| Transforming Environmentalism: Warren County, Pcbs, and the Origins of Environmental Justice None Edition Contributor(s): McGurty, Eileen (Author) |
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ISBN: 0813546788 ISBN-13: 9780813546780 Publisher: Rutgers University Press OUR PRICE: $37.00 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2009 Annotation: "Transforming Environmentalism" explores a moment central to the emergence of the environmental justice movement. In 1978, residents of predominantly African American Warren County, North Carolina, were that the state planned to build a land fill to hold forty thousand cubic yards of soil contaminated with PCBs from illegal dumping. They responded with a four-year resistance, ending in a month of protests with over 500 arrests from civil disobedience and disruptive actions. Eileen McGurty traces the evolving approaches residents took to contest environmental racism in their community and shows how activism in Warren County spurred greater political debate and became a model for communities across the nation. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) - History | United States - 20th Century - Nature | Environmental Conservation & Protection - General |
| Dewey: 363.700 |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" (0.70 lbs) 204 pages |
| Themes: - Geographic Orientation - North Carolina - Chronological Period - 1970's - Chronological Period - 1980's - Topical - Ecology - Cultural Region - South Atlantic - Cultural Region - Southeast U.S. |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Contemporary public policy circles are quick to acknowledge that environmental factors contribute to ill health and pose a particular threat to poor and minority communities. But public officials rarely examined the distribution of environmental hazards such as polluted air and contaminated water. In the 1980s, as toxic waste facilities proliferated, the environmental justice movement demanded that impoverished communities no longer be burdened by excessive environmental risks. In Transforming Environmentalism, Eileen McGurty explores a moment central to the emergence of the environmental justice movement. In 1978, residents of predominantly African American Warren County, North Carolina, were horrified to learn that the state planned to build a landfill in their county to hold forty thousand cubic yards of soil that was contaminated with PCBs from illegal dumping. They responded to the state's plans with a four-year resistance, ending in a month of protests with over 500 arrests from civil disobedience and disruptive actions.McGurty traces the evolving approaches that residents took to contest "environmental racism" in their community and shows how activism in Warren County spurred greater political debate and became a model for communities across the nation. Transforming Environmentalism explores how the specific circumstances of the Warren County events shaped the formation of the environmental justice movement and influenced contemporary environmentalism. |