Intragenerational equity

Intragenerational equity is concerned with equity between people of the same generation. It covers justice and the distribution of resources between nations. It also includes considerations of what is fair for people within any one nation.

Proximity to existing environmental problems

Worldwide, people living in cities tend to be most affected by pollution, noise and the threats of chemical contamination and accident, although pollution and exposure to agricultural pesticides can be a problem in some rural areas. Urban problems arise from the concentration of indus­tries, people and cars, and the lack of open green spaces.

The impacts of environmental problems are not evenly distributed within cities. They are often determined by where people live. People living near or in industrial areas are more likely to suffer from air or water pollution. People living under a flight path or near a main road are more likely to suffer from noise. People in the inner city are more likely to suffer from urban decay and traffic problems. People living in the outer suburbs are more likely to suffer from lack of provision of urban infrastructure and community facilities.

Poverty

Poorer people tend to suffer the burden of existing environmental prob­lems more than others do. This is because more affluent people have greater choice about where they live: they can afford to pay more to live in areas where the environment has not been degraded. Wealthy areas are more likely to have access to environmental amenities such as parks and protected waterways. More affluent people are also better able to fight the imposition of a polluting facility in their neighbourhood because they have better access to financial resources, education, skills and the decision-making structures.

This is particularly obvious in some countries where shantytowns are found.

Over ninety per cent of London's most polluting factories are located in communities of below average income. London is just the most extreme example. A similar pattern is found throughout England and Wales. Overall, almost two-thirds of the most polluting industrial facilities are to be found in areas of below average income...

The effects are more severe in areas with multiple factories. At the extreme, Seal Sands on Teesside has 17 of the most polluting factories in one small area. The average income here is just £6,200 (just 45% of the regional average income, or 36% of the national average) and over half its households have annual incomes under £5,000.

Vulnerability

Health impacts from environmental problems can also be determined by factors such as age, gender, income and health status. For example, people with existing respiratory problems may be affected more by air pollution, while the very young or the very old may be more vulner­able to environmental pollution in general. There are places in metro­politan Adelaide in South Australia where deaths from respiratory diseases seem to be correlated with failure to meet air quality standards and where 'overlaying the map of factory emissions onto the distribu­tion of clients of Meals on Wheels [a charity service for frail, aged and disabled people] shows that there is a captive population which cannot easily move away from close proximity to potentially toxic emissions' (Falk et al. 1993: 54).

Often the assessments of what is safe are based on consideration of average people of average health with 'normal' lifestyles.

Children are also more vulnerable to exposure to pollution and con­tamination because of their developmental stage:

In general, children are more vulnerable to environmental hazards than adults. Infants and children breathe, eat, and drink more than adults per unit of body weight. Their organ systems change and develop rapidly, making them vulnerable to small exposures at crucial windows of development. Children's detoxification mechanisms are underdevel­oped in some ways compared with those of adults, making them more susceptible than adults to injury from toxic exposures. Children are dis­proportionately exposed to some hazards because they engage in normal childhood behaviors such as playing on the ground and putting objects in their mouths. (Massey & Ackerman 2003: 3)

This means that children who are exposed to toxic chemicals may have their ability to grow, learn and play impaired, as well as suffering ill­nesses and disabilities that may remain with them into adulthood.

Occupation

Workers in certain industries - like mining or mineral processing and the chemical industry - are often exposed to higher health risks than the rest of the community. Large proportions of the workforces in very haz­ardous industries are often made up of migrants who have fewer choices about their work when they first come to a country. In the USA, 7000-11000 people die from workplace injuries and accidents annually, and another 62000-86000 die from diseases like cancer caused by work-related expo­sure to chemicals and other pollutants (Shrader-Frechette 2002: 135).

In many countries environmental standards in workplaces are not as high as for the general environment. In developing countries, workplace standards can be almost non-existent. Kristin Shrader-Frechette (2002: 164) cites the example of a US firm that moved its asbestos facilities just across the border into Mexico, where workers are not protected by regu­lations. In these new facilities asbestos dust levels are not monitored, and the poorly paid workers do not wear respirators and are not told how dangerous asbestos is.

Race

In some countries ethnicity, race and colour seem to be a significant factor in determining who is exposed to environmental burdens. A US EPA study has found that 'black Americans are 79 per cent more likely than whites to live in neighbourhoods where industrial pollution is sus­pected of posing the greatest health danger'. In 19 states blacks were more than twice as likely to live in such neighbourhoods, and in 12 states Hispanics were more than twice as likely as non-Hispanics to live in such neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods at risk were also the poorest, with the most unemployment (cited in Pace 2005).

There is some debate about whether minorities are deliberately dis­criminated against or whether they suffer these environmental burdens because polluting facilities tend to be built in poor neighbourhoods. Either way, the placement of hazardous and unhealthy facilities raises equity issues and the outcome is that minorities have a greater environ­mental burden. Recent studies show 'that Latinos and blacks are much more likely to develop - and die of - diseases related to pollution, like asthma' (Featherstone 2005).

Valerie Taliman (1992), a member of the Navaho nation, also used the term 'environmental racism' when she described the way that Indian reserves in the USA were being used to dispose of hazardous wastes. She claimed that in just two years more than 50 Indian tribes were approached by waste disposal companies offering millions of dollars in return for allowing hazardous waste facilities to be sited on their land.

As a result of inequities such as these, an environmental justice movement has sprung up, particularly in the USA. In 1991 various people of colour convened the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, which formulated a set of Principles of Environmental Justice (1991).

Developing countries

Inequities are also caused by the export of hazardous products and wastes to developing countries. Shrader-Frechette (2002: 10, 164-5) notes that a third of the pesticides manufactured in the USA are banned there but are exported to poor countries. They are often imported into devel­oping countries by US-headquartered transnational companies. Imported pesticides contribute to some half a million poisonings and 40 000 deaths each year.

Similarly, although there is an international convention on trade in hazardous wastes - the Basel Convention - toxic waste from affluent nations is shipped to the Caribbean and West Africa for disposal. Poor nations in these regions are offered money in return for disposing of the waste. Although they agree to take it, there is some question as to whether citizens of those nations have given informed consent to such imports.

A study by the Basel Action Network (cited in Hopkins 2005a) has found that Africa is being used as a dumping ground for electronic waste, much of it containing toxic material. Ostensibly, obsolete televi­sions, computers, mobile phones and other electronic equipment are shipped there for reuse and recycling, but local experts in Lagos, Nigeria, claim that three-quarters of the equipment is junk that cannot be eco­nomically repaired or recycled. It is instead mounting up in garbage tips or being burned, posing risks to the local people.

Additionally, developing countries are often subject to more of the impacts of environmental degradation, more vulnerable to them and less able to respond and protect themselves from them.

If sea levels rise, low-lying island and coastal communities will suffer. Those which will probably suffer most are low-income countries. It is these nations that often have the densest populations and are least able to afford mitigation measures such as structures to hold the sea­water back, or be able to relocate substantial numbers of people. Even now, the densely populated nation of Bangladesh experiences storm surges as much as 160 kilometres upriver, surges which exact a heavy toll in losses of human lives, livestock and fishing vessels. Along with Bangladesh, the nations of Egypt, Gambia, Indonesia, the Maldives, Mozambique, Pakistan, Senegal, Surinam and Thailand have been iden­tified as being the most vulnerable to a rise in sea level. Paradoxically, these countries have contributed little to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Jacobson 1990: 88).

Inequities may cause environmental problems

Poverty contributes to environmental degradation because it deprives people of the choice of whether or not to be environmentally sound in their activities. People who cannot be sure of their next meal are likely to pour all their energies into surviving any way they can. Communities need to have a certain level of security before they will turn their atten­tion to solving environmental problems.

Affluence, of course, also contributes to environmental degradation. High levels of affluence are accompanied by high levels of consumption, which leads to more resource depletion and waste accumulation. This is demonstrated by comparing the ecological footprints of nations (see chapter 2). Many environmental problems - such as global warming and chemical contamination - are the result of affluence rather than poverty.

In the past, environmental degradation and resource depletion in low-income countries have been rationalised as part of the necessary costs of economic growth. Citizens of these countries have been told that they would have to 'grin and bear it' while their countries industrialised. But many in those low-income countries are beginning to question this conventional argument. They argue that development does not need to be accompanied by environmental degradation. Development results in environmental degradation because of other inequities, including low prices for commodities and natural resources, trade barriers in high- income countries, a resulting reliance on resource extraction for develop­ment, and the adoption of western ways, products and technologies (Beder 1996: ch 16).

The impacts of measures to protect the environment Measures to improve environmental problems may impact more on some sectors of the community than others.

Loss of competitiveness

Measures to protect the environment can affect the competitiveness of national industries in the international market when such actions are undertaken unilaterally, that is, without other nations also undertaking them. Loss of industry competitiveness can reduce a nation's gross national product, increase its balance of trade deficit and increase national debt. Particular groups of people may suffer more than others from loss of competitiveness, including individual firms and their workers.

The idea that environmental measures generally affect a company's competitiveness is debated, however. 'The consensus in the economics profession,' concludes Eban Goodstein, 'is that environmental regulation has had no reliably measurable negative impact on the competitiveness of U.S. firms.' In fact, the extra cost to firms of complying with environ­mental regulations is rarely more than 2 per cent of total sales income. Goodstein's analysis shows that in the USA at least, 'in terms of import competition from developed countries in the 1980s, firms facing higher levels of regulation fared better than those without it' (Ackerman & Massey 2002: 4; Goodstein 1997: 15; 1999: 3-4).

Loss of employment

It is often argued that if environmental laws and standards are too tough, the costs of complying will be high - which could lead to a firm having to shed staff or, in an extreme case, having to shut down. But environmental regulations to control pollution may actually create more jobs than are lost. The impact of environmental regulations on employ­ment has been greatly exaggerated by those who oppose those regula­tions. Environmental regulation shifts jobs but does not tend to reduce the overall level of employment. In the USA, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 1 per cent of major layoffs have been due to environmental regulations (Ackerman & Massey 2002: 3; Goodstein 1999: 3-4).

Nevertheless, it is true that even if overall employment levels are not reduced by environmental measures, some workers may suffer by losing their jobs; and in times of high unemployment they may find it difficult to find other work. Unions are often concerned that measures taken to protect the environment might lead to a larger pool of unemployed, the downgrading of average wages and conditions and non-wage benefits, and a winding-down of towns and infrastructure in some areas:

There will be losers as well as winners in any restructuring of our economy, regardless of whether the aggregate outcome is positive or negative. In many instances those affected will also be those with the least options in alternative employment (eg workers without tertiary or adaptable trade qualifications). (ACTU & UMFA 1992: 13)

Halting development

It is argued that important benefits and jobs are lost each time a develop­ment is stopped on environmental grounds. People in poor countries claim that demands by people in affluent countries that they conserve their forests as a global resource would require them to slow economic develop­ment. They say that affluent nations cut down their own forests as part of their development process, and consume the majority of the produce from timber-felling in developing countries, so it is inequitable to demand that their forests be conserved without offering full compensation.

On the other hand, forestry operations are often carried out at the expense of indigenous people who depend on the forests for their tradi­tional lifestyles. 'Even the possibility of their receiving financial compen­sation for the destruction of their forests is an unattractive proposition for most indigenous peoples, as money is seen to be destructive of traditional lifestyles every bit as much as deforestation' (Humphreys 1999: 113).

Shrader-Frechette (2002: 31) argues that the problem with using eco­nomic development as an argument for environmental degradation is that the supposed benefits of economic development are based on dubious assumptions which are not borne out by past experience:

One doubtful premise is that economic development, accompanied by unequal environmental standards or protection, actually creates more market value than does environmentally just economic devel­opment... Another doubtful premise is that economic expansion, and its attendant inequitable pollution and development, will lead to greater equality of treatment in the long term.

Costs to disadvantaged groups

Another way in which measures to protect the environment can have an impact on equity is through costs being imposed on a certain section of society whose members may not be able to afford them. Also, if prices are to rise, for example as a result of the application of the polluter pays principle, those who can barely afford such goods now will suffer. Supporters of the polluter pays principle argue that to ensure equity the poor need to be compensated with extra income support rather than sub­sidies being provided to the polluter to keep the price down. Income support would be more efficient, since the more affluent consumers can afford to pay the higher price, and it would also ensure the price more accurately reflected the real cost of the products (Dommen 1993: 17).

In Delhi, India, which has a population of 14 million people, local groundwater and the Yamuna River have become increasingly contami­nated with toxic industrial waste and pesticides. In an effort to deal with this problem the Supreme Court banned the discharge of industrial effluent into the river in 2000. That same year the government passed an act that required industry to pay half the cost of 15 new effluent treat­ment plants. Polluters include 'thousands of small engineering units, textile industries, detergent makers and auto-component factories', as well as factories carrying out electro-plating, battery recycling and leather tanning. While many of these concerns are operating illegally, stealing electricity and paying no taxes, their supporters claim that the extra costs to pay for the pollution control facilities will cause thousands of workers to lose their jobs (Devraj 2004).

Displacement of local people

The creation of national parks and wilderness areas can also impact unfairly on people who are displaced by those parks or whose access to traditional livelihoods is restricted as a result. In many parts of Africa, for example, national parks have been created by clearing indigenous inhabitants out of the area.

As recently as 2004, ‘5000 people from the Kore tribe were escorted from their thatched huts in Nechisar [in Ethiopia] and dumped onto distant land owned by other rural communities' without consultation or compensation. Locals will not even be able to walk through the newly created wildlife park to get to a nearby town (Pearce 2005c).

In Kenya, between 10 000 and 50 000 people have been forced out of their homes in an environmentally sensitive forest area on the edge of the Mau Forest. Armed police evicted them at short notice, using teargas and whips, and ignoring their claims to have title deeds to their homes, which were burned down (Cawthorne 2005).

Shifting environmental problems

Environmental measures can also have inequitable effects if environ­mental problems are shifted from one place to another, or concentrated in one place. A traditional example of this occurs when an area is sewered for the first time and the sewage is discharged into a waterway. The environment of the newly sewered area is certainly improved; but the waterway is degraded, and its users, particularly those who might draw water from it downstream, are disadvantaged.

Another example of this was seen when some European nations made their factory smokestacks higher to avoid localised pollution. This served only to spread the pollution - particularly acid rain - to other countries.

Inequity in decision-making structures

Inequities in power lead to inequities in people's ability to influence decisions affecting their environment. Although there may be just reasons for economic inequality, there is little reason for political inequality. Every person should have the right to be considered in envi­ronmental decision making (see chapter 6).

People should only be subjected to increased environmental burdens if they have given their informed consent, that is, if they have consented in full knowledge of the risks they are undertaking. This is a requirement of medical and legal ethics and should also be a requirement of environmental professionals, bureaucrats and politicians. Informed consent requires that:

1. full information about the risks be supplied to potential victims and decision-makers;

2. those being subjected to the risk understand the risk they are taking;

3. those consenting to the risk do so voluntarily without coercion or manipulation;

4. they are competent to give this consent. (Shrader-Frechette 2002: 77) People who live in areas of high unemployment and low education may not understand the risks of a proposed facility, and may be so desperate for employment opportunities that they are not really making a free choice. Similarly, where workers have to put up with hazardous work conditions in order to keep their jobs, their consent is not voluntary.

Even with informed consent there are limits to what burdens can be morally imposed on people (Shrader-Frechette 2002: 142). In most coun­tries, for example, people are not able to sell their organs, even if they wish to, and testing chemicals on humans is not allowed even if volun­teers can be found. The right to life and health is paramount.

In many places around the world, existing decision-making structures do not adequately represent all sectors of society. Robert Bullard (1992) argues that environmental racism in the USA, for example, causes minorities to be excluded from decision-making bodies such as company and government agency management boards, city councils and industrial commissions.