Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
knowledge, perception and understanding of risks are often far richer in qualitative
detail and more pertinent than expert perceptions, although this is not to deny the
importance of rigorous professional and scientific analysis of environmental hazards,
and so on. Collin and Collin (2005) note that the consequences of bioaccumulation
and the cumulative risk suffered by many communities of colour have been invisible
to environmental professionals and scientists, who are often seen as being repre-
sentatives of political and economic power structures that have caused the injustice
in the first place. In other words, sustainability can only be achieved if citizens -
'ordinary people' - are able to work effectively with the experts in designing and
implementing proper policies, policy tools and actions. Collin and Collin (2005:
219) call for effective reparations, the designation of environmental preservation
districts, insistence on clean production technologies, and so on to start righting
historical wrongs, restore ecosystems and revitalize communities, asserting that
'reparations to oppressed people in a ravaged land will help the nation become
sustainable'. Although absolutely central to most environmental justice campaigns,
health issues have not figured prominently in many debates on sustainable develop-
ment, despite the adjective 'healthy' often being used to characterize a sustainable
community, society or economy. Socio-economic inequality, pollution, poverty,
occupation, age, social exclusion, class and region all cause the inequitable social
and spatial distribution of ill health and health risks. Wilkinson (1996 and 2005)
shows that rich countries will remain dysfunctional, violent and sick if economic
inequality increases beyond a certain level. Being poor and socially excluded is a
cause of ill health, depression and premature death. More socially equal societies
and regions have higher levels of trust and social capital than unequal ones, which
have higher crime rates and poorer health. Above all, Wilkinson concludes that
economic growth and material affluence may improve the material standard of life
but does little or nothing for the quality of our lives. In this way, it is reasonable
to equate social well-being and social welfare with sustainable economic and
community development, but not necessarily, as we shall see, with economic growth.
As Wilkinson writes:
The quality of social life of a society is one of the most powerful determinants
of health and this, in turn, is very closely related to the degree of income inequality.
. . . The indications that the links are psychosocial make these relationships as
important for the real subjective quality of life among populations as they are
for their health. If the whole thing were a matter of eating too many chips or
of not taking enough exercise, that in itself would not necessarily mean that the
quality of life which people experienced was so much less good. You can be
happy eating chips. But sources of social stress, poor social networks, low self-
esteem, high rates of depression, anxiety and insecurity, and the loss of a sense
of control all have such a fundamental impact on our experience of life that it
is reasonable to wonder whether the effects on the quality of life are not more
important than the effects on the length of life.
(1996: 4-5)
A major task is finding the best way to right these wrongs. Agyeman (2005)
identifies a number of valuable environmental justice policy tools, including the
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives' milestone process and the
 
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