Behind the Green Door

Lynn Scarlett from the February 1999 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Ironically, the participation agenda of environmental justice activists may turn out to be an important tool for advancing a more science-based understanding of relative risks. Recent experience in siting noxious facilities and waste sites suggests that people are more open to scientific and technical discussions of risk if they are involved in the process from the beginning. But environmental policy decisions will improve only if the individuals determining how clean is clean enough or "to build or not to build" experience both the costs and the benefits associated with those decisions. This linkage requires that the people at the bargaining table not be outsiders who have an incentive to push for gold-plated cleanups and block every proposed facility. Yet limiting participation in these negotiations to local citizens will draw cries of protest from national environmental activists.

Foreman does not provide us with a road map. He doesn't sort through the tangle of questions about what rights owners ought to have in the use of their property; or how those experiencing noise, odor, or emissions from industrial facilities in shared spaces might be better empowered to negotiate reductions in those effects; or who ought to have a say in these decisions.

And though Foreman argues that environmental policy is not the right venue through which to redress all the grievances of the poor, he doesn't offer environmental justice advocates a compelling alternative. He draws little hope from past experiences with job training programs, public health initiatives, and other programs aimed at improving the lives of poor people.

But this is not a shortcoming of the book. Instead, it is an honest observation about the limits of public policy. Though Foreman believes government has a role to play in advancing "social justice," his final caution is that "we cannot simply legislate, regulate, litigate, or protest our way toward healthy and livable communities." Foreman's book succeeds so well because he conveys sympathy for the concerns of poor communities without letting that sympathy stand in the way of a hard look at what is real in those concerns, what is exaggerated or misdiagnosed, and what sort of changes can reasonably be expected in a world of tradeoffs.