Friday, October 24, 1997
Earth’s future relies on society’s
JUSTICE: Social equity plays fundamental role in environment’s
welfare
By Scott Kurashige
The UCLA Environmental Coalition is part of a growing number of
environmental organizations that recognize the crucial link between
social justice and environmental justice. We recognize that the
future protection of the Earth cannot be guaranteed unless
democratic rights are secured for working people, Third World
nations, immigrants, people of color and indigenous peoples. This
is because the biggest threat to the environment comes not from
individual citizens but from impersonal, transnational
corporations.
Faced with an educated choice between short-term consumption and
the long-term preservation of life on this planet, the overwhelming
majority of people would make environmentally sound decisions. The
problem is that the power to make crucial decisions impacting the
environment lies not in the hands of ordinary people but in the
board rooms of transnational corporations. Corporate decisions,
though sometimes influenced by grassroots pressure, are ultimately
driven by the logic of the market rather than concerns over
morality, equality or sustainability.
The state is the only institution capable of standing in the way
of unchecked corporate power. Yet, too frequently, governments
across the globe act more in the interest of transnational
corporations rather than the democratic aspirations of their
people. For instance, a truly democratic government in Burma would
respect the environment and the rights of indigenous communities.
But, with the military dictatorship (known as the State Law and
Order Restoration Council) calling the shots in Burma, the rain
forest is being sold off, indigenous communities are being uprooted
so Unical can build a gas pipeline, and children are forced into
labor to support corporate projects.
In the United States, it is especially important for working
class people and people of color to fight for a cleaner, healthier
environment because these communities bear the immediate brunt of
the attacks on the environment. Examples of these attacks range
from strip mining on American Indian reservations to pesticides in
agricultural fields and hazardous waste dumping in inner-city
neighborhoods.
Two ongoing cases in Los Angeles represent the link between air
pollution and issues of race and class. First, the Bus Riders
Union’s (BRU) fight for equitable public transportation combines
the struggle for civil rights with the fight for clean air. As we
all know, smog is a hideous problem in our city. Reducing
dependence on automobile use would greatly contribute to reducing
smog. One of the main obstacles to this is the inaccessibility of
public transportation for many people in Los Angeles. The
Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has only compounded matters by
throwing 70 percent of its budget into rail projects servicing a
predominantly suburban, white, middle-class constituency.
By catering to the whims of rail-line developers, the MTA failed
in its mission to serve the public and has put public
transportation out of the reach of thousands of people in
working-class communities of color. The work of the BRU and its
allies has forced the MTA to sign a consent decree that calls for
more reduced-emission, affordable buses. Consequently, the BRU has
demonstrated that the fight against racial discrimination and class
inequality is an essential component of the fight against air
pollution.
Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), a non-profit
organization in Southeast Los Angeles, has had to confront
corporate power even more directly in its battle against air
pollution. Under the influence of laissez-faire ideology (the
belief that all the world’s problems can be solved by the free
market), the Air Quality Management District had been allocating
"pollution credits" to oil companies. In essence, these companies
buy the right to increase the level of pollution from their
refineries by purchasing old, inefficient cars and taking them off
the streets. The oil companies store up these "pollution credits"
and proceed to dump tons of pollution onto neighboring
working-class and immigrant communities. CBE has worked to organize
these communities to fight this environmental and racial
injustice.
Until the efforts of grassroots organizations like the BRU and
CBE are multiplied, market-based programs will continue to
concentrate pollution in disenfranchised communities. Racial and
class oppression contribute greatly to the proliferation of
laissez-faire shams, which do next to nothing to help the
environment, rather than governmental regulations and investments
that truly serve the public interest.
It is no coincidence that in these cases and numerous others,
corporate decisions lead to attacks on the environment in oppressed
communities. Their rationale is that it’s easier to get away with
environmental destruction in places where people have no voice. Try
to dump oil refinery waste in Bel Air, and the wealthy residents
will use all of their political clout to stop it. This class
privilege holds up in the short-run, but the reality is that sooner
or later, the people in Bel Air will share the same air as the
people in Huntington Park, Wilmington and South Central. Thus,
fighting for environmental justice for oppressed communities at
home and around the globe is in the long-term interest of all of
us.
The Environmental Coalition has taken up this fight as we push
for education and service around issues such as recycling on
campus, protection of the rain forest, and democracy in Burma. If
you would like to get involved in these issues or propose your own,
please come to our meeting Monday at 6 p.m. in Kerckhoff 131. We
can also be reached at 206-4438 or at our office in Kerckhoff
300.