Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
toxic chemicals results in widespread harm across human communities
and ecosystems, they both can also operate like a boomerang and eventu-
ally circle back to impact all members of society through uprisings, social
unrest, and other confl icts. Finally, they are also powerful symbols for
organizing resistance movements and for bringing people together across
social and spatial boundaries. These concepts are helpful for thinking
about the power and potential of transnational EJ movements.
Transnational Social Movements for Global Environmental Justice
While the primary focus of this chapter is on antitoxics struggles, it must
be said that the movement for global environmental justice and human
rights casts a much broader net. This includes struggles against extractive
industries, transboundary pollution and waste fl ows, free trade agree-
ments, and—more importantly—the ideological and social systems that
reinforce such practices, including racism, capitalism, patriarchy, and
militarism. For example, hydroelectric dams have catalyzed many com-
munities around the globe where people are fi ghting water privatization
and external control of that most fundamental element on the planet. In
response to the massive human rights abuses and environmental impacts
associated with large dams, a highly infl uential and effective interna-
tional movement emerged to force changes in current dam-building
practices. In addition to organizations of dam-affected peoples, this arm
of the EJ movement includes numerous allied environmental, human
rights, and social activist groups around the world. International meet-
ings in recent years have brought together dam-affected peoples and their
allies to network and strategize, and to call for improvements in planning
for water- and energy-supply projects. Every year, community and activ-
ist groups from around the world show their solidarity with those dispos-
sessed by dams on the International Day of Action, a global event
organized to raise awareness about the impacts of dams and the value
of dam-free and undammed rivers (McCully 2001).
Groups like the International Campaign for Responsible Technology
are primarily focused on the social, economic, and ecological impacts of
the global electronics industry, from mineral and water extraction for
the production of electronics products, to their manufacture, sale, con-
sumption, and disposal. In other words, this particular global EJ network
adopts a lifecycle approach to the problem, following the materials and
their effects on people and ecosystems (Smith, Sonnenfeld, and Pellow
2006). Many of these EJ movement networks articulate a critique of
