Students raise awareness of environmental justice by holding a week of campus events
There is a movement that has been growing steadily the past several years, across the country and around the globe. It is a movement pursuing environmental justice.
“I believe the goal of environmental justice is to tackle the systemic issues that have caused more harm to communities of color and indigenous communities, communities that have been systemically oppressed,” explained Lydia Pinard, (Oceanography, ’22). “The movement is aimed at trying to address those wrongs that are both environmentally and socially related.”
Pinard is part of a class being taught this semester by Richard Peterson, Ph.D., professor of environmental studies, that examines environmental racism and the environmental justice movement.
“Environmental justice and environmental racism are focused on the disproportionate bearing of burdens of toxins and how unwanted land uses often end up in communities of color and poor communities,” Peterson said. “The correlation is very hard to argue with. There is just so much data showing it, and that is what really gave birth to the environmental justice movement.”
One of the most publicized examples of this was the Flint, Michigan water crisis. From 2014 until 2019, drinking water for the city was contaminated with lead. A majority of Flint residents were African American. Civil rights advocates characterized the crisis as a result of environmental racism.
Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.
“I do think that the Flint water crisis is the most well-documented environmental injustice scenario that has happened recently,” Pinard stated. “It highlighted the systemic racism that allows environmental injustices to flourish.”
At the beginning of the semester, students in Peterson’s class held a brainstorming semester to come up with ways to raise awareness of environmental justice. They decided to hold events around the Biddeford Campus for a week, including a dramatic reading of the play "Flint," followed by a discussion of the Flint water issues.
“A lot of students did not really know much about the Flint water crisis before and did not have an emotional connection to it,” Pinard said. “After our event, we noticed a major change in people learning more about it.”
Another event featured a talk by New York city birder Jeffrey Ward, an African American man involved in a traditionally white hobby.
“We wanted to see what it was like to live in somebody else's shoes for a night, what they have to go through in the outdoors,” commented Xander Vitarelli (Environmental Science, ’22).
Vitarelli says Ward discussed how joggers would see him holding binoculars and cross the street and how police officers would approach him to ask what he was doing.
“Everybody should be able to freely explore nature; that is the way it should be,” Vitarelli said. “But clearly, based on his perspectives and those of a lot of other people, that is just not the case.”
Other events included a screening of “Dawnland,” a film about the forced removal of Native American children from their home and placed with white families. The film highlights the nation’s first-ever truth and reconciliation commission that investigated the devastating impact of Maine’s child welfare practices on the Wabanaki people.
The students also held an Environmental Justice Fair in Ripich Commons with table displays about several environmental justice issues.
“I really had not considered the term ‘environmental justice’ prior to taking this class, so I think it is really great that we were able to share this education with the broader UNE community,” Pinard said.
