Confronting Racial and Economic Disparities in the Destruction and Protection of Nature in America

A man walks with his two children in a neighborhood in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in May 2016. Due to new development and construction, their bike path has been displaced. Getty/Jeff Swensen/The Washington Post

Clean drinking water, clean air, public parks and beaches, biodiversity, and open spaces are shared goods to which every person in the United States has an equal right both in principle and in law. Nature is supposed to be a “great equalizer” whose services are free, universal, and accessible to all humans without discrimination. In reality, however, American society distributes nature’s benefits—and the effects of its destruction and decline—unequally by race, income, and age.