Introduction

Analysis of environmental harm is premised on the idea that someone or something is indeed being harmed. Environmental justice refers to the distribution of environments among peoples in terms of access to and use of specific natural resources in defined geographical areas, and the impacts of particular social practices and environmental hazards on specific human populations (for example, as defined on the basis of class, occupation, gender, age, ethnicity). In other words, humans are at the centre of analysis. The focus of analysis is on human health and well-being and how these are affected by particular types of production and consumption.

Within these broad parameters a series of important questions can be asked. For example, who, precisely, is victimised and why? Are there specific patterns to environmental victimisation affecting individuals, groups and communities? Is everyone affected by environmental harm? Is everyone equally exposed to risk of harm, or is victimisation solely related to social divisions such as class, gender and race?

Part of the answer to these questions lies in how the particular questions are framed and in how particular events shape public perceptions and actual experiences. Global warming and climate change, for example, have implications for everyone on the planet even if those first and most profoundly affected are the poor and marginalised. Incidents such as the emission explosions at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, and at the BP oil rig off the coast of the USA in the Gulf of Mexico, are non-discriminatory at one level. These events had an impact in some way on every person within range of them, even though company directors and people living outside of such ‘production’ zones were not directly affected. In many cases it is the actions of activist groups and environmental social movements that bring to public attention specific types of environmental harm, including knowledge about which individuals and groups suffer the most in particular places around the world.

The main focus of this chapter is to explore how environmental harm is constructed in relation to specific groups of people. In other words, the concern is with matters of social justice in relation to environmental harm.