Summary Of Defining Environmental Justice

The Environmental Justice movement helped usher in a new thinking of what we deem environmental issues. Rather than focusing on wilderness environments like traditional environmentalism, they focused on the environments that we lived in. Political theorist David Schlosberg began noticing that there was a blending of multiple theories of justice occurring out in the real world and organizations did not strictly follow one theory. In his book Defining Environmental Justice he states, “one simply cannot talk of one aspect of justice without it leading to another” (Schlosberg, 73). This is illustrated in the Environmental Justice movement’s three-part conception of justice. Within this conception of justice are ideas taken from other theories

In this theory John Rawls argues for fair equality of opportunity and redressing of inequalities. Rawls’ believed that everyone should have the equal opportunity for any position regardless of things like gender or ethnicity. The theory uses a hypothetical scenario, the veil of ignorance, to illustrate that everyone would choose this outcome having no knowledge of their personal characteristics. He also contends that inequalities should only be allowed if they are at the advantage of those who are worst-off. This addressed the issue of people being worse off in life through no fault of their own. He believed inequalities should benefit those worse off rather than those considered best-off. With this theory being concerned with distributive equality and individual equality, it only addressed individual oppression. The next part of this three-part theory realized that groups also experience oppression and that it exists in the real world as

Viewed as a possible tool that can achieve both distributive equality and social and political recognition, theorists note a distinct relationship between a lack of recognition and decline in a person’s participation in the greater community to include political positions. There is also a positive feedback loop that can be seen between participation and recognition in that the less recognition you have the less you participate further lowering one’s recognition and vice versa. As with recognition, participation goes beyond just looking at schemes of distribution and attempts to address the conditions that undermine social recognition. The relationship between these components cannot be ignored. Justice is a very broad and complex concept and to fully understand it, one cannot only apply one theory to it. This is seen in the interactions of these different parts within a broader