Principles of Environmental Justice
Principles of environmental justice were established in recognition of the disproportionate number of environmental burdens in specific communities. Its main aim is to ensure a healthy environment for everybody irrespective of their race, social class, nationality, gender, or age. One of the principles that surprised me was that “environment justice needs us to make our decisions personally and as consumers to consume the little we of the resources provided by the earth and produce as little waste as possible.” I agree with this principle fully because we are supposed to reprioritize and challenge our lifestyles to promote a healthy world for current and future generations. The relationship between humans and the environment is founded on perception, value, and responsibility of the two towards our behavior and lives. Our values are shaped by justice. Those who are conversant with environmental justice know that it protects humanity and other entities through the protection of the environment. Therefore, they condemn environmental pollution, which can cause harm to communities, humans, and ecosystems.
According to Schlosberg and Collins (2014), things such as economic and racial inequality are so important when it comes to the environment. An increase in levels of income across different neighborhoods and households are strongly linked with variations in levels of environmental injustice. Racial inequalities and differences in power and wealth affect the magnitude and the incidence of environmental protection. Social and economic disparities founded on class, race, ethnicity, gender, and age usually translate into environmental inequalities. The effects of these inequalities do affect not only the distribution of environmental quality but also the total size of the pie. It is essential to think about social equality as a prerequisite for ecological wellbeing because it exacerbates environmental damage. The environmental justice stresses the need for social equality since the less privileged are the most likely to suffer from environmental injustice.
Climate Change as a Consequence of Human Action
The current human actions, such as levels of consumption, and the rapidly growing population, have a significant effect on the natural environment and contribute to climate change. For instance, the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions is envisioned to lead to a considerable amount of undesirable results that increase over a long time. Even if we hold per capita emissions constant, an increase in population plays a significant role in the amount of global emissions rate. Burning fossil fuels increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to an increase in temperature on the earth’s atmosphere, ocean, and land. Human-initiated changes in usage of land and land cover such as deforestation, urbanization, and changes in vegetation patterns also affect the climate. This leads to changes to the reflectivity of the earth’s surface, emissions from burning forests, urban heat island effects, and changes in the natural water cycle (Unsworth and Fielding, 2014).
Dunlap, McCright, and Yarosh (2016) asserts that there are polarized views concerning climate changes that stretch from the causes and cures for climate change to trust in climate scientists and their research. Politicians have different opinions on climate change, and they extend beyond whether climate change is taking place and whether human beings play any role. Specifically, there are deep divisions in political views on the potential destruction of the earth’s ecosystem and the possible actions to avert climate impacts. There is also a division on how partisans define the current scientific findings on climate. “Politicians have divergent views of the modern consensus, others have a different level of trust in the findings they get from professional researchers, and divergent views on whether it is the need for knowledge or the need for professional advancement that drives climate scientists in their research” (Unsworth and Fielding, 2014).