{"id":37465,"date":"2025-01-17T00:01:56","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T05:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=37465"},"modified":"2025-01-16T16:58:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T21:58:27","slug":"reflections-on-martin-luther-king-day-prioritizing-environmental-justice-given-disproportionate-existential-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2025\/01\/reflections-on-martin-luther-king-day-prioritizing-environmental-justice-given-disproportionate-existential-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Martin Luther King Day, Prioritizing Environmental Justice Given Disproportionate Existential Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, January 17-20, 2025) Martin Luther King Day recognizes the achievements of a remarkable civil rights leader while asking the nation to assess what more the country must do to ensure equality and environmental justice, as well as protection for those who suffer disproportionately from toxic chemical exposure. Advocates and disproportionately affected communities acknowledge the historic nature of the Biden Administration\u2019s commitment to elevating environmental justice in the decision-making of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).<\/p>\n

However, according to Willy Blackmore<\/a>, writer for Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder<\/em><\/a> (\u201cthe oldest Black-owned newspaper in the state of Minnesota and one of the longest-standing, family-owned newspapers in the country\u201d), \u201c[T]he more systemic change that [Administrator] Regan\u2019s EPA tried to bring about was stonewalled by legal challenges that threatened to undermine the agency\u2019s strongest tool for righting environmental injustices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black communities across the nation face disproportionate impacts to petrochemical infrastructure and toxic chemicals, including pesticides and fertilizers. A 2021 study published in BMC Public Health<\/em><\/a> found that biomarkers for 12 dangerous pesticides tracked over the past 20 years were found in the blood and urine of Black participants at average levels up to five times those in White participants. A University of Michigan study<\/a> found that African American women are 40 percent more likely to die from breast cancer<\/a> than women of any race. This same study found that triple-negative cancer (basal-liked breast cancer) is approximately three-fold higher in non-Hispanic Black women compared to non-Hispanic White women.<\/p>\n

In the context of disproportionate harms and imagining a world free of toxic petrochemical pesticides, Dr. Martin Luther King\u2019s Christmas Eve Sermon of 1967<\/a> at his home church of Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia demonstrates his perspective on adopting a holistic approach to solving seemingly insurmountable challenges of our time.<\/p>\n

Dr. King said, \u201cIt really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the nation faces the dual occasions of inaugurating a U.S. president known for stoking division while simultaneously celebrating the legacy of a life-long organizer and titan of environmental, economic, and racial justice, Beyond Pesticides looks to reflect on the track record of the Biden Administration to apply these lessons to renewed public interest in transformative change in our communities with organic as an environmental justice solution.<\/p>\n

Environmental Justice (EJ) under the Biden Administration<\/em><\/p>\n

Throughout the Biden Administration, Beyond Pesticides, through the Daily News <\/em>and Action of the Week, called on the Administration to implement its groundbreaking environmental justice commitments as outlined in various Executive Orders, legislative actions, and executive agency actions to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

See Daily News <\/em>here<\/a> from February 5, 2021, analyzing the initial rollout of Executive Orders that intertwined environmental and racial justice by aiming to comprehensively reform the Office of Management and Budget operations<\/a>, restore scientific integrity<\/a>, and develop a \u201cwhole of government\u201d<\/a> approach to addressing the climate crisis and disproportionate impacts on frontline and disadvantaged communities.<\/p>\n

Office of Budget and Management: Politics of Pricing Greenhouse Gas Emissions<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a long history of incorporating the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) into budgetary analysis, regulatory actions, and federally-funded projects. See here<\/a> for a regulatory tracker developed by Harvard Law School Environmental & Energy Law Program for a longer history of the Biden Administration’s track record through 2023, as well as the history of GHG pricing beginning in the Obama Administration.<\/p>\n

In January 2024, World Resources Institute<\/a> conducted a climate action progress tracker, finding the Biden Administration to have made several pivotal achievements, including:<\/p>\n