Background: People and wildlife can both be the subjects of environmental injustice. Although their experiences are clearly not the same, shared logics of oppression often impose harms through the environment on vulnerable and marginalized people and free-living nonhuman animals. Critical environmental justice provides a matrix for analyzing and addressing arrangements of power across categories of difference, whereas human ecology approaches offer frameworks for analyzing interactions across human and environmental systems in urban contexts. We develop a new analytical model-critical population, organization, environment, technology (POET)-to strengthen approaches to studying human-environmental problems by integrating the four pillars of critical environmental justice with the four dimensions of the human ecology POET model.Methods: This article uses a case study approach of coyotes living in urban areas to demonstrate one use of the critical POET model to analyze linkages between injustices across humans, wildlife, and the environment.Results: Urbanization as a core spatial logic-through the twin forces of institutional racism and speciesism-has perpetrated harms against people of color and coyotes.Discussion: Identifying shared logics of oppression is a key step toward the realization of a robust multispecies approach to environmental justice.Conclusion: The critical POET model provides a matrix for analyzing interactions and relationships that produce and maintain social and environmental injustices for historically and contemporarily marginalized groups, both human and nonhuman.

We build on the critical environmental justice (CEJ) framework by exploring mutual aid as a means of practising and realising transformative environmental justice that allows activists to build environmentally resilient and just communities beyond the state. We draw on the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, the Black Radical Tradition, and other critical approaches to demonstrate how mutual aid offers a meaningful point of conjunction for uniting ideological approaches to environmental justice that are often understood as being at odds with one another. To demonstrate this in action, we provide brief examples on the proliferation and longevity of mutual aid in times of disaster, including the 1927 Mississippi floods, Hurricane Katrina, the Nashville tornados, and the Texas power outages. Through these accounts, we seek to demonstrate how environmental justice organisations can and have advanced collective liberation using mutual aid as a critical orientation rooted in community based care and empowerment.

Planetary justice discourse has emerged as a new approach for earth system governance which centers justice concerns within a particular temporal epoch, the so-called 'Anthropocene.' Here, we examine the distinctive features of the planetary justice framework, focusing specifically on the importance of the temporal dimensions relevant for understanding injustices beyond humans and at the planetary scale. We use two examples - PFAS and insurance - to demonstrate how the multiscalar, beyond-human approach adopted by planetary justice scholars, coupled with the discourse's embeddedness in existing earth system governance processes, could have meaningful influence in planetary decision-making processes. We argue that there is a need for (1) expanding the 'pro-poor' agenda of planetary justice research, and (2) cultivating space for inclusion of existing and alternative approaches to justice in pursuing a pluralized planetary justice. In closing, we suggest future areas of research and action for redressing power imbalances across space-time in the pursuit of planetary justice.

A low-carbon energy transition is essential for mitigating climate change, but can also cause energy justice and equity impacts on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), low-income, and other frontline communities. Examples include exacerbating energy burden, inaccessibility and unaffordability of low-carbon energy and electric end-use technologies, property value loss and displacement from renewable energy siting, and unequal health benefits and employment losses from fossil fuel retirement. To avoid perpetuating historical and creating new injustices, an equitable and just energy transition will require careful planning and execution. To this end, measuring and evaluating the effects of existing and proposed programs and policies aimed at decarbonizing energy systems is critical. However, methods and metrics for evaluating equity effects vary across disciplines and transitions, making it challenging to identify effective evaluation strategies. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the equity implications of low-carbon energy transitions and identifies key metrics that have been used across disciplines to quantify energy injustices and equity impacts. We focus on four key low-carbon energy transitions: (1) renewable energy deployment; (2) fossil fuel infrastructure retirement; (3) transportation electrification; and (4) residential building decarbonization. We classify energy justice and equity metrics into the dimensions of health, access , and livelihood , and construct an analytical framework that supports policymakers, planners and other stakeholders in identifying important equity considerations and quantitatively evaluating the effects of decarbonization initiatives. While our framework can serve as a starting point for evaluating justice and equity impacts of energy transitions, further work is needed to address the limitations of existing metrics and additional evaluation methods will be critical to effect energy transitions that are truly equitable.

By Javiera Barandiarán, Mona Damluji & 3 more. The introduction to the 'Energy Justice in Global Perspective' stream, in which the articles advance a just global energy transition by centering voices and epistemologies of historically marginalized groups.

Next to the nuclear industry, the largest producer of contaminants in the air, land, and water is the electronics industry. Silicon Valley hosts the highest density of Superfund sites anywhere in the nation and leads the country in the number of temporary workers per capita and in workforce gender inequities. Silicon Valley offers a sobering illustration of environmental inequality and other problems that are increasingly linked to the globalization of the world's economies. In The Silicon Valley of Dreams , the authors take a hard look at the high-tech region of Silicon Valley to examine environmental racism within the context of immigrant patterns, labor markets, and the historical patterns of colonialism. One cannot understand Silicon Valley or the high-tech global economy in general, they contend, without also understanding the role people of color play in the labor force, working in the electronic industry's toxic environments. These toxic work environments produce chemical pollution that, in turn, disrupts the ecosystems of surrounding communities inhabited by people of color and immigrants. The authors trace the origins of this exploitation and provide a new understanding of the present-day struggles for occupational health and safety. The Silicon Valley of Dreams will be critical reading for students and scholars in ethnic studies, immigration, urban studies, gender studies, social movements, and the environment, as well as activists and policy-makers working to address the needs of workers, communities, and industry.

Vol. 130, No. 9 Research LetterOpen AccessThe Human Right to Water: A 20-Year Comparative Analysis of Arsenic in Rural and Carceral Drinking Water Systems in Californiais accompanied byInvited Perspective: Uncovering Harmful Exposures in Carceral Environments Jenny Rempel, Isha Ray, Ethan Hessl, Jasmine Vazin, Zehui Zhou, Shin Kim, Xuan Zhang, Chiyu Ding, Ziyi He, David Pellow, and Alasdair Cohen Jenny Rempel Energy and Resources Group, Rausser College of Natural Resources, University of California (UC)–Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Isha Ray Energy and Resources Group, Rausser College of Natural Resources, University of California (UC)–Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Ethan Hessl Molecular Environmental Biology, Rausser College of Natural Resources, UC-Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Jasmine Vazin Global Environmental Justice Project, UC-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Zehui Zhou Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, College of Engineering, UC-Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Shin Kim Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, College of Engineering, UC-Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Xuan Zhang Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, College of Engineering, UC-Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Chiyu Ding Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, College of Engineering, UC-Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , Ziyi He Statistics, College of Letters and Science, UC-Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , David Pellow Environmental Studies Program, UC-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA Search for more papers by this author , and Alasdair Cohen Address correspondence to Alasdair Cohen, Department of Population Health Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 205 Duck Pond Dr., Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA. Email: E-mail Address: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9917-8647 Department of Population Health Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Virginia, USA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Virginia, USA Search for more papers by this author Published:21 September 2022CID: 097701https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP10758AboutSectionsPDF ToolsDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InReddit IntroductionAccess to safe drinking water is considered a universal human right.1 In the United States, exposure to arsenic contamination in drinking water disproportionately impacts small, groundwater-reliant communities and communities of color.2,3 These inequities are driven by a combination of natural, built, and sociopolitical factors.4 The United Nations calls upon states to especially safeguard the right to safe water for groups that may face difficulties exercising this right, such as incarcerated people.1 Limited research exists on water quality in prisons; however, prisons in the Southwestern United States have elevated arsenic concentrations compared with other community water systems (CWSs) in the region.5Inorganic arsenic is an odorless, colorless carcinogen, common in California’s San Joaquin Valley groundwater.3,6 In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lowered the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for arsenic from 50μg/L to a running annual average of <10μg/L.7 This stronger standard went into effect in 2006. In 2012, California passed its Human Right to Water bill (Assembly Bill 685) mandating safe, affordable, and accessible water for all.In this article we present a comparative analysis of 20 y of data (2001–2021) on arsenic concentrations in the CWSs serving Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP) and three neighboring rural communities: Allensworth, Delano, and McFarland. Our objective was to better understand trends in water quality, compliance, and treatment following adoption of the revised arsenic MCL and to elucidate differences, if any, between neighboring incarcerated and nonincarcerated populations.MethodsWe selected KVSP because of its well-documented history of arsenic contamination.5 The Allensworth Community Services District, City of Delano, and City of McFarland CWSs are located in close proximity to KVSP, rely exclusively on groundwater sources, and serve >500 people each. All three communities have median household incomes of <60% of California’s statewide average (Table 1).Table 1 Key socioeconomic and drinking water-related characteristics for the four study sites.AllensworthCity of DelanoCity of McFarlandKern Valley State PrisonDemographic and economic indicators Population: ACS estimatea575 (±162)b52,886 (±31)b14,823 (±34)bData unavailable Population: SDWIS estimatec52152,65815,1055,300 Median household incomea,d$33,214 (±$14,921)b$43,641 (±$4,601)b$35,346 (±$3,476)bData unavailable Poverty rate (CA mean=13.11%) (%)a,e47.6319.3230.21Data unavailableGovernance and water supply Type of local governanceCommunity services districtCity councilCity councilNA Active public groundwater supply wells (as of 2021, Q3) (n)c21432SDWA violation data: 2001–2021f Arsenic MCL violations (n)c,g11271219 Arsenic monitoring or treatment technique violations (n)c3080 Most recent MCL violation: arsenic (as of 2021, Q3)cQ2 of 2020Q4 of 2012Q1 of 2013Q4 of 2012 Most recent MCL violation: any (as of 2021, Q3)2020 arsenic violation2019 1,2,3-trichloro-propane violationh2019 1,2,3-trichloro-propane violationh2019 total coliform rule violationSampling results from served water sources: 2001–2021in=150n=1,714n=136n=426 Mean arsenic level ±SD (μg/L)9.27±2.883.41±6.718.43±6.687.51±8.19 Median arsenic level (IQR) (μg/L)8.95 (5.00)0 (4.27)7.95 (4.43)5.00 (5.00) Min. and max. arsenic level (μg/L)3.7, 230, 562, 760, 50.4 Samples exceeding 10μg/L arsenicc34% (n=51, max: 23μg/L)8% (n=141, max: 56μg/L)20% (n=27, max: 76μg/L)19% (n=81, max: 50μg/L) Posttreatment or post-blending samples exceeding 10μg/L arsenicc,j18% (n=13, max: 23μg/L)0% (n=0 of 1,250)13% (n=9, max: 18μg/L)12% (n=47, max: 50μg/L)Arsenic treatment status and funding Approximate state funding for arsenic remediationk$496,000 interim solutions; $390,000 planning grant$20.5 million loan and $818,000 construction grant$232,000 planning grant, $3.7 million construction grant$6.2 million planning and construction funding Arsenic treatment status (as of 2021, Q3)cNo, but the water from two wells was blendedYes, wellhead treatment on four wellsYes, wellhead treatment on one wellYes, treatment on blended waterNote: Socioeconomic data and results from our drinking water analyses are presented for four neighboring community water systems in California’s southern San Joaquin Valley. Analyses are based on n=3,984 water quality monitoring samples taken across these four systems from 2001 to 2021, of which n=2,426 samples were from served water sources. Samples below the detection limit were included as reported in California’s Drinking Water Watch.9 ACS, American Community Survey; CA, California; IQR, interquartile range; max, maximum; MCL, maximum contaminant level; min, minimum; NA, not applicable; Q, quarter; SD, standard deviation; SDWA, Safe Drinking Water Act; SDWIS, Safe Drinking Water Information System.aInformation from 5-y ACS 2019 estimates (most recent year available) for these census-designated geographies.bMargin of error bounds reflect a 90% confidence interval around the estimate.cInformation calculated based on data from California’s Drinking Water Watch,9 which is partly sourced from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s SDWIS.dMedian household income in the past 12 months, in 2019 inflation-adjusted U.S. dollars.ePercentage of the population whose income in the past 12 months was below the federal poverty level.fSDWA violation data.gThe MCL is the highest level of a contaminant allowed in drinking water. MCL violations are assigned by the Division of Drinking Water when a public water system exceeds the MCL.hCalifornia’s state MCL for 1,2,3-trichloropropane is 0.005μg/L.iServed water sources refers to water sources served to community water system customers, which excludes raw water samples from treated and blended sources.jWater quality samples taken after arsenic treatment (i.e., in Delano, McFarland, and Kern Valley State Prison), or after blending the water from two wells without treatment (i.e., in Allensworth).kInformation from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (2013)8 and California State Water Resources Control Board (CSWRCB) Department of Financial Assistance (DFA).9 DFA confirmed funding for Allensworth, Delano, and McFarland from 2014 to 2021 (B. Chase, Supervising Water Resource Control Engineer, CSWRCB, personal communication). “Interim solutions” refers to grant funding for bottled water deliveries and school water filling stations.We analyzed publicly available drinking water quality monitoring and violation data for 2001–2021, downloaded from California’s Drinking Water Watch, which is partly sourced from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Information System.9 For our case analysis, we compared MCL and monitoring violation occurrence and frequency by CWS, and we calculated and compared running average arsenic concentrations for each water source in each CWS (Figure 1A–D). We further analyzed disaggregated sampling points and the 2001–2021 averages for served water (i.e., water served to CWS customers) (Figure 1E–H; Table 1). To assess arsenic remediation effectiveness, we disaggregated publicly reported monitoring data to calculate the number and percentage of posttreatment and post-blending samples exceeding 10μg/L (Table 1). We communicated with regional water engineers to confirm our understanding of publicly available water source labeling and arsenic remediation information. Data and R scripts used for our analyses are available in our supporting information files ( https://osf.io/7wqvn).Figure 1. Public water supply arsenic data for the four study sites (Allensworth, Delano, McFarland, Kern Valley State Prison), January 2001–May 2021. All panels depict reported arsenic concentrations. (A–D) depict loess-smoothed water quality data for each water sampling point within each CWS, with shading for 95% confidence intervals around the moving averages. Pre- and post-arsenic-remediation (i.e., blending or treatment) water quality data are included for comparison and assessment of average arsenic remediation effectiveness. Both MCL violation data and monitoring and reporting violation data for arsenic are shown below each panel for year(s) with violations. For comparison with (A–D), (E–H) depict arsenic concentration sampling data for served water sources only (i.e., water sources served to CWS customers, excluding raw water samples from treated sources). Although running annual averages are used to assess MCL compliance, scatter plot figures reveal served samples that exceeded the MCL, enabling pre- and post-arsenic-treatment comparison. The asterisk in (F) indicates that pretreatment water quality monitoring samples taken around that date were likely sampled during the treatment plant commissioning process and, if so, would not have been served to customers (personal communication from a Water Resource Control Engineer at the California State Water Resources Control Board); however, we include these monitoring results here because engineers at the CSWRCB could not definitively confirm that these samples were not served to customers. In all panels, samples below the detection limit were included as reported in California’s Drinking Water Watch9 and dashed lines indicate the 2006 legal limit (i.e., MCL) change to 10μg/L. Note: CSWRCB, California State Water Resources Control Board; CWS, community water system; loess, locally estimated scatterplot smoothing; max, maximum; MCL, maximum contaminant level.ResultsOver the time period analyzed, all four systems served water in exceedance of the revised arsenic MCL in multiple years, and all received violations for exceedances (Figure 1). Mean arsenic levels in served water sources from 2001 to 2021 ranged from 3.4μg/L [standard deviation (SD) = 6.7 μg/L] in Delano, to 9.3μg/L (SD = 2.9 μg/L) in Allensworth (n=2,426 samples from served water sources across four systems) (Table 1). All four systems also received MCL violations for other contaminants (e.g., nitrate, total coliforms, 1,2,3-trichloropropane) over this 20-y period. Disaggregated sampling results for served water sources (Figure 1E–H) reveal that, following arsenic remediation efforts, multiple samples remained >10μg/L in every system except Delano (Table 1). Uniquely among the three CWSs with arsenic treatment in place, KVSP had several posttreatment water samples with arsenic levels >20μg/L (Figure 1G). From 2019 to 2021, Allensworth and McFarland also exhibited short periods during which arsenic remediation efforts were not optimized (Figure 1E,H).DiscussionAlthough all four CWSs were in compliance with the arsenic MCL as of the third quarter of 2021, sample levels and daily concentrations fluctuate and can periodically exceed legal limits with no violations recorded (Figure 1). Because compliance with the arsenic MCL is determined using a running annual average by water system sampling point, in communities with arsenic levels near the MCL, the number of MCL violations (Table 1) likely underestimates the risks of chronic exposures to arsenic, and underreports potential violations of the human right to safe water. Disaggregated sampling results (Figure 1E–H) more accurately reflect the health risks from arsenic levels than do the running annual averages used to assess legal compliance. Metrics such as the 95th percentile of sample results, or the number of samples exceeding half of the MCL, are useful additional tools for tracking such exposure risks.3,10In low-income rural settings, persistent and known water-related injustices can reach across carceral boundaries. Unlike the other CWSs in our study, KVSP was built following notification of the new arsenic MCL in 2001. After 2006, KVSP was out of compliance for 7 y. Despite a ∼$6-million state investment for arsenic remediation (Table 1),8 violations of the human right to water persisted at KVSP with respect to day-to-day water safety and access to alternatives (Figure 1C,G). Bottled water is sold at KVSP, but because incarcerated people can be paid at most $56/month per California regulations (15 California Code of Regulations, Section 3041.2) it is not a viable safe water alternative. By comparison, Allensworth residents still lack a long-term solution for their arsenic exposure, although the state subsidizes bottled water access. Because federal laws situate the responsibility for CWS financing primarily at a local level, small CWSs serving low-income communities often lack the funding needed to adequately mitigate exposures to water contaminants such as arsenic.4 Repeated individual sampling results for arsenic >10μg/L in Allensworth, KVSP, and McFarland (Figure 1E,G,H) reveal the limitations of current arsenic remediation efforts.Our analysis is bounded by reported CWS data and limited by a lack of water quality testing data at the point of use; thus, we cannot properly estimate individual exposures. Generalization of our findings to other carceral and rural communities may be limited by the particulars of KVSP and the other study communities.ConclusionsOverall, our findings illustrate that a) structural challenges to the realization of the human right to safe water occur pre- and post-arsenic treatment and unfold in distinct ways for incarcerated and nonincarcerated rural communities, b) human right to water violations can persist even following state investments for remediation, and c) annually averaged water quality data used to track and publicly report violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act provide only a partial guide to whether the human right to water is being realized. Publicly available, disaggregated monitoring data enables a more nuanced comparison of water quality and of progress toward the human right to water.AcknowledgmentsA.C. and D.P. contributed to the study concept and design. J.R., E.H., Z.Z., S.K., X.Z., and C.D. contributed to data extraction and organization. J.R., E.H., Z.Z., S.K., X.Z., C.D., Z.H., and A.C. conducted initial data analysis. J.R. conducted primary and final analysis. J.R., E.H., and A.C. conducted outreach and ground-truthing. J.R., I.R., J.V., D.P., and A.C. drafted the manuscript. J.R., I.R., and A.C. reviewed and revised the manuscript. J.R., I.R., D.P., and A.C. offered supervision.We thank M. Hagan, B. Chase, B. Potter, C. Fischer, and L. Pham for their assistance and guidance. This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant DGE 1752814 to J.R. Additional funding was provided through the University of California’s Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program and the Berkeley Fellowship.URLs for all data sources as well as the R scripts used for data processing and analysis are included in the supporting information files ( https://osf.io/7wqvn).References1. United Nations Economic and Social Council. 2002. General Comment No. 15: the right to water (arts. 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/publications/operations/49d095742/committee-economic-social-cultural-rights-general-comment-15-2002-right.html [accessed 8 August 2022]. Google Scholar2. Nigra AE, Chen Q, Chillrud SN, Wang L, Harvey D, Mailloux B, et al.2020. Inequalities in public water arsenic concentrations in counties and community water systems across the United States, 2006–2011. Environ Health Perspect 128(12):127001, PMID: 33295795, 10.1289/EHP7313. Link, Google Scholar3. Pace C, Balazs C, Bangia K, Depsky N, Renteria A, Morello-Frosch R, et al.2022. Inequities in drinking water quality among domestic well communities and community water systems, California, 2011–2019. Am J Public Health 112(1):88–97, PMID: 34936392, 10.2105/AJPH.2021.306561. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar4. Balazs CL, Ray I. 2014. The drinking water disparities framework: on the origins and persistence of inequities in exposure. Am J Public Health 104(4):603–611, PMID: 24524500, 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301664. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar5. Nigra AE, Navas-Acien A. 2020. Arsenic in US correctional facility drinking water, 2006–2011. Environ Res 188:109768, PMID: 32585331, 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109768. Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar6. Kuo CC, Moon KA, Wang SL, Silbergeld E, Navas-Acien A. 2017. The association of arsenic metabolism with cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes: a systematic review of the epidemiological evidence. Environ Health Perspect 125(8):087001, PMID: 28796632, 10.1289/EHP577. Link, Google Scholar7. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2001. Technical Fact Sheet: Final Rule for Arsenic in Drinking Water. EPA 815-F-00-016. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPdf.cgi?Dockey=20001XXE.txt [accessed 8 August 2022]. Google Scholar8. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. 2013. Quarterly Status Report of Capital Outlay Projects. Status as of 31 March 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20140911202319/https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/fpcm/docs/FPCM-March_2013_Quarterly_Report.pdf [accessed 15 March 2022]. Google Scholar9. Division of Drinking Water, California State Water Resources Control Board. n.d. Drinking Water Watch. https://sdwis.waterboards.ca.gov/PDWW/ [accessed 22 May 2021]. Google Scholar10. Schaider LA, Swetschinski L, Campbell C, Rudel RA. 2019. Environmental justice and drinking water quality: are there socioeconomic disparities in nitrate levels in U.S. drinking water?Environ Health 18(1):3, PMID: 30651108, 10.1186/s12940-018-0442-6. Crossref, Medline, Google ScholarJ.R. serves as an uncompensated board member at Community Water Center, an NGO that works to achieve safe and affordable drinking water access for Californians. All other authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsRelated articlesInvited Perspective: Uncovering Harmful Exposures in Carceral Environments21 September 2022Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 130, No. 9 September 2022Metrics About Article Metrics Publication History Manuscript received8 December 2021Manuscript revised9 August 2022Manuscript accepted17 August 2022Originally published21 September 2022 Financial disclosuresPDF download License information EHP is an open-access journal published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. All content is public domain unless otherwise noted. Note to readers with disabilities EHP strives to ensure that all journal content is accessible to all readers. 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How can university scholars and community activists effectively collaborate to produce generative, empowering, and materially impactful knowledge and actions concerning climate change and climate justice? In this paper, we report on a collaborative effort between climate justice non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and university faculty and students to conduct research to produce innovative ideas and insights about just transitions in California and to support social movement campaigns aimed at actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions by keeping fossil fuels in the ground. This collaboration was jointly initiated by faculty and students at a California university alongside leaders of local social movement organizations dedicated to climate justice, as a response to several proposed development projects that would expand oil extraction and fossil fuel use in that state. We argue that these efforts produced a climate justice gestalt that serves to amplify our productivity, power, and impact well beyond what any single partner could do separately or individually with respect to addressing climate injustices in our region. This is our plan for addressing climate change from an anti-authoritarian, participatory approach that will speak to new developments in the scholarship on climate and environmental justice studies and collaborative research methods.

The Handbook of Environmental Sociology features a collection of 25 original chapters that define the contours of environmental sociology and invite readers to push boundaries in their exploration of this subdiscipline. This introductory chapter speaks to several themes in sociology that are of enduring interest and part of emerging areas of scholarship. The chapter and the volume itself are divided into the following four thematic areas: (1) Inequality, Political Economy, and Justice; (2) Climate, Energy, and Health; (3) Culture, the State, and Institutions; and (4) Population, Place, and Possibilities. Ultimately, this collection advances environmental sociology by identifying new theoretical lenses for understanding social processes and structural conditions that influence environmental outcomes, introducing new methodological approaches for studying the environment, and exploring new frontiers. Throughout the volume, contributors focus attention on the effects of power and inequality in shaping socio-environmental problems and solutions while helping to advance a vision of public environmental sociology by identifying the ways the subdiscipline can contribute to ongoing policy debates and public discourses.

The critical environmental justice (CEJ) framework contends that inequalities are sustained through intersecting social categories, multi-scalarity, the perceived expendability of marginalized populations, and state-vested power. While this approach offers new pathways for environmental justice research, it overlooks the role of firms, suggesting a departure from long-standing political-economic theories, such as the treadmill of production (ToP), which elevate the importance of producers. In focusing on firms, we ask: how do firms operationalize diverse social forces to produce environmental injustice? What organizational logics sustain these inequalities? To understand the firm-level dynamics shaping treadmill acceleration and environmental injustice, we utilize two concepts— social embeddedness and managerial authority —from economic sociology research on firms. The former refers to the social and non-economic factors that guide economic decision-making, whereas the latter refers to the power that reinforces worksite hierarchies. This theoretical paper argues that social embeddedness and managerial authority interact within firms to produce an organizational logic that sustains environmental injustice and ecological disorganization. We draw from historical and contemporary evidence on sugarcane plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean, with cases ranging from the colonial period to the present day. By bringing economic sociological concepts to bear on the CEJ and ToP frameworks, we advance debates on how firm-level dynamics shape environmental inequalities.

The field of environmental justice studies has blossomed into a multidisciplinary body of scholarship in the last few decades with contributions across the social sciences, humanities, law, and the sciences. Our framing of environmental justice scholarship centers on the necessity of examining the role of state and institutional violence in producing environmental injustice through interlocking systems of racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and enslavement. We link themes of violence and the role of the state in the expansion of environmental justice studies to the major topics of land and resource conflicts, prisons and incarceration, and emotions. We draw on this scholarship to explore how theories and politics of environmental justice are inflected by the constraints and leverage points within racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and the afterlives of enslavement. This paper offers an assessment of theoretical advances, and charts a course for next possible stages of the literature's development and EJ activism.

Winner, Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding Publication Award, presented by the Environment & Technology section of the American Sociological Association Environmentalism usually calls to mind images of peace and serenity, a oneness with nature, and a shared sense of responsibility. But one town in Colorado, under the guise of environmental protection, passed a resolution limiting immigration, bolstering the privilege of the wealthy and scapegoating Latin American newcomers for the area's current and future ecological problems. This might have escaped attention save for the fact that this wasn't some rinky-dink backwater. It was Aspen, Colorado, playground of the rich and famous and the West's most elite ski town. Tracking the lives of immigrant laborers through several years of exhaustive fieldwork and archival digging, The Slums of Aspen tells a story that brings together some of the most pressing social problems of the day: environmental crises, immigration, and social inequality. Park and Pellow demonstrate how these issues are intertwined in the everyday experiences of people who work and live in this wealthy tourist community. Offering a new understanding of a little known class of the super-elite, of low-wage immigrants (mostly from Latin America) who have become the foundation for service and leisure in this famous resort, and of the recent history of the ski industry, Park and Pellow expose the ways in which Colorado boosters have reshaped the landscape and altered ecosystems in pursuit of profit and pleasure. Of even greater urgency, they frame how environmental degradation and immigration reform have become inextricably linked in many regions of the American West, a dynamic that interferes with the efforts of valorous environmental causes, often turning away from conservation and toward insidious racial privilege.

This study considers the relationship between juvenile detention centers and hazardous waste (Superfund) sites in nine western states in the United States. It asks whether there is a pattern of toxic industrial sites being placed within close spatial proximity of juvenile detention centers, and whether this proximity may result in greater health risks for the youths being imprisoned. Through use of Aeronautical Reconnaissance Coverage Geographic Information System (ArcGIS), it was determined that, out of 167 sites housing juveniles, four are within one mile of at least one Superfund site, and 49 are within 5 miles of at least one Superfund site. In addition, examination of the health consequences of proximity to certain toxics suggests that there are legitimate dangers associated with being housed in a juvenile detention facility located near a Superfund site. Although there is no disproportionate proximity compared with the general population, any citing of juvenile detention centers near toxic sites, or the siting of toxic sites near juvenile detention centers, is an instance of environmental injustice, as juveniles are unable to choose where they are housed, and juvenile detention centers disproportionately house youth of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth, and disabled youth.

Environmental injustice occurs when marginalized groups face disproportionate environmental impacts from a range of threats. Environmental racism is a particular form of environmental injustice and frequently includes the implementation of policies, regulations, or institutional practices that target communities of color for undesirable waste sites, zoning, and industry. One example of how the United States federal and state governments are currently practicing environmental racism is in the form of building and maintaining toxic prisons and immigrant detention prisons, where people of color and undocumented persons are the majority of inmates and detainees who suffer disproportionate health risk and harms. This article discusses the historical and contemporary conditions that have shaped the present political landscape of racial and immigration conflicts and considers those dynamics in the context of the literature on environmental justice. Case studies are then presented to highlight specific locations and instances that exemplify environmental injustice and racism in the carceral sector. The article concludes with an analysis of the current political drivers and motivations contributing to these risks and injustices, and ends with a discussion of the scale and depth of analysis required to alleviate these impacts in the future, which might contribute to greater sustainability among the communities affected.

This paper considers the intersections of environmental justice concerns with the U.S. prison system through the experiences of political prisoners and politicized prisoners from high-profile revol...