Environmental Justice

Environmental Justice is foundational to solving Environmental issues because colonizer thinking is at the root of how humans have done so much damage to Earth in the first place, humanity and the environment are all interconnected, and diverse perspectives are needed to generate the radical changes required to solve the issues we face today, like pollution, soil loss, and climate change. Historically Environmental Justice has been sidelined among the major Environmental Advocacy groups. When looking at the cultural norms that allowed our planet to get to this state of climate emergency, the widespread colonizer mentality of white supremacy is very much tied to how westerners relate to everything, including humans, nature, and an idealistic separation between the two. Even in working to resolve environmental damage, this thinking limits beliefs in what is possible, imagining cities as separate from our natural environment and its many present challenges, despite the fact that water and air all flow together eventually. However, there are other ways of thinking that generate abundance rather than scarcity. By tapping into community, diverse perspectives, and collaborative problem solving the dynamics of the situation can be shifted, making way for meaningful transformative change together.

First, it is useful to consider what has contributed to generating the current climate and environmental crises. Colonizer mentality and racism are systemic in society and at the core of most of the environmental issues the planet faces today. A central principle of colonizer thinking is “divide and conquer,” often in the name of “white [hetero, cis male] supremacy.” Framing “other” races, genders, cultures, and differences as the reason for any societal problems, stokes people’s fears in a way that causes them to automatically operate from a fear-based mindset when interacting with people of different backgrounds. Unfortunately, this system is designed to prey on shortcut, brainstem thinking by keeping the population divided, overworked, and suppressed at lower tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Colonizer systems only benefit the rich few with power and leave the general population without the energy to think critically about important issues, making them easily manipulated (Okun, 2021). This individualistic and fear-driven mindset also has people scrambling for resources to the point of waste and hoarding. Spencer et al. outline the ways in which, “Settler colonialism promotes environmental injustices through the commodification and destruction of land,” linking the ability to dehumanize based on skin color to how society treats nature as disposable. Another example of this is the overlap between historically redlined districts and environmental hazards like flooding and pollution (Katz, 2021). Racism has lawmakers and the news ignoring the problem until it is in a more affluent community and has become more widespread. This allows big businesses to escape the environmental costs, literally dumping them on the communities where they pollute. Colonizer thinking is driven on classification and oversimplification, with an industrial factory-like approach to agriculture, environmental resources, and even human resources (Spencer, et al., 2020). It’s all there in the language used to talk about it, as if nature is just a “resource” to pillage and hoard before another does until nothing is left. This way of thinking is a zero-sum game.

Reality however is interconnected and not segregated, despite any societal beliefs to the contrary. The Coronavirus pandemic has proven how very true this really is. In a 2020 Family Process journal article, Watson, et al. describe the COVID-19 pandemic as "the canary in the coal mine...[which] forces us to pay closer attention to the complex interwoven threats of health inequity, economic insecurity, environmental injustice, and collective trauma. These complexities have highlighted our global interdependence while also making visible racism, classism, and the climate crisis..." Climate change is coming for every part of our planet eventually, and denial is wasting precious time. In the meantime, racism has many ignoring the warnings like climate refugees, and even wars driven by loss of arable land or irrigation (Femia, et al., 2014). In addition, many of the people who are affected by the worst of climate change so far are not the ones benefitting from the luxuries of a fossil-fuel driven lifestyle (Withgott & Laposata, 2019). The planet’s water, air, and soil are essential for the survival of all life on earth, including humans, and these life-sustaining resources are part of a complex web of interdependent ecological systems. This complexity and interconnectedness mean that humanity still has so much to learn about our planet and how to best care for it all. This also means that it can be difficult to fully comprehend the devastating chain reaction that only a few degrees increase in our overall temperature will unleash. Diversity is nature’s strength, and the homogony mentality of “white supremacy” (like mono-crops and chemical lawns) is fracturing this. If we tap back into thinking creatively about natural connections, we can work towards diverse solutions that take these interactions into account (Withgott & Laposata, 2019).

Despite the widespread prevalence of colonizer thinking, there are plenty of other ways of understanding the world, including a variety of Indigenous, black, brown, and other historically side-lined perspectives. Stewardship and cultivation of the environment in sustainable ways that mimic nature’s own ecology (aka permaculture) are often at the heart of many Native American cultures. These cultures tend to be community driven rather than individualistic. These cultures also tend to value giving to others over hoarding stuff for the nuclear family (Kimmerer, 2015). There is abundance inherent in a community mindset, including less waste, more generosity, and a shift away from consumerism. In these cultures, they nurture nature’s inherent abundance with rules like, “never take the first [you see of any lifeform]”, and only “take less than half [of a renewable natural resource at once,]" (Kimmerer, 2015). Spencer et al. explains that “Central to [traditional ecological knowledge] TEK is the understanding that sustaining the system for future generations depends on respecting, supporting, and investing in the interdependent relationships of all life.” When working together, the opportunity to break-down specialization silos and take advantage of multi-solving and collaborative ingenuity means that more can be resolved with the same investment in effort and resources (Multisolving Institute, 2022). It is inspiring to consider how much could be created and improved if humanity’s energy was redirected towards collaboration on making things better for the entire planet instead of dividing and conquering people and nature.

The argument for keeping Social Justice and Environmental Activism separate often involves an allocation of resources towards “nature over people.” This argument is framed by colonizer thinking, with a zero-sum perspective, and again imagines humans as somehow separate from and superior to nature. However, even from the limited lens of money, diversity has proven to increase profits in business. In addition, this argument implies that any nature within human defined cities is a lost cause or not worthy of protection. When considering that the same thinking that has been so damaging to the planet may be behind this perspective, the insidious nature of colonizer thinking really becomes apparent. This limited mindset has been a distraction from the solving of deeper societal issues, doling out slow incremental changes that will never upset the status quo or save the environment from continued abuses. Historically, major Environmental non-profits have focused on predominantly white affected areas, ignoring black, brown, and indigenous communities affected by pollution, even brazenly annexing their land without permission in the name of “conservation.” Healing will likely be necessary within the wider community, but this is an important and valuable part of the process of de-colonizing our thinking.

The way forward is creative, collaborative, and equity driven. Thinking outside the colonizer box that generated many of the environmental challenges Earth and its inhabitants face today in the first place is the only way to enact truly sustainable change. Equity is central to disruption of colonizer thinking and required if humanity is to work together in healing our communities and our planet. It is going to take everyone and a diversity of perspectives to design and implement solutions to climate change and the other major environmental challenges that continue to grow and develop. Local indigenous perspectives offer valuable, location-specific, and generational wisdom on ways to interact with life and ecosystems that are sustainable and create abundance. There are many treasures to be found when people who were formerly segregated come together to share their ingenuity and expertise towards solving shared challenges. Humanity cannot afford to not give it all we have so that our grandchildren have a planet that can sustain them, and hopefully still contain enough diversity to recover from colonization.

References

Femia, F., Sternberg, T., & Werrell, C. E. (2014). Climate Hazards, Security, and the Uprising in Syria and Egypt. Seton Hall Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, 16(1), 71–84.