42 Environmental Rights and Justice
Working for change
By organizing their community to struggle for long-term health and well-being,
the survivors of Bhopal have inspired people around the world to act for
environmental rights and justice. These principles of organizing to reduce
harm from toxic chemicals have proven useful:
• Avoid toxics in daily life. Use nontoxic chemicals for cleaning at home, in
community institutions, or at the workplace (see pages 372 to 374). Do
not use chemical pesticides or fertilizers in the garden, eat food grown
without chemicals, and wash fruits and vegetables carefully before
eating (see Chapter 14). Because we are likely to be exposed to toxics
in our communities, we must pressure governments to stop allowing
corporations to expose people, especially the most vulnerable.
• Organize to prevent pollution. Use different actions to prevent toxic
disasters, including hunger strikes, sit-ins, and marches, as well as
popular theater, the media, the internet, and other communication
methods to educate people. If a factory is polluting,
look for other ways that workers can earn their
livelihood, because all people need jobs and income.
If our
governments
• Force companies to clean up. Although this is very
hard to achieve, demanding that a corporation
clean up its toxic mess is an important part of every
struggle for environmental rights. People agree, even
protected
us and our
environment the
way I protect
my family, we
if corporations do not, that corporations must take
would all be
responsibility to prevent harm and to repair any
healthier.
damage they cause. When people force corporations
to pay for damage, the corporations are more
likely to improve safety in the future.
• Pressure governments for better safety standards.
Unfortunately, most governments protect
corporate profits more than they protect
people. This promotes environmental injustice
and leads to disasters when the companies
see safety as an avoidable cost, not a
responsibility. Governments must change their
priorities to protect all people, especially the
most vulnerable.
• Change the way industry makes things. The Union Carbide factory in
Bhopal made pesticides to control crop pests. But there are better
ways to control pests than using these chemicals. In fact, there are less
harmful and more sustainable ways to do just about everything. Why
is it that we are allowed to be poisoned by industry, but not allowed to
decide how things should be made?
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012