American Perceptions of Environmental Justice

Scholars have shown that low-income communities and communities of color suffer worse outcomes than affluent and whiter communities in the domains of housing (Grinstein-Weiss et al., 2020), policing (Davis et al., 2018; Glaser 2014), healthcare (World Health Organization, 2018), and education (Brown, 2010; Noltemeyer et al., 2012). Yet for many years, issues related to the environment and climate change were viewed as distinct from those related to justice and fairness. People who engaged in environmentalism were perceived as working on a “rich person’s problem,” and this perception was especially strong among poorer individuals (Laidley, 2013; Latkin et al., 2021).However, more recently, scholars and community members have increasingly viewed the issue of climate change through the prism of justice and fairness. This realization about the inequitable effects of climate change is the foundation of the environmental justice movement, which has existed since the 1960s, to address the unfair exposure of people in lower-income communities and communities of color to the harms of pollution and the general degradation of the natural environment (Schlosberg, 2007). The first generation of environmental justice scholarship in the 1980s and 1990s focused on the location of toxic waste near low-income communities and communities of color (Bullard, 1990; Chavis and Lee, 1987). More recently, the field has expanded to recognize climate change as having important and unequal effects on some segments of society (Vanderheiden, 2016).As natural disasters and instances of extreme heat result in property damage, displacement, hospitalizations, and even death, experts note that many of the negative consequences of climate change are borne disproportionately by people with fewer resources—individuals who often are members of lower-income communities or communities of color (Mohai et al., 2009).Environmental injustice as it relates to climate change may stem from three sources of inequality. First, poorer and minority groups may live in places that put them at increased risk for particular climate-related events. For example, in cities, the abundance of concrete and scarcity of trees in impoverished neighborhoods create “urban heat islands,” which lead lower-income people or people of color to experience higher temperatures than communities with more high-income or white people in the same city (Harlan et al., 2006).Second, economically disadvantaged Americans may be less resilient to the effects of climate change. They have fewer resources to prepare for, respond to, and recover from heat and extreme weather. These factors make them especially vulnerable in the future, as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather and wildfires (Environmental Protection Agency, 2022).Increased risk and lower resiliency may be addressed through effective government policies, which brings us to the third source of inequality: differential government responsiveness. Although local, state, and federal governments may be able to help lower-income communities and communities of color invest in mitigation efforts, many experts have found that government has done more to help affluent and whiter communities prepare for and recover from climate change-related weather events. Policies that are intended to help all people recover after a disaster may inadvertently exacerbate issues of inequality, helping wealthier and whiter homeowners more than lower-income people and people of color.Extensive literature has shown that Black and Hispanic Americans, by virtue of their personal experiences with environmental deprivation, have been more concerned about issues of the environment than white Americans (Jones, 1998, 2002; Jones and Carter, 1994; Jones and Rainey, 2006; Mohai, 2003; Taylor, 1989). Although much of this research has focused on the immediate local environment, being personally exposed to the negative consequences of climate change could create similar patterns in public opinion, especially as extreme weather events associated with climate change have direct and local impacts.In light of the multitude of climate change-related problems facing lower-income people and people of color in the United States, and given the solutions proposed by policy advocates, we explored a number of questions related to environmental justice with the 2024 Climate Insights Survey. We wondered: do poorer people or richer people view climate change as a greater threat to them personally? Are people of color aware of their increased vulnerability to the negative effects of climate change? Given the disproportionate risks faced by and the lower resiliency of lower-income communities, do people in the United States view climate change as more likely to hurt poorer people than richer people? Finally, do people support government policies intended to address environmental injustices in the United States, and what factors predict that support?