Environmental Justice
⚖️ Environmental Justice
Core idea: Environmental justice means **everyone has the right to a safe, healthy environment and fair access to resources**, no matter who they are or where they live.
🌍 Why environmental justice matters
Environmental justice is about **fairness** — who benefits, and who pays the price?
💰 Economic inequality and feedback loops
Economic inequality means wealth and opportunities are **unevenly distributed**.
In exams, link inequality to **reinforcing feedback loops** that make problems worse over time.
🏛️ Power, politics, and regulation
When economic power shapes laws, environmental damage can continue even when risks are well known.
🚰 Access to basic resources
Environmental justice also focuses on whether people can meet their **basic needs**.
🌐 Environmental justice at different scales
Environmental justice applies from the **local to the global scale**.
🧠 Exam-ready ideas to remember
Always connect environmental justice to **inequality, access to resources, and long-term sustainability**.
Trade, Resources, and Environmental Justice
🌍 Trade, Resources, and Environmental Justice
Environmental justice looks at **who benefits from resource use** and **who suffers the damage**.
🔄 Trade and resource extraction
Resource extraction may end officially, but unequal trade relationships can remain.
⚖️ Power imbalance between countries
High consumption in one place often causes harm somewhere else.
🌪️ Unequal environmental and social impacts
Climate impact example: Flooding can severely affect low-emission countries due to climate change driven elsewhere.
🏭 Pollution linked to global production
⚖️ Fair environmental policies
Environmental justice requires policies that protect people as well as the environment.
Justice = fair decision-making, fair outcomes, and shared responsibility.
👕 Case idea: Clothing and waste
Environmental justice asks: **Who consumes? Who profits? Who cleans up?**