Environmental Inequalities meanings, themes and implications

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Environmental Inequalities meanings, themes and
implications

• Introduction and crosscutting questions
• Gordon Walker
• Lancaster University

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7 crosscutting themes

• conceptualisation
• prioritisation
• evidence
• science
• causation
• response
• interdisciplinarity

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7 crosscutting themes

• conceptualisation
• prioritisation
• evidence
• science
• causation
• response
• interdisciplinarity

interconnections
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7 crosscutting themes

• conceptualisation
• prioritisation
• evidence
• science
• causation
• response
• interdisciplinarity

Derek Bell Karen Bickerstaff John Colvin Tanja
Pless-Mulloli Neil Witney Duncan McClaren
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7 crosscutting themes

• conceptualisation
• prioritisation
• evidence
• science
• causation
• response
• interdisciplinarity

Sustainable Consumption Flooding
Climate Pollution and Health Sustainable
Communities Green space Synthesis
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Theme 1 Conceptualisation

• How can we understand and conceptualise
  environmental inequality and injustice?
• terminology, definitions, meanings, categories
• a long intellectual history of justice theory,
  although not environmental
• arguments for and against precision agreement

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Theme 1 Conceptualisation

• Inequality
• descriptive term a condition of difference or
  uneveness
• of something income, health, pollution,
  influence, access, opportunity
• between some people old/young, rich/poor,
  north/south, alive/to be born, me/rest of world
• can to some degree be measured, described
• does not necessarilintery imply undesirable, bad,
  unfair, unjust
• some degree of inequality, difference and
  uneveness is inevitable

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Theme 1 Conceptualisation

• Environmental Inequality
• can be in measured and described in terms of
• distribution of environmental bads and
  vulnerability to their impacts (pollution,
  flooding etc)
• distribution of and ability to access
  environmental goods (green space, healthy food
  etc)
• creation of environmental bads (e.g. resource
  consumption, pollution and waste generation)
• access to, influence on and participation in
  decision-making processes
• these measures of inequality may be combined to
  substantiate justice claims and arguments

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Theme 1 Conceptualisation

• e.g. Sterba (1998p143) suggests two principles
  for env justice
• A principle of allocating risks by production
  ones share of the environmental risks to health
  and well being should be proportional to the
  amount of pollution and contaminates one
  produces
• A principle of allocating risks by
  consumption ones share of the risk to health
  and well-being should be in proportion to the
  amount of resources one consumes

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Theme 1 Conceptualisation

• In(justice)
• Value term involving judgement and application
  of principle
• distribution who gets, can get what?
• procedure how are unequal distributions
  created who is responsible who has power has
  choices has influence and how is power, choice,
  influence exercised?
• recognition who is given respect
• Part of the problem of injustice and part of
  the reason for unjust distribution is lack of
  recognition of group difference .lack of
  recognition, demonstrated by various forms of
  insults, degredation and devaluation at
  individual and cultural level inflicts damage to
  oppressed/marginalised communities and the image
  of those communities in larger cultural and
  political realms (Scholsberg 2004)

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Theme 1 Conceptualisation

• Environmental In(justice)
• Plurality of environmental justice principles -
  there is no one definition or concept
• overlapping circles of concern, complex equality
  intertwining of distribution, procedure and
  recognition
• interconnected forms of reasoning and judgement
  justice is a concept with multiple integrated
  meanings Scholsberg (2004)
• different meanings may be chosen for strategic
  reasons
• Different groups resort to different
  conceptions of justice to bolster their position
  (Harvey 1996 398)

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Theme 1 Conceptualisation

• How much does terminology and definition matter?
  Is the process of discussion and debate helpful
  and constructive?
• Can we usefully and productively distinguish
  between inequality, justice - and equity?
• Can environmental justice principles be
  universal? Or are they particular to both
  environmental contexts and the social, political
  and cultural settings in which they are
  addressed?
• Does the environment just read across to other
  long standing concerns with social justice,
  marginalisation and exclusion or does it have
  distinctive qualities that sets it apart?
• Are inequalities already implicitly or explicitly
  part of sustainability debates - sust consumption
  and communities and in discourses of
  vulnerability and entitlement?

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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?

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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment

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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment

Air quality Noise Greenspace Litter Climate
change
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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment x social group

Air quality Noise Greenspace Litter Climate
change
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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment x social group

Gender Ethnicity Class Deprivation Age Disability

Air quality Noise Greenspace Litter Climate
change
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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment x social group x space

Gender Ethnicity Class Deprivation Age Disability

Air quality Noise Greenspace Litter Climate
change
City Region Nation Internation
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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment x social group x space x generation
  

Gender Ethnicity Class Deprivation Age Disability

Air quality Noise Greenspace Litter Climate
change
City Region Nation Internation
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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment x social group x space x generation
  

Gender Ethnicity Class Deprivation Age Disability

Air quality Noise Greenspace Litter Climate
change
City Region Nation Internation
Past Now Future
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Theme 2 Priorities

• What forms of environmental inequality and
  injustice are important and why?
• Environment x social group x space x generation
  

Gender Ethnicity Class Deprivation Age Disability

Air quality Noise Greenspace Litter Climate
change
Case City Region Nation Internation
Past Now Future
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Theme 2 Priorities

• Interconnected processes of prioritisation
• political processes of campaigning, claim making,
  resistance and contestation often around
  particular cases. How, when and why is this
  effective and powerful? What do justice arguments
  add to grassroots activity?
• institutional processes of policy development,
  agenda setting, resource allocation explicitly
  or implicitly reflecting internal dynamics and
  wider political priorities and culture. How are
  these shaped and how open and inclusive?
• academic processes of research prioritisation,
  agenda setting following funding and agenda of
  others
• Language of environmental justice may be
  explicit, or implicit within discourses and
  debates EJ may be being done and being debated
  but in another name ..

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Theme 2 Priorities

• How can we understand differences in framings and
  priorities in different places and times and
  what significance do these have?
• What are the implications of different processes
  through which priorities are determined and how
  are these interconnected
• How fair, open and inclusive are processes of
  prioritisation? (who represents future
  generations?)
• Is there a distinctive public and institutional
  politics around env justice concerns?
• Does using the terminology of environmental
  inequality and justice does useful work or not?
  
• How broadly should the net of environmental
  justice be cast? Where are the boundaries with
  social justice?

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Theme 3 Evidence

• What evidence is needed and being used in order
  to substantiate claims of environmental
  inequality and injustice?
• Both policy and grassroots action, the question
  of how claims of inequality or injustice can be
  substantiated through evidence of various forms
  is important - and itself clearly a prioritising
  device.
• What data and evidence is needed to establish
  that an inequality (and potentially injustice)
  exists of some form?
• What type of data and evidence might be
  considered legitimate and powerful and how might
  this vary between topics and contexts?

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Theme 3 Evidence

• GIS based socio-spatial analysis is the mainstay
  of evidence of environmental inequality

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Theme 3 Evidence

• GIS based socio-spatial analysis is the mainstay
  of environmental inequality evidence

Deprivation Data
Environmental Data
Patterns of Distribution and Association
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Strength of association with deprivation
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Theme 3 Evidence

• Methodological problems
• datasets
• differentiation and data resolution
• envhuman relationships - multidimensional,
  uncertain, contested impacts on well-being
• scale and spatial resolution dependencies
• to obtain useful, valid results, extreme care
  must be exercised not only in the selection of
  the tools and strategies of the research design,
  but also in the interpretation of the outcomes.
  This is particularly the case where the use of
  sophisticated GIS software powerful computers and
  elegant statistical analyses will lend an aura of
  authority and authenticity to the investigation
  (Most et al 2004, pg 584)

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Theme 3 Evidence

• statistical and spatial analysis fetishism in
  environmental justice research
• not all aspects of environment and env justice
  concerns are measured or statistically measurable
• not all are spatially organised
• other forms of qualitative and experiential
  evidence also important and need to be utilised
• health experiences, day to day living, obstacles
  to access, recognition, experience of
  participation, inequalities of power in
  discursive spaces etc..

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Theme 3 Evidence

• To what extent can methodological problems of GIS
  studies be addressed e.g. through improvements to
  data collection sophistication in analysis etc..
  (common standards and methods?)
• What challenges are involved in utilising and
  legitimising other forms of evidence,
  particularly in decision making processes?
• How can quantitative and qualitative evidence be
  integrated effectively?
• How can evidence be accessible to all those with
  interests in EJ issues?

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Theme 4 Science

• What challenges are presented for the
  environmental sciences by the assessment and
  evaluation of environmental inequalities?
• scientific evidence does have enduring authority
  and legitimacy particularly in policy/regulatory/l
  egal settings
• are there ways in which it currently fails to
  recognise social differences?
• are tools and techniques being used which
  homogenise, rather than bring significant
  differences between people and social groups to
  the fore?
• are there failings gaps in science which
  particularly relate to env justice concerns?

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Theme 4 Science

• Kuehn (1996, 1998)
• quantitative risk assessment may be prove to be
  more harmful to minority and low income
  populations than to other subpopulations and may
  result in even greater disparity of treatment
• the 70kg white male complex
• The result of relying on this reference man is a
  risk assessment characterization that fits far
  less than half the nations population, because
  the majority are women, children, the elderly,
  sick or people of colour
• Multiple, cumulative and synergistic exposures
• persons with the greatest exposures suffer the
  most when risk assessment does not take into
  account all effects of exposure

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Theme 4 Science

• accumulative and synergistic impacts are
  particularly highlighted when there are already
  vulnerable, marginalized communities living in
  areas experiencing multiple environmental impacts
  and/or deficits.
• what methodologies can be used to account for and
  adequately represent such situations?
• it is possible to conceive of a human equivalent
  to carrying capacity or to use other approaches
  and concepts from the ecological sciences?
• justice questions around who has access to
  science? Who has resources, who determines what
  is examined, measured and what isnt?

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Theme 5 Causation

• What processes and policies create and contribute
  to the existence and sustenance of environmental
  inequalities?
• understanding causation is key to some
  conceptions of environmental justice
  (deontological or process reasoning)
• understanding causation necessary to inform
  response
• recurrent criticism of US environmental justice
  is neglect of processes underlying injustice

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Theme 5 Causation

• Analysis of political economy, power and
  structure worked out within various theoretical
  framings - historic and contemporary explanation
  as to why environmental inequalities exist and
  persist
• For example, (urban) political ecology
• the same forces that produced the 3rd world as
  such, are responsible for creating peripheries,
  backwaters, wastelands, remote areas etc.. within
  advanced capitalist economies as well (Schroeder
  et al 2006)
• Attention has to be paid to the political
  processes through which particular
  socio-environmental urban conditions are made and
  remade. From a progressive or emancipatory
  position, then, urban political ecology asks
  questions about who produces what kind of
  socio-ecological configurations for whom
  (Swyngedouw et al 2006)

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Theme 5 Causation

• How might env policy and regulation be
  implicated? Some examples
• Failing to evaluate/appraise distributional
  impacts of policy before taking decisions
  unintended and unknown consequences
• taxation and pricing mechanisms
• distributional deficit in policy appraisal
• Lack of equal access to decision making for
  different people and groups NIMBY and
  participatory dilemmas
• Planning policies and presumptions that group
  environmental bads together and protect high
  quality environments

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Theme 5 Causation

• What theories and frameworks can be used to
  understand how and why environmental inequalities
  and injustices are produced and sustained?
• To what extent do these theories and frameworks
  need to be distinct from others concerned with
  inequality and injustice?
• How can we reveal and understand the
  socio-environmental and historical processes
  through which particular cases of inequality have
  been produced?
• In what ways is policy (approaches, principles,
  tools, cultures) knowingly or unknowingly
  contributing to patterns of inequality and
  injustice?

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Theme 6 Response

• How can the policy/governance community respond
  to and address environmental inequalities/injustic
  es?
• Categories of response (Ikeme 2004)
• Preventative
• preventing further inequality in the future
• Compensatory
• providing benefits to communities/people that
  have taken or are going to take a
  disproportionate burden of impacts/risks
• Corrective
• addressing existing inequalities, improving the
  current situation
• Retributive
• punishment for those producing adverse/illegal
  impacts on those most vulnerable

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Theme 6 Response

• What approaches (legislative, regulatory, fiscal,
  participatory, area based etc) are appropriate
  for what issues and contexts
• What tools? e.g. for policy appraisal
• How can joined up responses be achieved?
• What evidence is needed for policy?
• What conflicts and dilemmas are created for
  existing policy approaches and institutionalised
  practices?

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Theme 7 Interdisciplinarity

• What are the interdisciplinary implications of
  seeking to understand and address environmental
  inequalities?
• environmental inequalities are not the preserve
  of any one academic or policy discipline,
• across the social sciences (geography, sociology,
  philosophy, economics, politics .) and into the
  natural and environmental sciences
• challenges for effective interdisciplinary
  working, paralleled across policy institutions
  and actors that need to connect together and work
  in joined up ways
• how can these challenges be best approached, what
  principles and practices can be followed?
• how can inclusive working, which is shaped by
  rather than distanced from the concerns and
  priorities of the people who live with inequality
  on an everyday basis, be achieved?

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Progressing the themes

• More than enough questions but.
• End of this seminar review the themes - gaps,
  importance, significance
• Produce a more substantial discussion document
• Use the themes as part of discussion in
  subsequent seminars and final reporting

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Group Discussion Session

• Decide on group chair/rapporteur
• Talk about yourselves and your interests
• Record and report for the group
• disciplinary backgrounds
• roles (academic, NGO, policy .)
• environmental interests/priorities
• social interests/priorities
• which themes/questions most engage and interest