, globalization, entrepreneurship, technology choice, and risk and disaster management. Rajan has served with Environment and History, American Society for Environmental Historyand National Science Foundation. Rajan has also served as the President of the Board of Directors of Pesticide Action Network, North America(PANNA). Environmental rights lecture (video). As a student journalist, he was an eyewitness to Bhopal.

Andy Szasz also studies Environmental Justice. New book on Inverted Quarantine is Shopping Our Way to Safety [1].