18 books, they are essentially 1 book with variations on this important message.¹ They all focus on the need for environmental justice, which he described as follows:

Environmental justice embraces the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental, energy, health, employment, education, housing, transportation, and civil rights laws.²

He began this work when he collected data for the lawsuit Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management Corporation,³ which was the nation’s first lawsuit to challenge environmental racism using civil rights law. He and students in a research methods class, plotting on a map (in pre-computer and GPS times), found all five of Houston’s public landfills and six of eight incinerators were in Black neighborhoods, as were three of the four privately owned landfills. As a whole, more than 82 percent of waste disposed in Houston went into mostly Black neighborhoods, although Blacks made up only 25 percent of the city’s population. In a subsequent work, Dumping in Dixie (Bullard, 2000), he documented the connection between waste dumping, pollution, income, and race. The South is the most environmentally degraded region in the United States, he said, and it is no accident that the modern civil rights and environmental justice movements were born in the South. “Jim Crow passed pollution to the place of least resistance,” he stated.

Some attention to the issue grew in the 1990s. In 1992, Dr. Bullard recounted, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report on environmental equity. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences conducted its first symposium that included frontline communities. President Clinton signed an executive order on environmental justice⁴ at a ceremony that included community groups, sociologists, and cabinet

___________________

¹ Dr. Bullard’s full publication list is available at https://drrobertbullard.com/books/.

² The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has defined “environmental justice” as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, culture, national origin, income, and educational levels with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of protective environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” (https://19january2021snapshot.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/ej-2020-glossary_.html)

³ Margaret Bean et al. v. Southwestern Waste Management Corp. et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, 482 F. Supp. 673 (S.D. Tex. 1979), December 21, 1979.

⁴ Executive Order on Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, EO 12898, issued February 11, 1994.

members, among others. In 1999, an Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) report found “people of color and low-income communities are exposed to higher levels of pollution than the rest of the nation, and these groups also contracted certain diseases more than affluent White communities” (IOM, 1999).

The Situation Today

Today, climate justice advocates are pushing that the response to climate change be fair, he continued. It will not be if the response is “business as usual,” he said. While climate change will affect all parts of the United States, the costs of climate inaction hit people of color the hardest. He noted a 2017 study that showed that without effective climate action, the gross domestic product will decline 1.2 percent per temperature increase of 1°C, but parts of the American South will see a 20 percent decline in economic activity (Hsiang et al., 2017). Related to health and climate change, more than half of known infectious diseases are aggravated by climate, Dr. Bullard continued. In addition, climate change will further exacerbate asthma, a condition already affected by health disparities. It will also create mental stressors for adults and children.

Echoing other workshop presenters, Dr. Bullard pointed to redlining⁵ that created unequal living conditions and environmental protection. Black and Brown neighborhoods are located on land that is most likely to flood or face other damages. Flood risks are expected to increase by 25 percent in the next 30 years overall but increase by 40 percent in Black communities. Superfund sites are at risk from climate change, which can increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, according to the Government Accountability Office, and most Superfund sites are in Black and Brown communities (GAO, 2019). Dr. Bullard used the example of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 to state that while the communities most affected were Black and Brown, most recovery dollars went to white communities.

Dr. Bullard noted that Blacks are 61 percent more likely to live in counties that have the highest number of days of unhealthy air and are 57 percent more likely to live within 3 miles of an oil refinery. “America is segregated and so is pollution,” Dr. Bullard stated. He noted a recent study (Kodros

___________________

⁵ Per Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute Wex legal dictionary, redlining can be defined as “a discriminatory practice that consists of the systematic denial of services such as mortgages, insurance loans, and other financial services to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity.”

et al., 2022) that found that residents in racially segregated communities breathe air that is 3 times more concentrated with dangerous toxins than residents living in communities with a low degree of racial housing segregation. Similarly, concentrations of metals from anthropogenic sources are 10 times higher in segregated areas when compared with communities with lower degrees of segregation, he explained.

These communities are “stranded from nature,” Dr. Bullard continued, adding “every American has the right to trees and green space.” Residents of Black communities are far more likely to live in “nature-deprived areas,” and the green justice movement has found there is 33 percent less tree canopy in these areas. Dr. Bullard reminded the group that heat is the top weather-related killer in the United States. Redlining has left many of these Black and Brown neighborhoods 5 to 13 degrees hotter than other areas. According to one study (Hsu, 2021), 97 percent of U.S. cities have this problem. Excess heat also worsens pregnancy outcomes (Bekkar et al., 2020) and is particularly dangerous for outdoor workers, who are 35 times more likely to die from heat exposure. This is also an economic justice issue, Dr. Bullard pointed out, because if they stay out of the heat and do not work, they do not get paid. Thiery et al. (2021) found that children born in 2021 will live through 7 times as many heatwaves, twice as many wildfires, and nearly 3 times as many droughts than their grandparents.

Efforts to Correct Disparities

Dr. Bullard noted that there is some promising effort toward correcting these disparities. He pointed to the Justice40 Initiative, which targets low-income and disadvantaged communities so that 40 percent of benefits of the clean energy economy are directed to them.⁶ He also stressed the need to use an equity lens to end historically supported “infrastructure apartheid” to achieve better health and economic outcomes.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-169) provides $370 billion for climate transition, $60 billion for environmental justice, and $60 billion for energy transitions. With these funds, “if [we] look through a climate and environmental justice lens, we can address these issues,” he posited. The challenge is to ensure that money gets to the right census tracts and neighborhoods. He called attention to the history of “red”

___________________

⁶ For more information, see https://www.whitehouse.gov/environmentaljustice/justice40/.

states not funding “blue cites” within them, with the example of the water crisis affecting Jackson, Mississippi. He said the HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Climate Change Consortium and Justice40 Initiative can provide tools to track progress and ensure that programs do not reproduce inequality or divert support away from the communities that most need it. He also urged engagement with HBCUs on climate-related solutions and an increase from the current 1 percent of federal and foundation support that HBCUs receive relative to other institutions.

Dr. Bullard concluded with some optimism based on the potential of intergenerational mobilization, partnerships, and the level of resources not seen in the past.

FRONTLINE COMMUNITIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Ms. Patterson noted that Dr. Bullard laid out why environmental justice work must be prioritized. The Chisholm Legacy Project works to ensure frontline communities have the capacity to advance self-determination as it relates to climate justice mitigation and elimination of environmental injustice, she said. It is a resource hub for Black frontline climate justice leadership.⁷ The Chisholm Legacy Project is inspired by the life and work of Shirley Chisholm, Ms. Patterson said in recounting Cong. Chisholm’s legend and legacy. Her rallying cry was “unbought and unbossed,” and her work elevated both race and gender.

The Chisholm Legacy Project vision, Ms. Patterson continued, is grounded in a Just Transition framework, moving from an extractive economy to a living economy that recognizes the regenerative nature of the Earth and honors ecological and human well-being. To achieve this, she quoted the late author and activist Audre Lorde, who said “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Thus, Ms. Patterson said, a regenerative economy embodies the interrelated values of community, ecology, power, restoration, and transformation. “The overarching goals are many and deep, and we feel they are inextricably tied to each other, such as anchoring ecological restoration, centering frontline leadership, and disrupting the status quo,” she said. In fact, she continued, when people say that the system is flawed, she counters that “the system is doing exactly what it is intended to do in an extractive economy.”

___________________

⁷ For more information, see https://thechisholmlegacyproject.org.

this issue has come after the murder of George Floyd, which he noted was a death in police custody. These issues have historically been underfunded; the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are funding gun violence research at $12.5 million apiece, but he noted this is not enough given the burden of disease and deaths. In his experience as a forensic pathologist, he said the numbers who are dying in custody, while being arrested, transported, booking, or incarcerated are not accurately counted. In any area of health, the first step in improving is counting the morbidity and mortality.

Ms. Patterson referred to Dr. Bullard’s point about the country’s changing demographics to comment that the rise of “replacement theory” is fomenting violence. She experienced this personally after presenting congressional testimony. “There is a false narrative around scarcity. It is not about scarcity, it’s about redistribution of resources,” she commented. “Out of fear, people are stockpiling weapons and ammunition. We must get real about this.”

Dr. Bright asked how to incorporate constructs of environmental justice into public school education. Dr. Bullard responded that it is important to get information about the environment, health, and climate into the K–12 curriculum. He suggested field trips and projects and, more broadly, integrating an environmental framework throughout the pedagogy. Relatedly, it is important to advocate and educate school boards that it is unacceptable to operate a school that is a hazard to children’s health both physically and in terms of what is and is not being taught. Some school boards and principals see the environment as an exciting learning opportunity for children, he added. Dr. Mark Mitchell added that schools built for Black and Brown children are in higher-risk environments such as flood plains or even city dumps. He said a Climate and Health Equity fellow developed a children’s book and coloring book on climate health and equity, that more such resources are becoming available, and that the new generation is demanding them.

In discussing the allocation of resources where they are most needed, Dr. Roger Mitchell drew on his experience as a deputy mayor in Washington, D.C. “We need to engage in the power of the vote,” he stated. “Everything is local.” Even when federal dollars are available, he said, “if the local community—the mayor, community leaders—are not advocates, no matter how many federal programs there are, that money will not reach the people.” He added that in addition to K–12, it is important for colleges and universities to educate students on environmental issues. He added

that the Association of American Medical Colleges does not mandate environmental justice or environmental studies; while recognizing how filled the curriculum is, “we have to make it important.” He also urged scientists to run for office. “We have often shied away from it, but scientists and physicians have to run for office to bring an evidence-based approach to policymaking,” he posited.

Closing Comments

Dr. Bullard closed by saying it is important for people to understand that environmental justice in the academy began at HBCUs. Despite underfunding, their footprint was outsized in fighting for communities and ensuring the information produced gets in the hands of community members and policymakers.

Ms. Patterson urged as a final point to work for campaign finance reform to get money out of politics. Money and sweat equity has to be used to fight the billions of dollars being spent in campaigns.

Dr. Mark Mitchell stressed the need for the frontline grassroots to have a voice. Reflecting on his experience at an environmental justice organization, he said “what we taught was democracy—how to engage with public officials and prioritize the needs of the community.” Members had never voted before they joined the organization, but then realized the importance of voting. He agreed with the need to equip frontline groups to engage.

Dr. Roger Mitchell considered how scientists, engineers, and physicians can engage the Black community in a way that shows environmental justice and public health are important comes down to coming out of the ivory tower and doing the work in community. He said it is not just to equip but to lock arms in community, engage trusted messengers, and not shy away from hard conversations. He urged a model in which professionals come to the doorsteps of neighbors, rather than asking them to come to institutions.

REFERENCES

This page intentionally left blank.