Class
An all-too-familiar example of how environmentalism harms less affluent communities is through NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) laws.
Affluent and middle-class communities often band together to create zoning and planning restrictions that prohibit undesirable activities like landfills in or near their neighborhoods.
Where do these destructive developments end up? Poor neighborhoods where residents often have far less time, money, or influence to push back. Research done in 2015 found a consistent pattern over 30 years of placing hazardous waste facilities in poor communities and communities of color.
The Dakota Access pipeline would have transported crude oil from fields in North Dakota to a refinery near Chicago. But the Standing Rock Sioux tribe said it also would have threatened sacred lands and potentially contaminated their water supply. Legal battles over the project's fate are ongoing.
Settler Colonialism
Race
The intersection of race and negative environmental impact is so common it has its own name: environmental racism.
Communities of color often bear the brunt of air and water pollution. Multiple studies document that because of this they have disproportionately high rates of health problems, including cancers, lead poisoning, and breathing-related issues like asthma.
Despite this, environmental movements and nonprofit organizations rarely have people of color in leadership roles, so many of the issues that affect these communities continue to go under the radar.
IMMIGRATION STATUS
Immigrants, particularly those who are undocumented, are especially vulnerable to the effects of environmental degradation.
Time and again, high-risk, low-protection jobs are disproportionately held by people who have recently immigrated. Farmworkers in California during the wildfires and essential workers in New York during the worst of the COVID-19 epidemic are two well-known examples.
What's more, because of eligibility restrictions and fear, 45% of all undocumented workers do not have health insurance, despite the many environmental dangers they face.
DISABILITY
People with disabilities often find themselves at a disadvantage socially, politically, and economically, all of which makes them vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change.
Increasingly urgent issues like rising temperatures, disasters linked to climate change, and climate-related displacement will disproportionately affect people with disabilities.
Though environmental justice disparities vary widely by disability, some include:
People with pre-existing conditions may be more vulnerable to pollution-related illnesses.
Those with mobility-related disabilities are more vulnerable to the dangers of climate-related migration and natural disasters.
This map illuminates 10 examples of how environmental issues intersect with other social and political challenges in the US. The takeaway: everything is connected, and the burden of climate change is not equally distributed.
The Intersectionality of Environmentalism, Mapped
Standing Rock Indian Reservation, SD and ND
Empowering Youth
Earth Guardians combats the lack of people of color and youth in leadership positions in the environmental movement. The nonprofit organization trains young people across the globe to be leaders against environmental and climate injustice. Young people gain experience utilizing a variety of tools, including the arts, civic engagement, and legal action, to affect change in their communities and the world beyond.
Earth Guardians
Urban Farming
Harlem Grown is centered around food justice and seeks to raise awareness about the intersectionality of food insecurity and racial discrimination. It helps inspire young people in urban areas to learn more about urban farming, sustainability, and nutrition. The goal is to increase their knowledge about healthy foods and provide food access through 12 urban agriculture facilities that work alongside the organization.
Harlem Grown
Environmental Action
EII is a nonprofit collective that supports several smaller environmental action projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization provides project support, fiscal sponsorship, and leadership training to more than 75 environmental activists and grassroots organizations. The organizations it supports span the environmental spectrum, including those that help restore wetlands, raise awareness about Indigenous sacred sites in peril, and help get local kids outside and into the natural world.
Earth Island Institute
Solar for All
GRID Alternatives is using the transition to renewable energy to drive economic growth and environmental benefits in communities that need it most. The organization specializes in solar projects that provide clean energy for low-income communities. It also facilitates job training in these areas to help encourage long-term economic growth. GRID Alternatives' projects are available in the US (including in Indigenous communities) and communities abroad.
GRID Alternatives
Supporting Women
Poor, rural, and Indigenous women are hit hard by the world's ever-deepening climate crisis. These communities are likely to endure famine, droughts, floods, and disease as climate change intensifies. New York-based Madre helps to safeguard these communities as much as possible against the effects of climate change through programs that push back against climate injustice, gender violence, and the disproportionate trauma visited on women during times of war.
Madre
The conversation around intersectionality and environmental justice is ongoing. Luckily, organizations around the country are leading the charge to address these issues. Here are just a few organizations that are not only doing their part to help the environment, but are doing so in ways that are focused on equity and justice for the communities hardest hit by these issues.
Intersectional Environmentalism Heroes
About one in four US adults live with a disability. Meanwhile, people with disabilities are often more vulnerable to environment-related dangers—from extreme heat waves, to sudden evacuation orders, to COVID-19. Based in Berkeley, Calif., the World Institute on Disability is among the organizations working to marshal attention and action around the issue.
Berkeley, CA
Disability
California uses crews of inmate firefighters to battle blazes like the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, CA. Inmates are paid as little as $2.90 per day—yet, until recently, remained ineligible for actual firefighting jobs upon release. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill in September 2020 that clears a path for former inmates to become professional firefighters.
Paradise, CA
Criminalization
The largely immigrant workforce that picks crops in California labored amid lung-choking conditions during the state's incendiary late summer of 2020—on top of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. With few protections, farmworkers were left with what one advocate called an “impossible choice" between their health and their paycheck.
Salinas, CA
Immigration status
Living near oil and gas wells has repeatedly been linked to health issues including respiratory problems and cancer. At the same time, more than 90% of Californians who live near a drilling site and experience pollution are people of color. A bill introduced by state Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi of Los Angeles would have mandated a buffer zone between wells and homes, but it was voted down in August.
South Los Angeles, CA
Race
Bears Ears National Monument includes lands of archeological and cultural significance to several Native American tribes. But in December 2017, the Trump administration reduced the amount of protected lands at Bears Ears by 85%, potentially paving the way for commercial interests and destructive industries. Activists and conservationists continue to fight for the area's protection, and the Biden Administration has begun a 60-day review of Bears Ears' future.
Bears Ears National Monument, UT
Settler Colonialism
No smoking or alcohol? Check and check. But sometimes a pregnant mother can't control the health of her fetus. Researchers in Ohio looked at air pollution measurements and data on birth defects for nearly 300,000 infants. Their findings, published in 2017, linked babies born with birth defects to mothers being exposed to polluted air around the time of conception.
Cincinnati, OH
Reproductive rights
Originally built for Black veterans of World War II, Chicago's Altgeld Gardens housing project earned its “toxic doughnut" nickname for the concentration of hazardous waste sites nearby. Meanwhile, a recent city report revealed its South and West sides—which are predominantly Black and Latino—bear an outsized pollution burden compared to other neighborhoods. That contributes to Chicago's nine-year life expectancy gap between Black and white residents.
Chicago, IL
Race and Class
Residents of Flint, Mich., complained for 18 months about contaminated water before local officials acknowledged the problem in 2015. One researcher called the water crisis the “most egregious example of environmental injustice and racism" he'd ever seen; Flint is disproportionately Black and low-income compared to the state of Michigan. The state is expected to pay about $600 million to victims of the crisis.
Flint, MI
Race and Class
An 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River is nicknamed “Cancer Alley" due to its surfeit of petrochemical facilities. Investigations have shown that pollution from these facilities disproportionately affects Black and poor communities. Locals continue to fight further expansion of petrochemical projects in the area.
St. Gabriel, LA
Race and Class
Both environmental destruction and attempts at environmental conservation can have negative effects on marginalized communities.
Case in point: The Flint water crisis started in 2014 when a predominantly poor city in financial crisis attempted to cut costs by changing its water supply. The poorly executed plan resulted in lead-poisoned water, and thanks to systemic racism, Flint residents complained about water issues for 18 months before government officials took notice. Both classism and racism were contributing factors to the environmental health.
Less known, however, are the incidents where environmentalist policies unintentionally create harm. For example, in Botswana, Indigenous subsistence hunters are considered “poachers” for utilizing their traditional hunting grounds for food. Those areas are now off-limits to them due to the government’s conservation policies.
This is why environmental justice advocates argue that marginalized communities and a deeper awareness of intersectionality need to become a part of the larger environmental movement. Only then can the movement affect change that benefits everyone.
how do these concepts fit together?
INTERSECTIONALITY PLAYS A ROLE IN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE.
In Botswana, Indigenous subsistence hunters are considered “poachers”
The Flint water crisis started in 2014
4 WAYS THAT ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES CAN INTERSECT WITH SPECIFIC MARGINALIZED IDENTITIES ARE:
Environmental justice is a social justice movement that seeks to ensure that the environmental movement’s successes benefit everyone equally.
Underprivileged communities have a long history of being disproportionately affected by environmental destruction. Racism, classism, and other forms of oppression often collide with environmental degradation, creating widespread health issues, accessibility issues, and other social justice concerns that further marginalize struggling communities.
Intersectionality, coined in 1989 by race and gender scholar and civil rights lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw, points out how different identities can “intersect” to create specific challenges and privileges. All forms of privilege and oppression, such as class, gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship status, and others, can combine in multiple ways, creating unique challenges for people who hold those identities.
For example, women of color experience sexism in very different ways to white women because of the way racial stereotypes, income inequality, and other racialized factors combine with sexism to create a variety of unique challenges.
"The future is intersectional," Leah Thomas, founder of Intersectional Environmentalist, says. "Kimberlé Crenshaw's work laid the foundation for a new generation of activists working to ensure the environmental movement is equitable and helps all groups in our society.”
TELL ME
TELL ME
What is Environmental Justice?
What is INTERSECTIONALITY?
Intersectionality, coined in 1989 by race and gender scholar and civil rights lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw, points out how different identities can “intersect” to create specific challenges and privileges. All forms of privilege and oppression, such as class, gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship status, and others, can combine in multiple ways, creating unique challenges for people who hold those identities.
For example, women of color experience sexism in very different ways to white women because of the way racial stereotypes, income inequality, and other racialized factors combine with sexism to create a variety of unique challenges.
"The future is intersectional," Leah Thomas, founder of Intersectional Environmentalist, says. "Kimberlé Crenshaw's work laid the foundation for a new generation of activists working to ensure the environmental movement is equitable and helps all groups in our society.”
Environmental justice is a social justice movement that seeks to ensure that the environmental movement’s successes benefit everyone equally.
Underprivileged communities have a long history of being disproportionately affected by environmental destruction. Racism, classism, and other forms of oppression often collide with environmental degradation, creating widespread health issues, accessibility issues, and other social justice concerns that further marginalize struggling communities.
People with pre-existing conditions may be more vulnerable to pollution-related illnesses.
Those with mobility-related disabilities are more vulnerable to the dangers of climate-related migration and natural disasters.