At left is Emily Pearson, diagnosed with brain cancer at age three. She died soon after, one of a 16 toddlers who suddenly developed rare brain cancers in only four blocks of single-family homes area near Indiana’s Ferro (now Vibrantz) Chemicals. Vibrantz was illegally releasing tons of volatile organic compounds, including ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride, implicated in these cancers. Amid State of Indiana denial of Ferro harm, Kristin worked with some toddlers’ mothers who forced plant closure and multi-million-dollar Vibrantz penalties. Cleanup is still ongoing. At right are Hazel Johnson and her daughter, Cheryl. Hazel is known throughout the world as the “Grandmother of the Environmental Justice Movement.” For decades she and Cheryl have worked to protect poor people, minorities, and children from disproportionate levels of pollution. Much of Kristin’s pro-bono, environmental-justice research, especially with Notre Dame students, has been in nearby Chicago where they met Hazel and Cheryl. Hazel’s began her life-saving work after all of her children battled pollution-caused, Chicago health problems because of their living near multiple toxic-waste sites.
Making Environmental-Justice Requests
Are you a member of an environmental-justice (EJ) community being harmed by disproportionate or illegal pollution? If you would like to request pro-bono scientific assistance on behalf of your community, please email kshrader@nd.edu and she will respond to you by email to let you know whether she is able to assist you. Please use the email subject: “REQUEST FOR ENVIRONMENTAL-JUSTICE ASSISTANCE.”
Please help Dr. Shrader-Frechette by telling her, in your email:
- your name, address, email, and phone;
- the name, address, email and phone of any citizens’ groups, working on this problem with you;
- the polluting-facility name, location, and its main contaminant releases, if you know them;
- whether you have contacted any government, university, or consumer/environmental groups about the problem and how they have responded.
What is Environmental Justice?
A recent analysis in the British medical journal, the Lancet, shows why EJ research and assistance are important: Unjust, health-harming, human-induced pollution, environmental injustice, including climate change, “is the single largest driver of premature human mortality.” Regarding environmental injustice caused by climate change, the Stockholm Environment Institute confirms: The globe’s wealthiest 1% of people cause twice the greenhouse-gas pollution as the world’s poorest 50%. Yet 88% of climate-caused disease and death is borne by innocent children, mostly poor children in developing nations.
The end of all education should surely be service to others.”
Cesar Chavez