Environmental justice - global or local?

During the most recent ThinkGloballyRadio show together with Ms. Karolina Isaksson from the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at the Royal Institute of Technology, an interesting insight was highlighted. Speaking about environmental justice, most often, needless to say in ThinkGloballyRadio, usually takes a global perspective.

The differances between North/South of total ecological footprints due different energy usage, personal mobility and food consumption is obvious. However, environmental justice can take a local perspective.

Research is beginning to show that upper-middle class income families tend to be more active in their consumer choises (recycling waste, consuming ecological food, using ethanol cars & bying carbon offsets for flights), also effective communicators for these active lifestyle choices. However, and very interestingly, in comparison to low-income families, the total ecological footprints are much higher for the upper-middle class, reflecting the so far proportional relationship between high income and more intense ecological footprint.

High income of course can drive the market towards the right direction by for instance investing in cleantech - enhancing the global as well as local environmental justice for high income individuals...