Urban Sacrifice Zones & The Right to Pollute

Urban PlanningBiological InequityPollutionData

17 Feb

INTRODUCTION

This data reporting sits in a long running research programme by Centric Lab to qualify pollutant based determinants of health and quantify them to geographic locations so that informed and appropriate actions can taken by the Peoples that live there.

“By comparing the two approaches we can make the argument that without a grassroots and lived experience centring environmental justice efforts are less impactful. In order for a more accurate understanding of environmental injustice in the UK greater emphasis needs to be on creating pathways for communities and those with lived experiences to lead.”

The working definition of a Sacrifice Zone is a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by environmental damage or economic disinvestment.

Such an expansive and non-specific definition of ‘sacrifice zones’ causes two problems.

Firstly, it allows for legal disputes over what is meant by “impaired” and “permanently”. These disputes often exist between what a legal firm instructed by a corporation defines as impaired or permanent and how a community abolishing injustice defines these terms based on their everyday lived experience.

Secondly, it means that policy and legality only is concerned when the bad thing is an extreme case. This leaves communities unable to seek justice at those first instances of poor health outcomes. In this report, we are proposing the use of geospatial and physiological data to create a more specific working definition of “Sacrifice Zones”, one that will allow communities to hold industrial polluters accountable at “first harm” or as close to “first harm” as possible.

The purpose of this data led study is to bring attention to everyday people those who have the right to pollute in their neighbourhoods, so that people can make more informed decisions when it comes to voting and priorities for our shared health and climate change action points.

This study exists because you don’t have the permission to drop litter but they have permission to pollute. There are no safe levels of pollutants, only an epistemology that prefers to question how much can something be pushed before it breaks down rather than how to optimise life; Nature and human.

You can use this study to understand some key trends and go to right-to-know.org to enter your postcode and find who has the right-to-pollute in your neighbourhood and locale.

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Urban Sacrifice Zones & The Right to Pollute

INTRODUCTION

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