Chapter Seven - “Convergence: Uplifting Environmentalism”

Here Judy looks at the convergence between environmental and social justice issues. She looks at how two organizations led by indigenous people and people of colour have led the way to combining concern for the environment with social justice. The Indigenous Environmental Network and various Green Jobs coalitions provide a model for defining environmentalism and social justice in new and more inclusive ways. The financial crisis has given Barack Obama the opportunity to implement the kind of agenda discussed in this chapter but it was the social movements that developed the ideas that he is now putting in his recovery package.

“Majora Carter comes from the South Bronx, one of the worst ghettos in America. Some 60 percent of the South Bronx, including most of the social and affordable housing, was lost to the construction of highways. Carter calls the South Bronx “one of the regional sacrifice zones created to support hyper-consumption.” She noticed that the increasing attention in the media being given to the environment was matched by decreasing news about civil rights. According to Carter, “Environmental justice is the civil rights struggle of the twenty-first century.

Both Jones and Carter talk about the disproportionate impact of pollution and environmental destruction in the ghettos in which they work and live. One out of every four kids in the South Bronx has asthma.

Carter was walking her dog one day, and he dragged her over to a green spot at the mouth of the Bronx River. If a little corner of the Bronx River could be green, she thought, why not build a park along the Bronx River? Since the rate of unemployment in that community is 25 percent, she got the idea of hiring local youth, training them in environmental restoration, and solving two problems in one.”

Related Links:

Relevant Blog Entries:
http://transformingpower.ca/en/category/book-chapters/chapter-seven

Apollo Alliance
http://apolloalliance.org/

Tseporah Berman
http://11thhouraction.com/blog/127

Bioneers
http://www.bioneers.org/

Blue Green Alliance
http://www.bluegreenalliance.org

Campus Climate Challenge
http://www.climatechallenge.org/

Carter, Majora
http://www.majoracartergroup.com/

Clayoquot Sound Clear-Cut Logging
http://www.focs.ca/,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayoquot_Sound#Logging_protests

Clean Energy Corps
http://www.greenjobsnow.com/about/clean-energy-corps

Energy Action Coalition
http://energyactioncoalition.org/

Forest Ethics
http://www.forestethics.org/

Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors (Clayton)
http://gatheringofmotherearthprotectors.blogspot.com/

Great Bear Rainforest
http://www.savethegreatbear.org/

Green Jobs for All
http://www.greenforall.org/

Green Jobs for America
http://www.greenjobsforamerica.org/

Greenpeace
http://www.greenpeace.org/

Hansen, James
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)
http://www.ienearth.org/

Jones, Van
www.vanjones.net

Mueller, Clayton, Thomas
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1458

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
http://www.nrdc.org/

New Democratic Party (Federal)
http://www.ndp.ca/

New Democratic Party (Ontario)
http://ontariondp.com/

Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation
http://www.nuuchahnulth.org/

Obama, Barack
www.barackobama.com

Rainforest Action Network
http://ran.org/

Sierra Club
http://www.sierraclub.org/

Straightgoods
http://www.straightgoods.ca

Sustainable South Bronx
http://www.ssbx.org/

United Steelworkers International
http://www.uswa.org/

U.S. Social Forum
http://www.ussf2007.org/