Petroleum, Refineries, and the Future Main Menu Appreciating Oil Refinery Science By Shailesh Thapa Exploring Pollution and the Environmental Impacts Associated with Petroleum Refining By Bailey Klause Disaster Risks and What Refineries Can do to Best Prepare By Nick Steinhofer The (In)visible Violence of Petroleum Refineries By Klara Beinhorn Global Environmental Justice: Holding Oil Refineries Responsible By Sam Hermann Health, Petroleum Refineries, and the Future By: Jake Rames Contributors Oil Boom Inquiry 2017

Environmental Racism

27049 Environmental Justice Movement as a History By Klara Beinhorn
The term “environmental racism” has been used to describe the environmental inequality epidemic around the U.S. Black Lives Matter has coined the phrase “I can’t breathe,” due to the murder of Eric Garner when he was put in an illegal choke hold after selling loose cigarettes, a “quality-of-life” offense. A sufferer of asthma, Garner told the police officer, “I can’t breathe” eleven times (Dillon and Sze 6). Lindsey Dillon of University of California, Santa Cruz and Julie Sze of University of California, Davis argue, “Thinking about racism as an embodied and situated experience opens up connections with the environmental justice movement.” The phrase, “We can’t breathe,” directly reflects the inequality of who is affected by asthma (1). Garner was among an African American population who is 20 percent more likely to have asthma than white people. Communities who face elevated amounts of air pollution have a higher risk of having asthma. According to Dillon and Sze, “Asthma remains a central concern of contemporary environmental justice activism” (6). In fact, in some communities of color, child asthma reaches a rate of 25 percent, a rate four times the average (6). Rita Turner, currently a lecturer at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, describes environmental racism as an “invisible violence.” In making this comment, Turner urges us to see how environmental racism is comparable to the physical violence of police brutality (Turner 190). I don’t think many people from the Midwest have heard the phrase “environmental racism” used frequently. The magnitude of the issue needs to be recognized by society in order to change the conversation of what the overall impact of the petroleum industry is. There needs to be a shift away from environmental racism causing industries such as the refining industry. Environmental injustice has been recognized throughout recent history leading to an environmental justice movement. 


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  1. Environmental Injustice of Petroleum Refineries Klara Beinhorn

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