Environmental justice advocates in California have fought for years against landfills, refineries and other polluting facilities in their neighborhoods. They insist that a progressive environmental agenda can’t tackle crucial environmental issues such as climate change from a purely global perspective; the local impacts matter, too. They say that regulators and politicians need to craft environmental policy with an eye toward reversing the discrimination and racism that have long affected low-income communities of color.
Michael Méndez, an assistant professor of urban planning and public policy, documents some of the crucial years of the environmental justice movement in California from 2006 to the present in his book “Climate Change from the Streets: How Conflict and Collaboration Strengthen the Environmental Justice Movement.” The book recently won the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, sponsored by the International Studies Association (ISA).
On this episode of the UCI Podcast, Professor Méndez talks about California’s leading role in the environmental justice movement, what he believes are the flaws of California’s cap and trade carbon emissions reduction system, and why the Green New Deal isn’t really that new.
