U.s. Environmental Justice Theory Research

Environmental justice is one of the frontier questions drawing enormous attention in contemporary environmental philosophy, which takes the relation between humanity and the natural environment to a new horizon, and marks the insight into the causes of and solutions to environmental crisis.Given special concerns on "Environmental Justice" have obviously two reasons: First, the shortage of environmental resources reveal the importance of Justice and fairness. Because we could not change the realty that the Earth natural resources is limited and shortage, the only way we have to do is to distribute fairly. Secondly, a lot of ecological crisis and environmental problems have many similarities and characteristics, solving these problems will need all united action of human beings. Justice is the priority and preliminary requirement for cooperative actions between different countries, different areas and different nationalities.Environmental justice traces its origin to the ethical concerns with environmental issues. By essence, it explores the reasonable sharing and allocation of environmental responsibilities and ecological interests, which is an extension and breakthrough in social justice. In conventional justice concepts, either procedural or substantial justice gives much attention to fairness and equality, which, instead of focusing on holistic fairness or equality, emphasizes individual fairness and equality, and concentrates on human fairness rather than the fairness and equality of other life forms. As a newly emerging idea of justice, environmental justice has to some extent reached beyond the traditional boundaries. It lays eyes more on the holistic environmental injustice caused by environmental problems, especially injustice between nations, regions and groups and that between the human and the OTHERS. Generally speaking, environmental justice refers to the universal reasonable rights, responsibilities and fair treatments of different nations, groups and classes in all environment-related behaviors and practice.Research of environmental justice first began in America when the American black people struggled against the waste dump issues in the 1980s. Later, this struggle was supported by the American public and the academic circle, and leading to the emergence of a new ethical concept, namely environmental justice. Subsequently, a number of American environmental philosophers developed their theories on environmental justice around solutions to environmental problems. In fact, American environmental justice has sound meaning for its theoretical and practical impacts: it deepen and widen the research scope and reserahc contents of environmental ethics, it provide strong theroectical support for construct Chinese environmental justices theoretical framework and enhance the practical characterisrics of environmental ethics.This paper focuses on the theoretical study on environmental justice in the United States, discusses the social background and evolution of environmental justice theories in the US, analyzes the theoretical construction of the origins, schools and principles of the American environmental justice concepts and theories, illustrates the applications of the theories in practice using actual examples, evaluates the academic and practical values of the theories, shows their inspirations for the development of environmental ethics in China, and poses a preliminary frame for and the practical significance of establishing Chinese environmental justice theories.The main contents of this paper are the following four aspects: First, analysis the social background and development of environmental justice theory in the United States; secondly, analysis different theoretical resources and find out the reasonable theoretical framework for constructing the founding of American environmental justice theory; thirdly, Summarize American environmental justice theoretical framework; and finally, evaluate American environmental justice impacts for policy recommendation and suggestions. The possible innovation points are: Systematically analysis and summarize the main contents of American justice theoretical framework; on the basis of above, put forward the importance, requirement and preliminary thinking and suggestions for constructing Chinese environmental justice theoretical framework.Chapter 1 presents the concepts and connotations in environmental justice theoriy, including the definition of environmental justice and some relevant concepts, the types of environmental justice, and environmental justice and ethics, showing what connects justice and environment with abundant information.Chapter 2 describes the social background of environmental justice in the United States, and the advance and evolution of the Environmental Justice Movement. The modern Civil Rights Movement beginning in the 1950s and the modern Environmental Protection Movement starting in the 1980s gave rise to the Environmental Justice Movement, which saw its prologue in the protest against a chemical waste landfill in Warren County, North Carolina in the 1980s. In 1991, the 1 st People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit of the United States formally proposed the environmental justice issue and 17 environmental justice principles. Afterwards, new changes took place to the Environmental Protection Movement, when many flag wavers for environmental justice and social groups advocating the idea started to rise. Understanding of the historical background allows us to see'environmental justice' as an extension of social justice, and the necessity to dig deeper in its theoretical basis.Chapter 3 continues to analyze the theoretical basis of environmental justice. Justice recognizes its just nature as the human thought history advances, guiding the deserved treatments of stakeholders. This chapter also analyzes how liberalism, the justice doctrine of utilitarianism, and Rawls' Theory of Justice compose the theoretical basis of environmental justice.Chapter 4 discusses the theoretical construction of American environmental justice theories by describing and summarizing the theories in the three forms of environmental justice, procedural justice, geo-justice and social justice.Chapter 5 analyzes the application and practice of environmental justice theories in the United States. The steps of the theories transiting from theoretical terms into practical use are followed by presenting relevant examples, especially in such aspects as environmental justice policy-making in the US, evaluation of environmental justice, and analysis of related legislation.Chapter 6 evaluates American environmental justice theories for furthering the development and research of environmental ethics in China, and poses the basic theoretical frame and practical prospects of Chinese environmental justice.