Environmental & Social Justice

Dr. Martha Matsuoka is an Associate Professor in the Urban and Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California, where she is also the Executive Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute.

Morgan Grove is a social scientist and Team Leader for the USDA Forest Service's Baltimore Field Station. His work focuses on the long-term dynamics of environmental justice in Baltimore, measuring park access and enviornmental justice in the city. His team looks at amenities like parks and tree cover, and disamenities such as polluting industries and flood zones.

Dr. Asa Bradman is an environmental health scientist and expert in exposure assessment and epidemiology focusing on occupational and environmental exposures to pregnant women and children. He co-founded the Center for Environmental Research and Children's Health (CERCH) in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and directs an initiative to improve environmental quality in California child care facilities.

California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS) received two years of Switzer Leadership Grant support to launch a new staff position for Ildi Carlisle-Cummins as Director of the Cal Ag Roots program. Cal Ag Roots, created by Ildi, aims to put historical roots under current California food and farming movements by telling the stories of California's agricultural development in innovative, useful, and relevant ways.

Prior research has found that low socioeconomic status (SES) populations and minorities in some areas reside in communities with disproportionate exposure to hazardous chemicals. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the relevance of socio-demographic characteristics on the presence of Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) facilities, air releases, and prevalence and resolution of air quality complaints in the 20-county Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). We found that there were 4.7% more minority residents in census tracts where TRI facilities were located.

The North American Community Environmental Leadership Exchange (NACELE), held October 14-17, 2013, convened Indigenous environmental practitioners from around North America in the Capay Valley, about 90 minutes from Berkeley, California. Thirty indigenous environmental leaders participated: tribal leaders, activists, ethnobotanists, NGO workers, scholars, young leaders, native scientists, cultural practitioners, and restoration ecologists. Attendees then took part in Bioneers 2013, and delivered a panel in its Indigenous Program.

Dr. Tracey Osborne, partnering with Amazon Watch on the Climate Alliance Mapping Project, built a platform that factually and compellingly demonstrates the geographic footprint of Amazonian oil reserves and the human and natural resources its extraction threatens. Specific outcomes of this Switzer Leadership Grant project include:

Fellow J. Morgan Grove writes that within some neighborhoods, scientists are documenting a connection between trees and a specific social improvement: a reduction in crime. These studies combine modern mapping technology with spatial and economic statistics to compare crime levels between similar urban neighborhoods in the same city.

Climate change-related food scarcity can lead to 500,000 deaths around the world by 2050, a new study has found. The research was the first to come up with an estimated number of deaths, based on changes in diet composition due to global warming.