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Power Disproportionalities: Linking Emissions Extremes to Social Forces

Sat, August 22, 4:30 to 6:10pm, TBA

Abstract

What are the processes that create and maintain environmental harm by industrial producers? This project builds on previous “disproportionality” research on industrial pollution, which shows that a minority of facilities is responsible for the majority of environmental harm within their sectors. We investigate the distribution of pollution in connection to the political activities of extreme polluters in one politically and economically dominant industrial sector—coal-fired electric utilities. We use a mixed-methods approach to show inequality in the generation of air toxics and greenhouse gas emissions among power plants and assess the contexts under which the worst facilities are able to persist as producers of extreme levels of pollution. By identifying disproportionate levels of emissions generation by a minority of power plants, this project demonstrates the effect of a small number of facilities on the environmental impact of an entire sector. Then, analysis of facility ownership and political contributions makes visible the foundation of political privilege upon which these environmental inequities are maintained.

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