This document represents two years of work.  It is my Senior Thesis in the Law and Society Department at UC Santa Barbara, an award winner for original research and distinction in the major at UCSB. 

I joined a group of people who were organizing protests at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, August 2000.  I began working with them and making ethnographic observations in April 2000.  I also developed interview and survey instruments based on General Social Survey, a database of demographic and attitudinal questions asked of a cross-section of Americans at regular intervals since 1972. 

My target group, the people who braved the heat and smog of Los Angeles in August for nine days in order to march peacefully under the constant presence of police in riot gear, stand outside society's norms.  The data revealed a prime commonality with the rest of America, however.  Everyone seems to understand that our environment belongs to all of us, and if it is poisoned, we are poisoned.

Those who gain knowledge about our environment and the functioning of the biosphere represent a population ready to embrace other forms of humane and progressive societal change.  Awareness of what is now termed "environmental racism" is motivating people located in polluted areas and represents an excellent teaching moment for their friends and allies.  The environmental justice movement is reuniting disenfranchised people and they are learning how to organize effectively.

The organizers were aware that I was studying them for the purposes of this paper.  I could have chosen to keep this information secret, but there seemed to be no need.  My advisor, Professor Mary E. Vogel, and I, decided that the best course was to open myself to the people involved. Regardless, all university researchers must follow the Human Research guidelines in order to be sure that no one comes to harm during this work.