“A Just and Reparative Environmental Policy”
The assault on environmental protection, public health, and human dignity of the past four years – in defiance of Congressional authority and public will – has undermined not only the most basic protections of clean air and clean water but also the rule of law. The new administration offers the possibility of reversing a decades-long slide in environmental regulation, enacting meaningful steps to mitigate climate change, and moving quickly to protect public health. How can we collectively confront the multiple challenges to enacting just and reparative environmental and public health policies?
Ellen Griffith Spears teaches environmental history and policy in the interdisciplinary New College and the Department of American Studies at the University of Alabama. Her most recent book, Rethinking the America Environmental Movement post-1945 (Routledge Press, 2019), reconsiders U.S. environmentalism in the context of broader social justice movements. Spears’ 2014 book, Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town (University of North Carolina Press), on environmental justice activism in Anniston, Alabama, was recognized by the Southern Historical Association, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association. Prior to joining the faculty at Alabama, Spears worked for Atlanta-based social justice organizations and taught courses at Emory and at Agnes Scott College.