Environmental+Justice_LP

3000 words Very wide range of disciplines/backgrounds (academia, industry, public, non-profit, etc.) Argument should simply explore disparate environmental health burdens -- what produces EJ and what innovations can be leveraged to address it?
 * What counts as an argument?**

Experimental procedure Description of technical innovation Case studies Literature reviews plus evaluation
 * How Supported?**

Innovation or new understanding of environmental disparities Empirical contribution expected/ theoretical contribution bonus
 * Contribution?**

Environmental Justice and Emerging Information Communication Technology: A Review for U.S. Natural Disaster Management
 * five papers (with their abstracts)**

This article begins by outlining the role of eICTs in Hurricane Katrina, how they shaped the production of knowledge about the disaster, and how they reshaped EJ. It goes on to conduct a literature scan for articles about eICTs, questioning how they engage with EJ. It presents quantitative results and discusses that few literatures engage with EJ but conversations are emerging.

Cutts Bethany B., Sinclair Kristina M., Strauch Michaele A., Slivnick Brian, and Emmons Zoe. Environmental Justice. August 2015, 8(4): 144-150. doi:10.1089/env.2015.0012. The Internet age has led to a proliferation of so-called emerging information communication technologies (eICTs). As the personal use of the Internet, mobile devices, and social media has expanded and evolved, these eICTs have been incorporated into strategies to improve risk communication associated with natural disaster management. A review of eICT use as part of natural disaster communication is critical to knowing whether the new technologies support the needs and risk cultures of historically disenfranchised populations and whether they ultimately provide an opportunity to better address both acute and chronic environmental hazards. There is a need to know whether eICTs differ from other technologies in the ways that they exacerbate old environmental injustices and/or create new ones. This article reviews the eICT literature based with a focus on the U.S. Through a review of published and gray literature, we evaluate whether research articles acknowledge or directly address environmental and social disparity related to eICT use in natural disasters. The articles included in the review suggest an emerging, but diffuse operational definition of environmental justice. We find the greatest emphasis on recognizing diverse stakeholders and the least concern for solutions that reduce environmental burdens or their inequitable distribution.

Environmentally Just Technology In this article, Gwen Ottinger argues that technologies themselves can be structures that produce environmental injustice. She first references STS theory of the politics of technology (along with the politics technologies enable). She then goes on to outline design criteria for technologies that attuned to EJ concerns.

Gwen Ottinger. Environmental Justice. March 2011, 4(1): 81-85. doi:10.1089/env.2010.0039. This article argues that technology should be considered to be among the structures of environmental injustice. Explaining that technology can be inherently just or unjust—that is, that the material artifacts that comprise technological infrastructures can be more or less compatible with environmentally just social arrangements—it suggests that most existing technology is relatively incompatible with environmental justice. It then offers a list of design features that would help make technology inherently more compatible with fair distribution of environmental risks and benefits, equitable enforcement of protective environmental regulations, the ability of marginalized communities to build social and economic capacity, and meaningful public participation in environmental decision making. Recognizing the role that technological design plays in structuring environmental injustice should help environmental justice practitioners recognize and advocate for technology compatible with a just world.

Citizen Mapping and Environmental Justice: Internet Applications for Research and Advocacy This article provides a review of the terms and practices associated with the democratization of cartography, and illustrates their potential to contribute to the environmental justice movement. The Internet has revolutionized how maps are made and communicated. Citizen mapping involves multiple individuals collaborating on the collection and synthesis of spatial data via Web-based software. Google Earth allows users to combine and communicate cartographic information without extensive geospatial training. These developments have freed geography from its stereotype of being a study of place names to a discipline that can engage the public in the collection, analysis, and most important, the comprehension of the power of maps to promote environmental and social justice. We illustrate this potential through a case study in Tallahassee, Florida, where a biomass facility was proposed for a low to moderate income, and minority neighborhood. A permit was granted for the facility without consideration of the input of residents and without critical examination of the disconnect between the regional and local scales on which pollutants are monitored and without considering the actual exposure and impacts to community residents mediated by sociodemographics, environmental, and health status, the hallmarks of environmental injustice. To communicate the fundamental issues in this debate, as well as to illustrate the democratizing turn in geospatial sciences, Google Earth was deployed to integrate global positioning systems (GPS) data, photographs, video, and sociodemographic data. Screenshots from this mapping activity are presented as a means to inform scholars of the potential for Web-based geospatial tools in environmental justice activism. We close with a discussion of how the use of maps requires critical thought and analysis to avoid their misuse.

Monitoring Environmental Justice Sarah E. Fredericks. Environmental Justice. March 2011, 4(1): 63-69. doi:10.1089/env.2010.0024. To date, policies for environmental justice have not been accompanied by sufficient methods of monitoring progress toward environmental justice even though policymakers and citizens alike expect some means of evaluating policy effectiveness. Concerned that this lacuna holds back environmental justice policy, and thus the possibility of reaching environmental justice, this article articulates a framework to aid the development of indexes that link multiple environmental justice issues within and across spatial and temporal scales. The argument proceeds in three steps: First, an examination of the importance of monitoring progress toward policy targets justifies the focus on indicators and indexes. Second, limitations of environmental justice indicators (e.g., their focus on specific local issues) will be identified. Third, an integrative framework for developing indicators of sustainability will inform the creation of a framework to guide the development of environmental justice indicators. The modified framework, adaptable to community priorities, circumstances, and new knowledge, enables the integration of multiple quantitative and qualitative aspects of environmental justice across spatial and temporal scales.

A Community-Based Application of Software to Conduct a Probabilistic Assessment of Exposure to Contaminants in Indigenous Subsistence Foods Anne M. Chaisson, Claire A. Franklin, Lynn Zender, Christine F. Chaisson, Raven Sheldon, and Jeffery A. Foran. Environmental Justice. December 2012, 5(6): 306-311. doi:10.1089/env.2012.0026. An accurate characterization of contaminant exposure at the community level is a critical component of community-based exposure and risk assessments, particularly where they are used for community-based decision making. We conducted a probabilistic, community-level exposure assessment, in conjunction with community members and representatives, to assess exposure to zinc via consumption of caribou, a component of the Selawik, AK traditional diet. The analysis was conducted with publically available software, and implemented in a way that built tribal capacity to assess an array of contaminants in unique traditional diets. The analysis conducted with the software provided information on zinc intake among community members from consumption of caribou and indicated that average lifetime and upper percentile zinc exposure levels did not threaten the health of community members. We present the results of the study and observations associated with conducting the study in conjunction with community members. The study demonstrates the utility of the software to support decisions to address contaminant exposure and risk, and provides critical information to risk managers charged with communicating and implementing actions to address environmental contaminants.

Toward Methodological Precision: Linking Qualitative Meta-theories and Methods to Environmental Justice Research Design Das Ujjaini. Environmental Justice. April 2015, 8(2): 39-46. doi:10.1089/env.2014.0027. Since the mid-1990s, various qualitative methods have been extensively used in environmental justice (EJ) research. However, majority of the studies fail to explain in rich detail how particular qualitative method(s) of data collection and analysis have been used and what epistemological stance(s) inform their research design. This article underscores the need to attain methodological precision in EJ studies by demonstrating how the meta-theories of critical realism and social constructionism can be linked to forms of discourse analysis to understand different dimensions of a fundamental EJ concern—the process of environmental inequality formation in hazardous workplaces.

Robust data infrastructures are key to illuminating and monitoring environmental justice issues. In this article, I describe the data infrastructures available for characterizing environmental justice issues and review their key features and drawbacks. Honing in specifically on the Semantic Web, a data infrastructure that the Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to adopt, I describe how the design of such infrastructure implicates how we build knowledge about environmental justice issues. I take [] as a case study, demonstrating how data infrastructure enabled knowing about [], yet discouraged knowing about []. I argue that data infrastructures are structures that have the potential to contribute to environmental injustice, at times hiding communities that deserve attention. I go on to describe some design features for data infrastructure that could organize data in such a way as to better highlight disparate environmental burdens.
 * My abstract**