Race, Climate Change, & Environmental Justice

Catalog description

Some argue that environmental justice and racism are so intertwined that you can't address one without the other. In this course we will use a sociological lens to examine causes, impacts, and solutions to climate crisis. Evidence abounds to indicate that racial minorities are exposed to higher levels of pollution, toxic waste, and are more vulnerable to risks imposed by extreme weather events such as heatwaves and hurricanes. Environmental justice movements aim to reverse past governmental policies and social practices that have unfairly burden racialized minorities and exposed them is proportionately to environmental degradation and work to ensure that all communities can live in sustainable and healthy environments, with access to clean and unpolluted resources. We will delve into the historical context to better understand the social and economic, as well as political underpinnings of our current crisis. We will also examine how climate threats and risks impact local and global minority communities. This course will require active engagement in addressing the problem of environmental racism and climate change through course-related activities that are community-based. A key opportunity for participatory learning will be in the organization and orchestration of a community-oriented speaker series. Counts as a Communication Intensive course. Counts as a Human Diversity & Commonality course. Counts as a Understanding Global Perspectives course.