Historically (and unfortunately, still currently), the people responsible for shaping the ways humanity collectively values and interacts with the environment have not been the people who experience the consequences of those choices. Marginalized and disenfranchised communities are disproportionately affected by hazardous and harmful environmental policies. The environmental justice movement seeks to change this by drawing attention to historic inequities and pushing for social and policy change.1
The intersectionality of environmental justice, climate justice, and justice for non-humans is highly nuanced. The industrialization of animal agriculture, for instance, impacts not only the welfare of millions of animals a year, but also the land and often disenfranchised communities where these animals are kept.2 This intersectionality can also include environmental personhood, where nature is granted legal standing and defense within the law. In the Amazon region, environmental personhood rights protect against pollution, deforestation, against altering the flow of rivers, and in doing so protects indigenous peoples.3
For more environmental justice examples, please consider Reckoning’s recent (brief) editorial “Everything’s Environmental Justice.”
For a more in-depth definition or for more background on the environmental justice movement, feel free to check out these links:
- https://iere.org/what-is-environmental-justice/
- https://www.nrdc.org/stories/environmental-justice-movement
- https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/env.2021.0125
- https://lpeproject.org/blog/environmental-justice-is-climate-justice-is-justice-for-animals/
- https://theweek.com/climate-change/1025816/legal-personhood-nature-environment
- https://apnews.com/article/brazil-amazon-wari-indigenous-nature-rights-deforestation-68af65663fb7bd1b9d2051ce10c17a46