Geography 2412 Fall 2011 Assignment 2 Environmental Justice Name Date Section or date time of section meeting DUE THE WEEK OF October 3 This assignment must by TYPED and turned in during recitation for full credit Part I Explore the Environmental Defense Scorecard 8 pts NOTE This part looks long and complicated but is actually very easy and not very timeconsuming It simply guides you through a webpage What is your home town county state Go to http www scorecard org Question 1 Your community For this question enter the zip code of your hometown in the box near the top of the page and press the button that says Get Report 2pts a Where did your community rank in terms of toxic pollution non cancer risk score among all counties in the U S in 2002 find it under TOXICS give a percentile b Who is the top polluter in your home county in terms of toxic chemicals c Are there any Superfund sites in your county find it under TOXICS Worst Toxic Waste Sites If so how many and what are they d How does your county rank among all counties in the US in terms of water quality both surface water pollution and waterbodies find it under WATER See how your county s water quality stacks up give a percentile for each category Question 2 Environmental Justice in your community View the Environmental Justice report for your county or community find it under ENVIRONMENAL JUSTICE Briefly describe the distribution of burdens by race ethnicity and one other criterion you pick which one find them under Distribution of Environmental Burdens NOTE Distribution of burdens means RISK of being near a toxic chemical release or RISK of living near a superfund site one paragraph Was there anything you were surprised about Explain 2pts 1 Question 3 Go back to the main Scorecard homepage http www scorecard org Underneath where you put in your zip code you will see 5 different pull down menu boxes Go to the fourth menu box and pull down to Compare different geographic issues on any pollution issue This will take you to another page which says Select what you wish to rank Go to the second pulldown menu By county and pull down to Number of Superfund Sites 1pt a What is the top county in the US in terms of number of Superfund sites b At the top of this same page pull down the Ranked in menu and change from Entire United States to your home state and press go What is top ranked county in your state in terms of number of Superfund sites Question 4 Go back to the main Scorecard homepage again and go to the fourth pull down menu again begins with Compare Pull down to Compare communities on environmental justice 2pt This will take you to a page that says Find unequal burdens For the group select People of color For show me all the counties in Select your home state Uncheck all the boxes and then check one at a time and hit Go for each Answer the following questions after you click Go you need to scroll down to see the List of Counties How many counties are there in your home state where people of color are worse off in terms of each of the following environmental burdens a cancer risks from hazardous air pollutants b releases of toxic chemicals c Superfund sites d facilities emitting smog and particulates e All four List the counties that have increased environmental burdens for people of color for all four environmental burdens Question 5 Report two other facts not already mentioned above about some aspect of pollution health or environmental justice in the US as a whole or your state or your community that you found by exploring this webpage Explain why it was surprising expected disturbing etc 2pt one paragraph 2 Part II Risk and Environmental Injustice from your textbook pg 94 2 pts 1 Why do toxic waste dumps usually represent examples of environmental injustice Hint draw from what you learned at the Environmental Defense Scorecard website and also think about who chooses to live near a toxic waste dump and why 2 Consider the long lists of precautions and risks on the label of an over the counter insecticide or herbicide check one out at your local hardware garden shop if your not familiar with it How would this list impact your decision to use or not use the product Why 3
View Full Document
Unlocking...