Environmental & Social Justice

Santoyo: What is the most important message you try to relay to your students?

Even as the researchers have been trying to unravel the tangled effects of pesticides and other chemicals on children’s development, they’ve been devising practical ways to help the study’s participants reduce their risk of exposure—a rare example of community engagement by academic scientists. In a place that’s often sharply polarized between those who own the fields and those who work in them, CHAMACOS researchers have insisted on involving all sides.

Baltimore doesn’t have enough trees. Arborists say cities should have a tree “canopy” of about 40 percent; Baltimore’s is 27 percent. A lot of people are doing good work encouraging tree planting in the city, but according to Morgan Grove, a social ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, “We do best in reaching groups where there’s already a lot of trees. We’re not doing so great in places where there’s not a lot of trees.”

This paper builds on a dialogue between barrio planners and municipal planners on spatial and economic changes in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Mission is a predominantly Latino neighborhood with vibrant streets that have reflected and been transformed by the investments and displacement of recent decades. Though the Mission has seen tremendous upheaval with the influx of new capital and communities, this paper contends that efforts of community members shaped the development of the neighborhood with street-level planning expertise.

From 1996 Switzer Fellow Evan Hansen, whose West Virginia-based firm Downstream Strategies offers environmental consulting services with a core belief in the importance of protecting the environment and linking economic development with natural resource stewardship:

From 2000 Switzer Fellow Jen Osha, who is coordinating an effort to bring bottled water to West Virginia residents whose water supply was contaminated by the chemical leak at Freedom Industries last week:

I grew up in Commerce surrounded by family who moved here from rural Jalisco, Mexico in the 1970s. We’ve always been an active family in the community – we go to local events, see the Fourth of July fireworks, and take part in the city’s summer reading programs. And that’s how it is for many families here – we come to Commerce, and we stay here for generations. This is our home.

“If you’re 100 meters from the freeway or 500 meters from the freeway, there’s a total difference in your level of exposure,” said Suzanne Paulson, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and director of the Center for Clean Air at UCLA. Read more