Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice

David Pellow
Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies Department
Director, California Cultures in Comparative Perspective
University of California, San Diego

Wednesday, October 11, 2006  |  4 - 6 pm

242 Asmundson Hall
University of California, Davis

David Pellow began his overview of environmental justice with the observation that becoming “modern” meant being able to manipulate natural and social worlds. Pellow’s research shows how nation building and economic development has been possible in part by tolerating toxic byproducts. Politics create differentials in environmental pollution, allowing some of society to become wealthy at the expense of putting others at risk. Pellow observed that the communities unable to mount organized resistance face the greatest risks. Ultimately, these risks cycle back like a boomerang to be shared by all members of society, in the form of higher incidence of cancer, respiratory diseases, and specific diseases of exposure. Pellow coauthored “The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers and the High-Tech Global Economy,” which described resistance to exposure from hazardous chemicals in the computer industries. He also documented mismanagement of computer waste exported to landfills in India and China by manufacturer-sponsored computer recycling.