Environmental Injustice Quotes

Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

Generally speaking in America, a lot of environmentally problematic facilities tend to be located in places where poor folks live because wealthier folks have the ability to say, "not in my backyard."

What we are doing is deeply unfair and a profound tragedy - what we're doing in the way of global warming, what we're doing to the oceans - and none of it makes any sense to me.

We are living in a science-fiction nightmare where children are gasping for breath on bad-air days because somebody gave money to a politician. And my children and the kids of millions of other Americans can no longer go fishing and eat their catch because somebody gave money to a politician.

For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born.

I wish I could do more in Flint but they estimated the amount that it would cost to fix Flint and it would be a little over $1 billion and I'm definitely not a billionaire. It's extremely heartbreaking the way the city is being treated in my opinion.

Native communities are focal points for the excrement of industrial society.

Zion and communities like it have been unfairly saddled with storing our nation's stranded nuclear waste... with no compensation in return. The federal government needs to make right by these communities.

I myself, as an American Indian, feel like a failure in a way. I have not been able to do anything about the fact that these large corporations are taking so much natural gas and oil out of the soil. It seems like we're always involved in fighting something. It's tiresome.

The destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use, and the violent hoarding of the Earth's resources cause grievances, conflicts and wars, precisely because they are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development.

When you pollute a river, it's a supreme injustice to those who are downstream and those who live in the river who are not human beings.

There is nothing that will discombobulate and degrade [more] the lives of people near the margin on this planet. You don't have to look much past New Orleans to see that. Who took the hit? Some of the poorest people in the U.S.

This is America, but the way that the people of Flint are being treated with this water crisis is like a third-world country.

Our most polluted neighborhoods are disproportionately home to Latinos, African Americans, and other communities of color.

If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.

Even when we think or talk about recycling, lots of recyclable stuff ends up getting incinerated or in landfills and leaving many municipalities, diversion rates - they leave much to be recycled. And where is this waste handled? Usually in poor communities.

I mean, think of Flint. I mean, think of the lead poisoning of thousands of poor and black children across the United States.

The main message of Climate Revolution is that climate change is caused by the rotten financial system we've got, designed to create poverty and rip off any profits for a small amount of rich people. Meanwhile, it destroys the earth.

Many of us regard ourselves as mildly liberal or centrist politically, voice fairly pleasant sentiments about our poor children, contribute money to send poor kids to summer camp, feel benevolent. We're not nazis; we're nice people. We read sophisticated books. We go to church. We go to synagogue. Meanwhile, we put other people's children into an economic and environmental death zone. We make it hard for them to get out. We strip the place bare of amenities. And we sit back and say to ourselves, "Well, I hope that they don't kill each other off. But if they do, it's not my fault.

We are very fond of blaming the poor for destroying the environment. But often it is the powerful, including governments, that are responsible.

Climate change and variations particularly impact many aspects of life that are inextricably linked to health: food security, economic livelihoods, air safety, and water and sanitation systems. Gender differences in health risks are likely to be worsened by climate change.

Environmental justice [means that] no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.

Can we get out of this system something good for us? We could, if we were united with an intelligent self-interest that we could push, we might be able to get something. But, America is out to destroy the little man - I'm talking about those in the highest places. Flint, Michigan [contaminated water supply] was not an accident, that's by design.

I just heard that some lead was coming into Newark into schools, and I asked the question, "Whose schools?" They said, "The Black and the Brown." Is that an accident? I don't think so. We are being designed to be destroyed - and unless we see that, and come together as a people under vicious attack we will suffer the consequences of evil that's in high places.

Environmental justice, for those of you who may not be familiar with the term, goes something like this: no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.