Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
decisions about their lighting needs, and the financial and environmental impact of
their choices; and CGSearch - a mobile Green IT app enabling users across the
United States to visually compare the air quality, energy consumption of various
cites of the US using Atlanta as a base comparator. There are currently nearly 300
apps available on the EPA website. With nearly 500,000 apps available for the Apple
iPhone and iPad alone - although only a small number are actually green - apps
have become an important aspect of our digital culture. The evaluation of their use
and usefulness is not really able to accommodate the pace of such development, but
it seems that a number of green apps do have positive impact in shaping pro-
sustainability behaviours (Froehlich
et al
., 2009; Lehrer and Vasudev, 2011).
Environmental justice and sustainable development
Environmental justice is based on the principle that all people have a right to
be protected from environmental pollution and to live in and enjoy a clean and
healthy environment. Environmental justice is the equal protection and meaningful
involvement of all people with respect to the development, implementation and
enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies and the equitable
distribution of environmental benefits.
(Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2002,
in Agyeman and Evans, 2004)
As the American environmental movement emerged in the 1970s, it was soon evident
that few people of colour had participated in the various campaigns and actions of
that period. It was also noted that, as some polluted areas were cleaned up, little
action was taken to ensure the neighbourhoods of ethnic minorities were improved
(Taylor, 1997). In response to this, the environmental justice movement emerged in
the 1980s, comprising Latinos, Native Americans, Asians and African Americans.
This changed the social and political complexion of the environmental movement,
shifting its centre of gravity away from the primary white middle-class concerns of
wildlife, wilderness and the ecologies of the 'natural world'. 'Justice' became the
defining principle and rationale for this new movement, which addressed linked
issues of class, ethnicity, race, gender, socio-economic inequality, and the blatant
discrimination clearly evident in the distribution of environmental impacts and their
costs. Environmental justice campaigners are concerned with correctional and
distributive actions, taking a system-wide view that asserts, for example, that toxic
waste should not be dumped in my, or for that matter anyone's, backyard. Such an
approach has helped rearticulate the meaning of the term 'environmental', with
homelessness, poverty, hazardous working conditions, health and safety at work and
in the surrounding communities, gender inequality, and so on being significant
elements of the expanded 'environmental' worldview, bringing it closer to the notion
of sustainability. Women of colour have played a prominent role in the development
of the environmental justice movement, with eco-feminism helping to open up many
environmental debates and dialogues, if not always in practice moving much beyond
the iniquities of patriarchal relations, which for Taylor have preoccupied many,
though not all, white eco-feminist writers:
