Environmental Justice in the Wasatch Front
In spite of more than three decades’ research, consensus has yet to emerge on whether there are significant disparities between disadvantaged groups and the general population in the burdens of environmental health risks. The argument for the existence of environmental injustice is complicated by a wide range of methodological perspectives as well as the complexities of comparing regions where very different populations, environmental practices, economic conditions, and systems of race relations exist. This study presents analysis of one such region, the Wasatch Front region of Utah, giving particular attention to concerns with the measurement of disparities. Using 2000 U.S. Census data at the census block group level and data from the EPA’s Facility Registry System, this study develops several measures of the frequency of environmental hazards in the proximity of populations. The study finds that there are very substantial disparities in the burdens of environmental hazards across the Wasatch Front in which race is the key factor, independent of income. But it also reveals very distinct relationships between disadvantaged populations and site density based on the locations of the sites. Multiple-site proximity methods are shown to be superior to unit-hazard coincidence methods as measurements of the disparities, having revealed striking inequalities that were invisible to unit-hazard coincidence.
Political Opposition to Wild and Scenic River Suitability Determinations in Utah Bureau of Land Management Proposed Regional Management Plans
.pdf file Wild and Scenic Rivers Suitability Designation Process Review
.pdf file Wild and Scenic Rivers Map
The Bureau of Land Management released six Resource Management Plans for Utah during the summer of 2008. These plans included recommendations for designation of Wild and Scenic Rivers, a high priority for the Utah Rivers Council. Very few eligible rivers were proposed for WSR designation, and the council was concerned that the process may have been unduly influenced by local government opposition and may not have fully considered the environmental effects of designation. This project analyzed the plans and associated documents that determined the regulatory standards for WSR designation, the basis for their applications to the Resource Management Plans, and the extent to which political opposition from state and local government influenced BLM's decisions. It also produced several maps for use in the Utah Rivers Council's advocacy and publicity programs.
Effects of the Blue Canyon Wind Farm on Avian Populations in Southwest Oklahoma
The environmental effects of renewable energy development present one of the most significant problems to local planners. Wind power promises to significantly increase the production of energy from renewable sources, but substantial growth in this area may also pose significant potential threats to bird populations. Recent research on this point is ambiguous, and provides little to guide planners. This study analyzes the effects of one case, the Blue Canyon Wind Farm in Southwest Oklahoma, on local avian populations using GIS-analyzed data from the Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts and Fish and Wildlife Service Breeding Bird Surveys. This study finds that there are no statistically significant threats from such facilities to regional avian populations. The data suggests the further hypotheses that the effects of wind farms are primarily localized, and that in some circumstances wind farms may actually improve habitat by excluding humans and grazing animals from most of the environment. Key concerns for wind power planning should thus be the adequacy of facility, design careful attention to habitat, and the potential for partnership with rather than conflict between conservation organizations and power companies in the planning process.
The Sanctity of Life, Moral Responsibility, and Human Therapeutic Cloning
This paper shows that the sanctity of life argument does not resolve the moral dilemma of human therapeutic cloning, because it gives unequal weight to the lives of the embryos that would be destroyed and of those with diseases who could be saved by therapeutic cloning. The bulk of the paper is devoted to demonstrating the moral equivalence of action and inaction, a claim that I demonstrate by proposing a game theoretic interpretation of the moral nature of agency. As a consequence of this equivalence, one cannot simply decide not to intervene and let the consequences be as they may: the decision not to allow cloning is a decision to allow people to die needlessly and must be justified by more than the claim that agency is not involved in these deaths. The option of sanctifying life is thus not available, as in either case our actions have resulted in deaths that we could have prevented. We must choose who will live and who will die. I argue in the final section of the paper that we can make this difficult choice on the basis of a modified version of the distinction between biological and biographical life, prioritizing the biographical over the biological, and the biological over the metaphysical. This priority demands that research into therapeutic cloning go forward.
