Books

• Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth-Honoring Faiths by Dr. Melanie Harris

Rev. Doctor Melanie Harris argues that African American women make unique contributions to the environmental justice movement in the ways that they theologize, theorize, practice spiritual activism, and come into religious understandings about their relationship with the earth. This unique text stands at the intersection of several academic disciplines: womanist theology, eco-theology, spirituality, and theological aesthetics.

• The World We Once Lived In by Dr. Wangari Maathai

In twenty short books, Penguin Classics brings you the ideas that have changed the way we think and talk about the living Earth. Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world. From the Congo Basin to the traditions of the Kikuyu people, these lucid, incisive writings explore the sacred power of trees, and why humans lay waste to the forests that keep us alive.

• Dumping in Dixie by Dr. Robert Bullard

Starting with the premise that all Americans have a basic right to live in a healthy environment, this book chronicles the efforts of five African American communities, empowered by the civil rights movement, to link environmentalism with issues of social justice.

Online Resources

• Principles of Environmental Justice

Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, The Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice.

• Bali Principles of Climate Justice

The Bali Principles of Climate Justice redefine climate change from a human rights and environmental justice perspective. ... The Bali Principles of Climate Justice seek to broaden the constituency providing leadership on climate change. They do so by linking local community issues to climate change.

• EJSCREEN: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool

In order to better meet the Agency’s responsibilities related to the protection of public health and the environment, EPA has developed an environmental justice (EJ) mapping and screening tool called EJSCREEN. It is based on nationally consistent data and an approach that combines environmental and demographic indicators in maps and reports.

• 10 Principles for Just Climate Change Policies in the U.S.

The Environmental Justice movement has demonstrated that pollution’s effects often fall disproportionately on the health of people of color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities. The effects of global climate change, which is caused in large part by fossil fuel emissions, are no exception. Climate change, in fact, could have broader and more severe impacts. For example, people of color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities are the first to experience negative climate change impacts like heat death and illness, respiratory illness, infectious disease, and economic and cultural displacement. Climate policy must protect our most vulnerable communities.