Environmental Justice

Catalog description

This course examines challenges and controversies associated with the unequal distribution of environmental hazards across communities. Students will explore the social, industrial, and governmental forces that create inequitable burdens of environmental pollution as well as movements to reduce such burdens. It takes as axiomatic the premise that all people have a right to live in a clean environment free from hazardous pollution or contamination, and to the natural resources necessary to sustain health and livelihood. Question will be aimed at why, and through what social, political and economic processes, social justice issues arise in denying certain groups of people this basic right. Students will have the opportunity to report on alternative models and activists' movements aimed at creating a global sustainable future.