Environmental Justice Reading List

Looking to get smart on the connection between climate, race, and environmental justice? We’ve compiled an Environmental Justice Reading List to get you up to speed, with something for everyone - regardless of if you consume your news in a good ol' paperback, through your headphones, or from the comfort of your TV.

Bite-Sized Reads

• A Green New Deal architect explains how the protests and climate crisis are connected by James Temple (MIT Technology Review): Rhiana Gunn-Wright, the director of climate policy at the Roosevelt Institute, shows that you can’t really see the full impact of the fossil fuel industry until you look at it through the lens of racial justice.
  
  

• I'm a black climate expert. Racism derails our attempts to save the planet by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (The Washington Post): Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson explains how racism is a distraction from the environmental movement.

Long Reads

• Climate Justice by Mary Robinson: Mary Robinson, former Prime Minister of Ireland, travels the world to share stories of resilient communities creating solutions to the climate crisis. (142 pages)
  
  

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer: Robin Wall Kimmerer draws on her experience as an indigenous scientist to share how living beings - the plants and animals around us -  teach us lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to listen. (456 pages)
  
  

• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward: Jesmyn Ward’s big-hearted novel humanizes the real life experiences of vulnerable coastal communities who continue to thrive despite the lack of action by our government officials. (288 pages)

Listen

• Environmental Racism: It's a Thing: For the Movement podcast defines and discusses how environmental racism disproportionately impacts people of color and why some call it the new Jim Crow. (52 mins)
  

• Can the Environmental Movement Address Racism?: Trump on Earth podcast hosts Mustafa Santiago Ali, Senior Vice President of Climate, Environmental Justice, and Community Revitalization for the Hip Hop Caucus to discuss the disproportionately negative impact of pollution on people of color. (25 mins)
  
  

• Outside Voices: Through conversations and storytelling, the Outside Voices podcast hosts and guests redefine what it means to be a person of color in the outdoors. Thanks Sea Straw Co. for this recommendation! (35 mins each)

‍

Watch

• Environmental Racism is the New Jim Crow: More than half of Americans who live near hazardous land are people of color. Mother Nature may be equitable, but the people who build our polluting systems are not. (1.5 mins, The Atlantic)
  
  

• There's Something in the Water: Ellen Page uncovers environmental racism in Canada and the lethal effects of polluted water for black and brown communities. (1hr 11 mins, Netflix)
  

• Rise: Standing Rock: Rise Standing Rock shares the story of the Sioux Nation defending their ancestral land from the Dakota Access Pipeline. (1hr 40 mins, Amazon Prime)

‍

‍