YouTube user skyanimal has footage of a workshop run by California EPA on environmental justice in Imperial County.

Public Comment during a meeting about the Westside subway extension

In an August 20, 2009 Los Angeles Times Blog, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stated a huge and unrealistic Subway to the Sea Construction Plan:

As the most outspoken advocate for the so-called Subway to the Sea, the mayor has long been frustrated by that timetable and it was evident again when he and other officials gathered for a news conference in a UCLA parking lot. There, final soil samples had been drawn for a line that would follow Wilshire Boulevard from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica.

“I’m 56 now,” the mayor said. “We are here today to make sure that it gets built before I am 66.”

There are many flaws to what the Mayor is asking for; a subway to Santa Monica is not possible in the timespan he wants it to be constructed. Even from public comment meeting where citizen from different communities opposed the subway to the sea plan, Mr. Villaraigosa still wants to continue to build it. What concerns me is he will to actually go through with this project, shoving aside the opposition of those who have concern over the construction of the subway.

In reality the subway to the sea will take much longer to build especially from obstacles that are similar to those that once stopped the hopes of the subway heading to the westside as well, such as soil strength, chemical issues and many other factors. Regardless of these issues Antonio Villaraigosa still wants this subway to be built, no matter at what cost.

This Treehugger.com article entitled “Transition Initiative. Can Communities Tackle Peak Oil and Climate?” discusses a new movement called Transition Initiatives, which guides communities around the world on issues of community sustainability in a world threatened by disturbing physical- and social-environmental problems:

Transition is a process whereby communities work together to significantly increase local resilience or mitigate against the effects of Peak Oil and Climate Change…The reason for the rush of Transition publications (others on local money and local food are due out soon) is that its vision gives cohesive form to many disparate ideas. It brings together in one idea: buying local, organic food, social cohesion, low carbon transport, skills sharing, debt free living, self reliance, community spirit and much more.

This new movement provides individuals and communities with a manageable, though still experimental, solution to the often overwhelming and depressing reality of climate change and the problems surrounding fossil fuels. This movement stood out to me because it touches on a lot of the issues we’ve discussed at greenRELAY that inhibit the socioeconomic success and promote the poor health and high crime rates in low-income and minority communities. Minority communities notably lack access to affordable, fresh, local, organic produce and meats; social cohesion and community spirit, which probably have several definitions, are outshone by high crime rates, heavy participation in underground economies and disproportionate incarceration rates; skills sharing, debt-free living, low-carbon transport and self-reliance become more difficult when local jobs and ammenities are scarce.

I like that the article recognizes these diverse factors as equally important in maintaining resilient communities; if they were better incorporated into minority communities, we might see more empowered and healthier minorities and less environmental racism.

The old Negro Spiritual after which I have named this post tells a happy tale for those who sing it, but the story of Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining will not end on a joyous note. MTR mining quite literally blows off the top off mountains with dynamite after clearing any forests and greenery in order to reach the coal beneath. Coal is a non-renewable fossil fuel that energy companies must burn to create electricity. This releases CO2, fly ash, and sulfur compounds, which contribute to global warming, health problems, acid rain and severely polluted water. Coal mining companies are required to restore the habitat that they have destroyed after they exhaust the mine, but the impact is still severe. Some argue that new technology has appeared that will allow coal to burn cleanly, but clean mining is impossible.

I learned more about mountain top removal from the Planet Green news show Focus Earth, whose host, Bob Woodruff, traveled to the Appalachians in West Virginia where MTRM is prevalent and creates as much controversy as it does jobs (watch the trailer here). There, a fierce battle rages between environmentalists who seek to protect streams and health and coal miners who need to retain their jobs. Aside from the destruction of habitat, the contribution to global warming and the rendering of streamwater undrinkable and un-swimmable, mountain top removal strikes me as particularly unjust because it continues despite the fact that most Americans oppose it and that viable, sustainable alternatives exist that could provide healthier and safer jobs. It worries me that the government of a self-proclaimed democracy seems to choose the interests of big coal over the health and opinions of its citizens.

Southern California Edison purchases energy from Argus Cogen Plant

Even 3000 miles away from the coal-filled mountains and valleys in West Virginia, we Angelenos indirectly support mountain top removal because both Southern California Edison and the City of Los Angeles purchase energy from mountain top removal companies, making it difficult for consumers to oppose massive fossil fuel consumption in practice. Thankfully, rebates and tax credits exist for people who can afford to install solar panels and wind turbines, so energy companies are attempting to increase their access to clean energy. For people who can’t take these ideal measures, more practical solutions exist. I, for one, make  a point of not turning the lights on in my room during the day. Luckily, I have a bay window that allows in sufficient natural light all day for me to use my computer, read books  and draw. As it gets darker in the late afternoon, I turn on my desk lamp, which remedies that problem until it is dark outside. Only then do I turn on my overheads. I save a lot of energy (and a lot of my dad’s money!) that way. He, even though he pays the bills, has a habit of leaving lights on after he leaves the room, so I’ve made a habit of making sure the lights are off in unused rooms when I walk through the house.

It’s the simplest, quickest and cheapest way to reduce energy demand – use less! After seeing Focus Earth, I decided to take a little advice from the late great King of Pop – “I’m gonna make a change for once in my life; its gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right.” Cliche, yes, but true – “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.” I try not to quote Michael Jackson too often, but these just might be words to live by for people anywhere attempting to fight environmental injustices. If your house doesn’t get enough natural light during the day, consider replacing existing light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, which last longer and consume less energy and therefore less money and fewer fossil fuels. The same goes for appliances like refrigerators, washers and dryers, ovens and stoves: EnergyStar rated appliances can save households around 33 percent on energy bills and lessen the demand for atrocious practices like mountain top removal coal mining! They even pay themselves off in less than a year. We may still depend on controversial fossil fuels at this point, but more ways keep popping up that will allow us change our ways.

In my freshman year of college, I wrote a term paper about integrative school busing in Los Angeles and its relationship to urban sprawl and residential segregation. Part of it discussed two decisive Supreme Court cases, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Miliken v Bradley, both of which argued that American neighborhoods were inherently segregated; the former used that argument to force integration by bus in public schools  and the latter to end it. Either way, our most powerful judicial body has declared more than once that residential segregation is a natural aspect of American society, and that all of its symptoms, such as segregated public schools, have resulted from this apparently immutable social fact.  I argued that minority schools, and neighborhoods in general, are disproportionately burdened by this segregation because it denies them easy access to invaluable sociocultural capital, to connections to the more affluent world, and to the values, behavior and ideologies of power, an understanding of which is required to transcend the limits of structural, racial and socioeconomic marginalization. I now realize that the maintenance of segregated neighborhoods has made environmental, industrial and transportation injustice almost too easy to achieve and easier to ignore.

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass by Douglass S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, clarifies how segregation, federally financed or not, is an institution that has supported “other racially discriminatory processes and binds them together into a coherent and uniquely effective system of racial subordination” (8). Contrary to our Supreme Court’s rationale, Massey and Denton point out that “America chose to strengthen the walls of the ghetto,” and that, for a pair of decades after emancipation, black segregation was minimal (19). With the new century came a very deliberate new urban order that physically separates the dominant groups from the monorities, magnifying and naturalizing the harmful effects of other types of discrimination. An “oppositional” “Culture of Segregation” has consequently developed in urban ghettos, one that often clashes with the values of power, making integration extremely difficult (8). American neighborhoods are not intrinsically segregated, and their separation has not only prevented any significant number of minorities from achieving sustained upward social mobility, it has created a path of least resistance down which decision-makers can march to the beat of an exploitative drum, concentrating environmental hazards in ghettos.

Because minorities remain economically disempowered and politically underrepresented, their neighborhoods are targets for the placement of polluting industries. Los Angeles is no exception; it is divided first by race and then by socioeconomic class. With minorities ghettoized, dirty industry thrives conveniently out of sight and out of the minds of the people who have the politico-economic power to change and prevent environmentally unjust practices. Well shielded from the brunt of the problem by physical and imaginary color lines, the city’s elite have allowed and encouraged freeways over clean and efficient public transit, corporate development over community gardens, police over education, over the environment, over everything:

2008-09 LA City Budget Summary, p.8

Los Angeles Apartheid structures the city so as to force the heaviest social and environmental burdens onto minorities by maintaining enclaves of poverty and unemployment, violence and incarceration, instability and hopelessness. The environment includes more than issues of air quality and global warming: quality education, clean streets, green space, a sense of freedom, mutual respect, reasonable control, and honest representation contribute to the community health and safety that encourages residents to want to care about their environment, a feeling that is notably absent from LA’s poor black and hispanic ghettos.