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Objectives. Our objective is to examine spatial relationships between modeled criteria air pollutants (i.e., nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, and ozone) and sociodemographics in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Modeled air pollution offers environmental justice researchers a new and robust data source for representing chronic environmental hazards.Methods. We used multiple regression equations to predict criteria pollution levels using sociodemographic variables at the Census block group level.Results. We find that Census block groups with lower neighborhood socioeconomic status, higher proportions of Latino immigrants, and higher proportions of renters are exposed to higher levels of criteria air pollutants. Proportion African American, however, is not a significant predictor of criteria air pollution in the Phoenix metro area.Conclusions. These findings demonstrate clear social‐class and ethnic‐based environmental injustices in the distribution of air pollution. We attribute these patterns to the role of white privilege in the historical and contemporary development of industrial and transportation corridors in Phoenix in relation to racially segregated neighborhoods. Although all people are implicated in the production of criteria pollutants, lower‐income and ethnic‐minority residents are disproportionately exposed in metropolitan Phoenix.

ObjectivesOur objective is to examine spatial relationships between modeled criteria air pollutants (i.e., nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide, and ozone) and sociodemographics in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Modeled air pollution offers environmental justice researchers a new and robust data source for representing chronic environmental hazards. MethodsWe used multiple regression equations to predict criteria pollution levels using sociodemographic variables at the Census block group level. ResultsWe find that Census block groups with lower neighborhood socioeconomic status, higher proportions of Latino immigrants, and higher proportions of renters are exposed to higher levels of criteria air pollutants. Proportion African American, however, is not a significant predictor of criteria air pollution in the Phoenix metro area. ConclusionsThese findings demonstrate clear social-class and ethnic-based environmental injustices in the distribution of air pollution. We attribute these patterns to the role of white privilege in the historical and contemporary development of industrial and transportation corridors in Phoenix in relation to racially segregated neighborhoods. Although all people are implicated in the production of criteria pollutants, lower-income and ethnic-minority residents are disproportionately exposed in metropolitan Phoenix. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract From a theoretical approach based on political ecology and environmental justice, we assess how forestry development has generated socio-spatial dynamics of environmental degradation and water scarcity in southern Chile. Through historical-geographical and ethnographic methods, we discuss how and why the spread of forestry plantations has significantly influenced social and environmental degradation of the Mapuche's modes of living. In response, during recent decades a political articulation of a Mapuche social movement is observed. Their demands include land, autonomy, rights and opportunities to frame their own development strategies. Within the internal diversity of this movement, a key principle is reversing the spread of environmental degradation by recovering the native forest and its natural water cycles, which have been disrupted significantly by the increasing of forestry plantations. We explore these dynamics of the Mapuche movement from an environmental justice approach.