What Is the Future of Environmental Justice?*

This article examines the potential future of the U.S. environmental justice movement in a time of economic uncertainty, increasing inequality, and an ascendant white right. It traces the origins of “whiteness” as a historically contingent concept within American history and its relationship to current politics in general and the politics of the environment in particular. It reviews the emergence of research, public concern, and action over the linkage between environmental pollution, race, and class. After offering a critique of the contrary empirical findings of academic researchers, the article identifies two roads for future work in the field, and their potential pitfalls.