Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The conversation you hear about the environment on CNN is not the conversation taking place in college dorms or outdoors clubs or in community centers or on farms or in the heads of those who hope and fight and when they sleep they dream of mountain air and when they close their eyes at work for just a moment are no further removed from the ocean than the fish who swim in it. And they are getting louder.
Last month, four residents from Louisiana neighborhoods impacted by air pollution traveled far from their Mississippi River parishes to Washington, D.C., and Tokyo, Japan, seeking help in their struggle for clean air.
The evidence is clear: Indigenous Peoples and local communities have long been the backbone of the world’s environmental protection efforts, safeguarding what remains of our planet’s precious forests and natural resources despite mounting threats to their lands and their lives.
As two social justice activists, the narrative around movement-led political action is heartening. It opens up the opportunity to practice intersectional policy making that has been central to racial justice movements for decades.
Judge Preston has succinctly expressed the historic anguish of the environmental justice movement against social and environmental destruction led by resource oligarchies.
These communities—South Deering, Pilsen, and Little Village—all keep fighting back. The support of groups like the Sierra Club and Pilsen Alliance, standing in solidarity with them, makes them even stronger. As Cheryl Johnson said to me, it is important to “follow what you believe is wrong to try and make it right.” And that’s just what these communities are doing.
Environmental activism is meaningless if it does not grapple with issues of injustice and expose the links between environmental devastation, colonial history, and the exploitative relationships of the North and the South. But does this mean that campaigns focused on our connections to the natural world and the suffering of non-human animals are irrelevant?
From the election of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to the rise of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, young Americans are injecting a strong dose of energy into the climate and environmental movements.
This was the birth of Extinction Rebellion, a movement that calls for mass economic disruption using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to halt the destruction of the planet and its wildlife and prevent catastrophic climate change.
The fatalist-gloomy-future narrative around climate change hasn’t been compelling to mobilise enough individuals and communities for change. In response, new organisations are emerging with positive narratives and more complex strategies to tackle ‘the problem’ of our generation.
Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court in Montana ruled Thursday that the project cannot proceed until the Trump administration produces an environmental impact report that actually deals with the fact of climate change, The Huffington Post Reported.
When social reformers fail to make good on their promises, it is of little surprise that they get punished. Any legitimate State or ruling body needs to maintain the trust of its citizens in order to function. When trust is lost, the vacuum is created for the “strong man” to walk in.
