Environmental concerns such as climate change are among the most pressing issues we face today. While these problems ultimately affect us all, some groups and regions are being disproportionately affected. In many cases, the results are not only devastating, but deliberate. It is this imbalance, and the systematic abuse behind it, that has given rise to the problem of environmental racism. The term "environmental racism" was first coined in the 1980s, but examples of environmental injustices affecting racial groups stretch back to many centuries ago.

While environmental racism often takes the form of exposing certain communities to pollution and other hazardous materials, there are other factors to be considered. For example, actions including placing communities in areas vulnerable to natural disasters, or far from accessible potable water can be regarded as environmentally racist. Others include discriminatory waste management processed and unfair exploitation of natural resources leading to environmental damage. In times of war, locating military bases and storage facilities near certain communities has also been described as acts of environmental racism.

Unsurprisingly, victims of environmental racism tend to be ethnic minorities and low-income communities. Historical examples of the practice were often linked to colonization and industrialization, although it is ongoing and, in many cases becoming worse. Rich western counties for example, are often unwilling to dispose of the hazardous waste their industries produce within their own countries, therefore they ship it to developing countries willing to accept the risks. However, the reality is not as simple as a country being ""willing,"" as connected trade deals and offers of social support act as a form of coercion. While the government may profit, the areas in which the waste is located and disposed of often suffer terrible consequences. Such consequences include high infant mortality rates, huge rises in instances of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and physical abnormalities.

However, environmental racism and the ill effects it brings are not confined to developing nations. Even countries like United States still suffer from it, as a number of recent cases has shown. The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina 2005, and the reaction of the government, disproportionately affected ethnic minorities as a result of racial segregation policies. Another more recent example has seen the predominantly African American population of Flint, Michigan drinking and bathing in water that contains enough lead to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's definition of "toxic waste". There are many other examples in developed nations where ethnic minorities are exposed to levels of air and water pollution which far exceeded the levels the ruling majorities are exposed to.