Environmental justice and harm to humans - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 51

of risk in dynamic rather than fixed terms. Environmental harm may
originate in a specific location, but due to natural processes of water
and air movement and flow, it can spread to other parts of a city, region,
country or continent. A localised problem thus contains the seeds of a
global dilemma. Environmental harm such as dioxins in water is both
temporal and spatial in nature. That is, the harm itself actually moves
across time and space, covering wide areas and with long lasting effects.
Moreover, toxins accumulate over time. In other words, there is a
cumulative impact on waterways and aquatic life, and small amounts of
poison may eventually lead to great concentrations of toxicity in fish
and other living creatures of the water, with major social consequences
for fishers and human consumers of fish.
The transference of risk also manifests in other ways. For example, we
can refer to the monetarisation of risk - structural inequalities exploited
by risk producers (for example, pressures placed on communities to
accept toxic landfills on their land in return for financial compensation).
At issue here is what to do about LULUs (locally unwanted land uses),
and how the poor and disadvantaged are especially vulnerable to waste
transfers relating to these. The traffic in risk also occurs at the global level
where developing countries play the same role as poorer communities
within developed nations (for example, 'business-friendly' countries
that accept hazardous industries and toxic wastes) (see Pellow, 2007).
Also at issue is how to respond to NIMBY opposition within
developed countries (Julian, 2004). This is important because the direct
result of the NIMBY effect is to transfer the problem somewhere else.
Increasingly, the right to a safe environment has gained
currency in the United States and in other advanced
industrial states due largely to the proliferation of grassroots
activism (for example, the mainstream environmental
movement, toxic waste movement, environmental
justice movement, and so on), public awareness, efforts
of environmental organisations, media exposure of
environmental disasters, and strong legislative responses.
Paradoxically, these factors promoting the rights of citizens
to a safe and sound environment in core nations are the same
forces contributing to the violation of indigenous people's
rights to a safe and ecologically balanced environment in
noncore nations. The flight of many MNCs to the interior
of Third World countries to avoid visibility, regulations,
liability, and environmental pollution accountability directly