Environmental Law
It was past midnight on July 27th, 1979 in the woods of a small southern New Jersey town named Atco. "Get down!" yelled Mr. Hazal "I see lights coming." Just then a small yellow pick up truck drives by. "That was close, Joe." says Mr. Grouche as the truck drives off not paying any attention to the work truck pulled off to the side of the trail. "Okay, lets get back to work", Mr. Hazal sighs. "Down the trail there is a creek, we can bury the barrels near there." Mr. Grouche said, not even worrying about the truck that had just passed. This was nothing new for Mr. Grouche, he has been making this run for his boss, Nate Whalen, for years now but this was the first time for Mr. Hazal, he was new to the job. They both work for the Southern New Jersey Chemical Factory and once each month Mr. Whalen would give Mr. Grouche and now Mr. Hazal a truck full of barrels filled with toxic waste to take to the woods and get rid of. The trips were to be as secretive as could be and always were to be done well after midnight. There would always be a couple of cars that drove by but they never stopped. Mr. Grouche never ran into problems in the three years he was dumping the barrels in and around old Johnson creek, which runs through one of Atco's biggest residential areas, and he didn't suspect Mr. Hazal would be a problem he was just trying to make a few extra bucks.
Many years later, October 16th, 1992
"Well Mrs. Jones, I don't like to be the one who tells you this but the test are back for your son Chris and it is not good news. It seems he is full of cancer and he doesn't have very long to live." Dr. Holly says very concerned. Mrs. Jones in a state of disbelief knew something was wrong because Chris has been sick for some time now but she never thought her son would be dying at the young age of twelve. In her head she realizes that this is the eighth child in their neighborhood that has been diagnosed with cancer over the past year and a half and worst of all this is her child.
Mrs. Jones who works for a local grocery store in town can't believe that no one has noticed that there might be some link in the eight cases.
Cases have been widely used in medical ethics and law. In both fields, numerous books and articles about cases have appeared, including book-length catalogs of cases. I argue that pluralistic casuistry provides an adequate approach to environmental ethics. It retains the strengths while avoiding the weaknesses of the other approaches. Importantly, it resolves some broader theoretical issues and provides a clear, explicit methodology for education and praxis.
The environment and the health of the surrounding population go hand in hand. The Environmental Protection Agency takes on this ever so important mission of protecting them both. The mission statement of the EPA states, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Small Business Programs is to support the protection of human health and the environment by advocating and advancing the business, regulatory, and environmental compliance concerns of small and socio-economically disadvantaged businesses, and minority academic institutions (US Enviromental Protection Agency, 2010).” The impact of its mission can be defined clearly as it examines the impact of contamination in the air, the water, and the land on human health.
It was the biggest challenge she would have to face. Annika Lawrence was a typical 18 years old girl. She had long wavy chestnut hair, with bright blue eyes. She had many friends and a loving family with two dogs, Daisy and Hunter. She had just graduated from a local high school in her town. Her life was perfect, until she went for her physical and was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctor’s advice to her was “Stop counting your life by years and start counting them by weeks”. After her visit with the doctor Annika felt that she been punched in her guts, and it hurts.
To reach a more sustainable world, everyone's cooperation and participation are essential. Therefore, the equal rights to everyone is prominent, particularly the equal rights gained from our daily surroundings and natural environment which, in together, is the so-called environment. In order to achieve the equality, the concept of environmental justice was developed, that is originally from the unequal distribution of toxic pollutants in an African-American community. As an ongoing framing process, environmental justice has been expanding into more issues and aspects, also horizontally and vertically. It also moves from a rather anthropocentric view to more emphasisation on natural environment and the relationship between human and environment, which on the way to sustainable world. However, there are also some controversy has been generated, an inherently generated issue about justice is illustrated here.
Tess was instructed to speak to a patient before their operation, the only problem is the patient's age, the boy is 6. When tess walks into the room she sees a young boy laying on the bed fiddling with his fingers, his mother looks to tess then holds her son’s hands.
Have you ever stopped to take a look at your surrounding environment and see lots of grass and open space? Or maybe you live in an industrial city and see smog and lots of factories and buildings being built. Do you ever stop and consider the pollution in your environment and how you could be contributing to it. Today people seem to be much more concerned about their natural environment and have taken various steps to try and reduce their carbon footprints. Examples of this are that many of us choose to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle to drive back and forth to work every day or that more people today take the time to separate recyclables from actual trash. Even the government who usually only seems to want our money has
After the anxious wait the doctor finally came in. She turned away from the window into the white, barren room and noticed the look of sorrow and regret that filled the doctor’s face. In that one moment everything connected in her mind “I have cancer,” she thought to herself. All of a sudden millions of emotions flooded her teenage mind. She threw the test results in an act of rage and all the important papers flew to different ends of the room. She Desperately ran to the bathroom to try and escape from the feeling of betrayal in herself. Once she locked the door her worried mom began knocking on the door begging to let her daughter to let her in, but all she could think about was how her body have failed her and how she can’t go through this
I will be discussing Environmental Justice as defined by Julie Sze and London, is the social movement that came from environmental racism which involves paying less attention to environmental concerns such as pollution among racial minorities (Sze and London 1332). Therefore, there are two parts of environmental justice and the first is that it battles environmental racism ad second, it deals with issues and policies regarding natural resources like air, water and land (Sze and London 1336).
At the beginning of the semester, I thought that environmental justice was justice for the environment, which is true to a point, but I now know that it is justice for the people. Only when there is a people that have been wronged, usually using the environment as the the method of delivery, does it become an environmental justice case. Environmental justice ensures that all people, regardless of income level or race, have a say in the development and enforcement of environmental laws. It acts on the philosophy that anyone living on and in the land should have a say on how it is treated and used. Sometimes when developing legislature, the populations in mind are not all affected equally, and if said population
Our Congress created the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969 in order to establish an environmental foundation for mankind. This policy endorses harmony between humans and the vast ecosystems surrounding them. To obtain this goal and provide our future with resources as well, NEPA is separated into two titles. The first title declares the policy in detail while the second title focuses on the Council on Environmental Quality. The CEQ oversees the effectiveness of current methods, the reactions of the environment to those methods, and implements revisions as necessary.
Kiefer, Irene. (1981). Poisoned Land : The Problem of Hazardous Waste. New York : McClelland & Steward, Ltd.
“Unless humanity is suicidal, it should want to preserve, at the minimum, the natural life-support systems and processes required to sustain its own existence” (Daily p.365). I agree with scientist Gretchen Daily that drastic action is needed now to prevent environmental disaster. Immediate action and changes in attitude are not only necessary for survival but are also morally required. In this paper, I will approach the topic of environmental ethics from several related sides. I will discuss why the environment is a morally significant concern, how an environmental ethic can be developed, and what actions such an ethic would require to maintain and protect the environment.
The protection of the environment through law is unsuccessful; as the protection of the environment has just recently begun to take affect. The protection and conservation of the environment has been a concern since the 1880’s; when European settlers came to Canada, and discovered its wealth of natural resources.
Environmental law is a broad form of law developed to regulate how human activities affect the physical and biological environment (Doremus et al 2008, 2). Environmental law can be large scale or small scale, global or local; but it takes the cooperation of many different agencies to be successful. Overall, environmental law has contributed to a healthier environment in many ways. Since the beginning of environmental law and regulation, society has seen advancements in sanitation, pollution, air and water quality disease control and prevention, and ultimately in quality of life.
Environmental studies is a paramount field to focus on for both the present day and the future. This field of studies pertains to all people, animals, plants, and biomes around the world. Environmental Studying is important because it is only by understands the environmental processes that we can begin to take the steps necessary to correct the on-going damage that is occurring, and ultimately protect and sustain life on the planet. Unless steps are taken to try and abate and control environmental problems, which are often human-generated or exacerbated, then the environmental that we live in will continue to deteriorate. There is no life without protecting the source that sustains us. Even though I have only been alive for seventeen years, it has been long enough to see many negative environmental changes. Since I was born that population has grown by over one billion people causing deforestation, loss of wildlife, increased pollution to both air and water, and even superbugs. However, I have also been able to see extremely positive results such as an increase in the research and implementation of renewable resources. The reason I am so motivated to study environmental science is because I know that change is possible. Those who study environmental science and study have the ability to help reduce, and possible reserve, some of the damage that has been done to the environment while at the same time, helping to advance the well-being of our fellow humans.