Environmental justice in a landscape of tragedy

Hurricane Katrina exposed a landscape of tragedy in New Orleans in the wake of the storm, concentrations of poverty and minority populations and disproportionate suffering among those groups prompted discussions about environmental injustices. Federal policies seek to foster environmental justice, but all too often they respond inadequately to long-standing injustices and fail to address the moral issues that underlie the public understanding of environmental justice. Additionally, local and state plans for addressing future hurricanes offer little impetus to environmental justice concerns.