IPCC Code Red: We’ve Been Here Before—An Environmental Justice Reading List

This week the IPCC released another report about climate change’s cause, its impact on the earth, and us humans who inhabit earth. Although the IPCC did not mention colonialism or capitalism as causing climate change, it’s clear these systems are the problem. When I was in college over a decade ago, my grandfather (who was about 84 at the time) was telling me about the ways the weather has drastically changed in his lifetime. Increasing hurricanes and earthquakes in Caribbean island nations—such as Jamaica where my mother lives, extreme heat waves throughout the U.S., and millions of climate refugees flooding into Bangladesh's capital city of Dhaka—have long signaled to me that we have been in Code Red for some time now. While it can feel unsettling to see the key takeaways from the IPCC report, this is not new information. 

In the midst of billionaires launching themselves into space, ordinary people recognizing the stock market is a game for the rich, the ocean being on fire, Beirut still rebuilding from a toxic explosion, and instagram infographics being a main way that people consume information—reading a physical book is a grounding act. It’s  important that we immerse ourselves in the scholarship and writing that has been warning us about the impacts of capitalism, globalization, and over consumption on humanity and the planet for some time. What follows is descriptions of some of the books that have informed my work and perspectives on environmental  justice, climate change and community organizing. 

As an independent researcher and interdisciplinary geographer and writer, I am often synthesizing information from several different books at once. My knowledge of environmental justice comes from understanding the political and economic factors  that have created it. Capitalism: A Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy describes the violent impacts of the privatization of the earth on people who work on the land or live near mineral-rich areas. She describes a web of multinational corporations and philanthropic initiatives that further disenfranchise communities, under the guise of providing development and solutions. Similarly, in Soil Not Oil Dr. Vandana Shiva advocates for a world focused on small farms and ecological regions rather than the current dependence on oil and globalization. This book centers sustainability in small-scale community farming and argues that solutions to poverty are also solutions to climate change. 

Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the relationship of African-Americans to the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney is essential. I believe the writing of Black feminist geographers is foundational to understanding the myriad ways environmental injustice shows up. This book overviews the exclusion of Black Americans from the outdoors industry and mainstream environmental movement, to our collective memory of racial violence in natural places and  the relationships our elders had with land they worked for decades—but never owned. In Pan-African Social Ecology: Speeches, Conversations and Essays, we glean how Modibo Kadalie came to understand ecological issues as stemming from the socio-political issues he spent most of his life fighting against in communities of color across the United States. This book addresses how the environmental justice organizing of the 60s could be contextualized within the need for direct democracy. 

Published just last year, Pauulu’s Diaspora by Quito J. Swan, feels foundational to me. It retraces community and political organizing done by overlooked activists and intellectuals on the continent of Africa, in Oceania, and the Caribbean. It illuminates how the decolonization movement was necessarily interlinked with environmental justice and the right of Black communities to have control over their natural resources and minerals. 

What’s missing in the IPCC’s work is understanding colonialism’s role in creating the environmental and climate threats that exist today. Thus, starting with As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker gives insight into indigeneous perspectives on ecosystems, as well as indigenous peoples’ centuries-long struggle to protect the earth and their sacred relationship to it. As a Jamaican-American, I know well how colonialism and its extension: tourism—have caused environmental degradation in the caribbean. A Small Place by Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid draws on her experiences growing up in Antigua, and the impacts of neocolonialism and tourism on the environment, people and possibilities of that small island.

Two books that provide a nuanced and very specific perspective on one aspect of environmental justice: plants, are Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer and In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World by Judith Ann Carney. Both of these books provide detailed descriptions of relationships to plant life and plant sciences by Indigenous Amerindians and African peoples, respectively. These two books are deep dives into overlooked, ignored and excluded aspects of environmental thought and contributions by Indigenous and Black populations. 

I have always been frustrated that mainstream conversations around the environment and climate change do not address the root causes of these injustices. My work is focused on connecting the dots between environmental, social, political and ecological issues. Though, I see this happening more and more. I’m now less of an outlier than I was, but these intersectional conversations are still new to many people. As I’ve shown in my book suggestions, Black, Brown and Indigenous folks have been talking about these intersectional issues for decades. It is hopeful that current conversations on environmental justice and climate change are starting to center young people, Black and indigenous women, queer folks of color…  those of us who are part of the global majority—but marginalized by mainstream society. We should be focused on confronting and reckoning with the root causes of environmental and climate issues so that we can truly transform the world towards sustainability and alternative futures.      

Book List: