Bullard, Robert. (2021, June 29). I Wrote About This Environmental Injustice Decades Ago. It Hasn’t Changed. Retrieved August 9, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/opinion/biden-environmental-justice-pipelines.html
This article began with the example of environmental injustice that the author had written about years before, on a predominantly Black and brown community in the US whose health was being affected by toxic wastes dumped in their neighborhood. The author expressed how this situation had not changed since the last time he wrote about it, if not it was worse than before, and voiced skepticisms on whether the Biden administration would actively help the issue of environmental injustice.
I appreciated that this article was more opinion focused, and I think the author talked an appropriate amount on an example of environmental injustice, the government’s response, and what he believed should happen. What I liked most about this particular article was that the author went into more depth about the example of toxic waste in Black and brown communities, and also voiced opinions on how difficult it would be to get new policies through the senate.
There are very many environmental injustices across the United States, and the fact that many have not changed, including this one, is disappointing. If citizens’ health are in danger, then it should be alarming to the government immediately. What do you think is a good solution to this situation? I believe that toxic waste should not be near any sort of community, or maybe the United States needs to decreases the use of toxic products, or products that produce toxic waste.
I do agree that this would be a hard thing to fix because the reason that all the toxic waste is being dumped into these communities is from our past when equality was far worse than it is now. It is a hard thing to change because there is not really any right place to dump toxic waste. There are places that are better than others such as designated areas for toxic waste, however, the amount of toxic waste that we produce exceeds what we can manage which is what leads to the dumping of toxic waste in these communities. How do you think that this situation can be properly fixed without just dumping the waste in other places that will become harmful there?
Thank you both for reading! I feel like the first step to resolving this issue is to start producing less toxic waste in the first place, and then figure out what to do with waste that has already been created. Additionally, the government cannot ignore that this is a social issue as well. Therefore, problem solving should be focused on both environmental and social issues.