The Air of Injustice

At first glance, air pollution generally and power plant pollution specifically, would not seem to rank among the highest priorities for African Americans. However, African Americans are disproportionately affected by power plant emissions because we are concentrated in large urban centers, suffer higher rates of asthma and share a historical bond with the developing world where climate change threatens already weak and overburdened economies. From this perspective, power plant cleanup is elevated on the long list of social justice imperatives.

African Americans are disproportionately affected by the air pollution emitted by our nation’s biggest polluters, coal-fired power plants, in terms of environmental and a long list of health problems including pediatric asthma, infant death rates, emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

Additionally, 71% of African Americans live in counties that violate federal air pollution standards, compared to 58% of the white population.

It is no coincidence that the term environmental justice was coined in the South, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. Environmental racism emerged as a critical concern in Warren County, North Carolina in 1983 when protesters fought toxic dumping in this predominantly black and poor county. Dr. Joseph Lowery, then president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was among those present to protest the dumping of PCBs in a local landfill.

A landmark environmental justice study conducted by the United Church of Christ titled “Toxic Waste and Race” established that race was the most reliable predictor of proximity to hazardous waste sites in the United States — more reliable than poverty, land values and home ownership. Dr. Robert Bullard, director of Clark Atlanta University’s Environmental Justice Resource Center, chronicles Environmental Justice in the 21^st Century in his 2000 Directory of People of Color Groups. Bullard reminds us of the 1990 study “Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality,” which chronicled the convergence of the social justice and environmental movements.

Simply put by the groups that collaborated on this article, all coal-fired power plants, both new and old, must be made to comply with modern emission control standards. The Clean Air Act’s 30-year loophole for old, dirty power plants must be finally closed. 

source:
http://www.energyjustice.net/files/coal/Air_of_Injustice.pdf