We are dedicated to work based on the principles of climate justice.

 

Climate change is a symptom of an extractive economy. For hundreds of years, both people and resources have been extracted for the benefit of the ‘haves’. We see the results of this extraction with the growing inequality between the richest of the rich and the rest of us, and with increasingly polluted backyards. Climate change is the most recent byproduct of this system. Moreover, climate change is furthering that exploitation by impacting the hardest hit by the extractive economy. Fighting climate change is not a simple issue of molecules of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – it is about moving away from a fossil-fuel powered economy in a way that puts those most impacted at the forefront of of our movement and ensures the management of our energy system is done by local communities.

 

See below for more concrete explainations of what climate justice is all about:

From Peaceful Uprising

–”Climate Justice is working at the intersections of environmental degradation and the racial, social, and economic inequities it perpetuates”

 

From Rising Tide North America

–“Climate justice is more than just a goal; it’s a practice in the movement against climate chaos. No effort to create a livable future will succeed without the empowerment of marginalized communities and the dismantling of the systems of oppression that keep us divided.”

 

From Gopal Dayaneni (2009)

“One way to think of this is that climate action is not always action for climate justice. Depending on the theory of change and strategies you are employing, the action must either, and ideally in combination advance a rights-based agenda consistent with the frameworks established collectively by the international climate justice movement; take leadership from and be accountable to those most directly impacted and least responsible; or engage in community struggles on the root causes of climate change.”

Source:

Dayaneni, Gopal. 2009. “Climate Justice in the U.S.” Pp. 80-85 in Contours of Climate Justice: Ideas for Shaping New Climate and Energy Politics, Vol. 6, Critical Currents, edited by U. Brand, N. Bullard, E. Lander and T. Mueller. Uppsala, Sweden: Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation