Friday, August 04, 2006

Environmental Justice

Webster's defines 'environment' and 'environmentalism' as the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or commmunity and advocacy of the preservation or improvement of the natural environment. "Justice' is the impartial resolution of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments. It is beyond the capability of humans, and Americans, to impartially influence the lives of individuals and to be impartial in resolving conflicting environmental claims. Moreover, this Darwinian inclination creates a natural order that leads to disproportionate environmental impacts.

There is a black side of town and a white side of town in virtually every city in the U.S. Capitalism requires cordial workplace cooperation to comfortably gernerate incomes and profits. The black community will have to figure out how to clean up pollution in its own communities or decide to settle in alternative geographical areas. All Americans have a vested interest because the black community is as American as apple pie. Intracommunity dysfunction is meting serious internal punishments while external indifference renders itself irrelevant to the situation. We must achieve improvements in our natural, cultural and social environments through the application of practical solutions. Environmental justice will come from our hearts, heads and hands.

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