Efficiency, Sustainability, and Justice to Future Generations: 98 (Law and Philosophy Library)

Social fairness or equity can be related to any of the three primary pillars of well-being—environmental, economic, or social. Below, we address the social equity aspects of each of these pillars and their relationships to sustainable community well-being. Environmental justice is the policy rubric within which issues such as environmental equity, environmental discrimination, and environmental racism are embedded Gelobter ; Torres From the standpoint of politics, this rubric acknowledges that environmental decision-making involves the role of power and conflict; that decisions about the environment are not simply a trade-off with the economy in terms of efficiency and jobs, but rather are fundamental issues for social welfare and equity Taylor This discussion also acknowledges that society has reason for concern as long as economic activity utilizes common pool resources—often un-priced or under-priced—and generates negative externalities pollution and waste Boerner and Lambert Environmental equity is premised on the notion of fairness in the distribution of environmental hazards, particularly those of technological origin Tarlock and access to environmental green space for urban children and its relationship to child development Kahn and Kellert ; Moore et al.

Agyeman , , and Agyeman et al. Expanding from the above statement, environmental justice is based on the principles that people have a right to be protected from environmental pollution and to live in and enjoy a clean and healthful environment. Communities inhabited by poor whites are also vulnerable to toxic threats. In its two-volume report, Environmental Equity US EPA , the EPA alluded to the difficulties of assessing the impact of environmental hazards on low-income and minority communities.

While admitting that those communities suffer a disproportionate share of the burden, there appears to be a general lack of data on the health effects of pollutants in those communities. Critics maintain that the information is available but the EPA considers it a public relations issue, not a civil rights issue, and, therefore, does not take the claims seriously enough to gather the necessary data by income and race Mohai and Bryant ; Satchell ; US EPA Through Plan EJ , EPA intends to develop a suite of tools to advance the integration of environmental justice and civil rights into its programs, policies and activities.

Natural environmental disasters e. With respect to climate change, the poorest nations in the international system are the most geographically and economically vulnerable yet have the least impact on mechanisms to halt the progress of this impending change Gordon The international dialog on climate change is currently focused on a strategy of adaptation that includes the projected removal of entire indigenous communities, if necessary Tsosie Just as these impoverished small Third World nations are among the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming while simultaneously being in the weakest position to halt its progress, indigenous peoples in the United States particularly tribes of Alaska are in a similar situation.

Not surprisingly, many of the geographic regions that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are also traditional lands of indigenous communities. Tsosie suggests that adaptation strategies might be genocidal for many groups of indigenous people and argues for the right to environmental self-determination which would allow indigenous people to maintain their cultural and political status upon their traditional lands. Indigenous peoples often are excluded or treated as secondary in the climate change debate.

However, they often are considered simultaneously the most vulnerable and the most resourceful in adapting to climate change Kronik et al. Similarly to the increased vulnerability of indigenous communities, populations with a low socio-economic status and racial minorities are often more vulnerable to natural disasters e.

A case study estimating population potentially impacted by flood hazard in New York City showed that undercounting of impacted populations could have serious implications for emergency management and disaster planning Maantay and Maroko Flooding has been, and continues to be, a concern not only in major metropolitan areas, but across the country. Hurricane experts state that even a category 3 hurricane in NYC could have devastating consequences Coch The wind direction, combined with the high tide and full moon, along with the hybrid of three storms colliding swamped NYC, crippling it mass transit infrastructure for weeks.

The final element of this scenario is that communities of color, people with low socio-economic status, or populations disadvantaged or marginalized due to language differences, cultural discrimination, or geographic or social isolation bore a disproportionate share of the environmental burden. In addition, the natural disaster impacts on urban residents, proximity to parks and physical activity sites has been linked to an increase in active behaviors, and positive impacts on health outcomes such as lower rates of cardio vascular disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Since populations with low socio-economic status and racial minorities tend to experience worse health outcomes in the United States, access to parks and physical activities sites may be an environmental justice issue. All of these environmental issues—siting of waste facilities, natural disasters, and accessibility to green space—impact human well-being and this impact appears to be disproportionately borne by low-income socio-economics communities and communities of color.

To optimize community well-being, rather than individual well-being, a redistribution of these environmental vulnerabilities would need to be apportioned through the community and not focused on specific vulnerable populations. Environmental justice issues not only apply to the examples described above but include issues associated with suburban sprawl that span economic and social consequences as well. Economic equity or justice is the concept or idea of fairness in economics, particularly in regard to taxation or welfare economics. The state often plays a central role in the necessary redistribution required for equity between all citizens, but applying this in practice is highly complex and involves contentious choices.

However, considerable consensus can often be found on three particular issues:. In addition to affecting well-being directly, such inequalities related to health, education, income, voice, and access to services shape the opportunities people face for future progress and achievement. Not only are there inequalities in the distribution of income, health status, and educational attainment, but even more importantly, these indicators tend to be correlated.

The rich tend to be both healthier and better educated than others. The poorest of the poor tend to have the lowest attainment in years of schooling and some of the worst health indicators. These correlations generally also extend to public services, with the poor gaining access to infrastructure, electricity, water, sanitation, and garbage disposal much later than others, if at all. Because education and wealth help a person gain influence in society, voice and political power are also generally thought to be correlated with economic well-being.

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The interaction between these mutually reinforcing economic, social and political inequalities perpetuates them across generations. Do such disparities matter? Are people concerned with the large observed differences in access to education and health, and in economic opportunities, or merely with the fact that some people have low absolute levels of income, years of schooling, and access to services? Should policymakers worry about the unequal opportunities that arise from discrimination, unequal access to justice or other unfair practices?

Opinions on these questions are wide-ranging. Economic equity, as discussed here, is understood as the pursuit of equal opportunities and the avoidance of severe deprivation. Equity is not the same as equality in incomes, or health status, or in any other specific outcome. On balance, the evidence, assembled from disciplines ranging from economics and history to sociology and anthropology, suggests that the pursuit of sustainable, long-term well-being is inseparable from a broadening of economic opportunities and political voice to most or all of society.

People from many cultures seem to share a concern for equity that is reflected in religious and philosophical traditions, as well as legal institutions.

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Religions from Islam to Buddhism and secular philosophical traditions from Plato to Sen have shown a concern for equity and an aversion to absolute deprivation. Since the early s, a number of influential thinkers, including Rawls , Sen , Dworkin a , b , and Roemer , have made separate and important contributions to the way we think about equity. While their views are different in important aspects, they share much in common.

All four reject final welfare or utility as the appropriate space in which to judge the fairness of a given allocation or system. They argue that social justice implies equality in the allocation to all people of some fundamental concept, such as primary goods e. What they disagree on is exactly what this concept should be and how it would be realized. Different cultures and religions around the world may differ in important respects, but they all share a concern with equity and fairness.

This suggest something quite fundamental about the value human beings place on equity and fairness, A fairly recent body of literature in economics, biology and anthropology shreds some light on these shared human preferences toward community cooperation, fairness, and equity. The economic literature over the past decade has amassed convincing evidence, through controlled laboratory experiments through interaction behavioral games using real money, which rejects the hypothesis in standard economic models that all individuals are exclusively concerned with their material self-interest.

The main findings of this body of literature are: Social equity, it seems, matters intrinsically and fundamentally for human beings. If social equity represents the spatial dimension required to make community well-being sustainable in the present, intergenerational equity represents the dimension required to make community well-being truly sustainable through time. However, since skills to facilitate thinking about long-term consequences are not typically included in decision-making, this value is presented here as distinct from sustainability to emphasize the need for thinking about how human actions that directly or indirectly degrade the environment, the economy or social drivers will affect future generations of humans or other life forms.

Each generation has the right to inherit the same diversity in natural, cultural, health, and economic resources enjoyed by previous generations and to equitable access to the use and benefits of these resources.

At the same time, the present generation is a custodian of these resources for future generations, obliged to conserve this legacy so that future generations may also enjoy these same rights. In this way, intergenerational equity extends the scope of social justice through time. A common way of conceptualizing our obligations to the next generation is the following: What follows from this folk conception is that each generation should restitute to the next the earth in a state at least equivalent to what it was when it received it. The same could be conceptualized for economies and social drivers the next generation should inherit conditions at least as good as those realized by the former generation.

Thus, intergenerational compliance with the reciprocity-based maxim implies that reciprocation benefits the next generation Grosseries From a Western perspective, the idea behind not reducing the ability of future generations to meet their needs is that, although future generations might gain from economic progress, those gains might be more than offset by environmental deterioration, economic decisions regarding taxation and debt, and decisions affecting social and cultural drivers.

Most people would acknowledge a moral obligation to future generations, particularly as people who are not yet born can have no say in decisions taken today that may affect them. There are two different ways of looking at the need to ensure that future generations can supply their needs.

One is to view the environment in terms of the natural resources or natural capital that is available for wealth creation and to say that future generations should have the same ability to create wealth as we have. Therefore, future generations will be adequately compensated for any loss of environmental amenity by having alternative sources of wealth creation. The exchange of environmental assets for human-made assets also involves another equity issue; that is substitution of shared environmental amenity with private capital.

Weak sustainability involves the replacement of natural resources and environmental assets—assets that may be currently freely available to everyone—with human-made resources that have been bought and may be only accessible to some people in the future. This approach is not compatible with a fully realized intergenerational equitability as this redistribution is inequitable.

All of these considerations suggest that future generations may not be better off with wealth rather than a rich environment; that environmental quality is not something that can be swapped for other goods without loss of welfare Goodin , and that natural and human-made capital are not perfect substitutes for one another Costanza and Folke , Clearly intergenerational equity is not compatible with the concept of weak sustainability, a concept that assumes that future generations will not suffer from environmental losses as long as it is compensated for the loss by wealth creation.

In a myriad of ways, the approaches to sustainable development and the maintenance or enhancement of community well-being advocated by environmental economists and taken up by governments in many countries either reinforce or exacerbate inequities in those countries. Yet equity, both social and intergenerational, is supposed to be a central ethical principle of sustainable development in these countries.

This suggests that either:. If equity is to be taken seriously then new ways of decision-making that incorporate social and environmental justice and intergenerational issues must be found that enable the multifaceted values associated with the environment, economics and social change to be fully considered and heeded. Clearly, merely extending market values to incorporate the environment and social change into existing economic systems will not achieve the goal of making changes in community well-being sustainable.

The information in this document has been funded wholly or in part by the US Environmental Protection Agency. It has been subjected to review by the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory and approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents reflect the views of the Agency, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.

Summers spearheads a portion of the Ecosystem Services Research Program that is examining the relationship among ecosystem services and human well-being. Summers has received numerous awards and citations from EPA and several awards from outside the agency for his research in estuarine monitoring and condition assessment. Her principal research interests are in estuarine ecology with emphasis in estuarine chemistry and estuarine habitat evaluations.

Current research is focused on the relationships between ecosystem services and aspects of human well-being. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Ambio v. Published online Jan 9. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Abstract A sustainable world is one in which human needs are met equitably and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Well-being, Sustainability, Social equity, Environmental justice, Intergenerational equity. Introduction A sustainable world is one in which human needs are met equitably and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Open in a separate window. Human Well-Being The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment MEA provides a useful framework for exploring the linkages of well-being to social, economic and environmental issues. Sustainability Sustainability has become a goal of both public and private organizations worldwide.

The Role of Economic Equity and Social Justice in the Social Equity Aspects of Human Well-Being Economic equity or justice is the concept or idea of fairness in economics, particularly in regard to taxation or welfare economics. However, considerable consensus can often be found on three particular issues: The Role of Intergenerational Equity in the Sustainability Aspects of Human Well-Being If social equity represents the spatial dimension required to make community well-being sustainable in the present, intergenerational equity represents the dimension required to make community well-being truly sustainable through time.

Conclusions In a myriad of ways, the approaches to sustainable development and the maintenance or enhancement of community well-being advocated by environmental economists and taken up by governments in many countries either reinforce or exacerbate inequities in those countries. This suggests that either: Disclaimer The information in this document has been funded wholly or in part by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

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Professorship Mathis

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The Role of Social and Intergenerational Equity in Making Changes in Human Well-Being Sustainable

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