Environmental justice [means that] no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.
Interpretation
Environmental justice ensures that all communities share the same level of environmental protection and benefits without disproportionate burdens.
The quote by Majora Carter highlights the concept of environmental justice, which advocates for equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens across all communities. It emphasizes that no single community should bear the brunt of environmental hazards while lacking access to the positive aspects of environmental resources, thus promoting equality and fairness in environmental policies and practices.
In practice
During a town hall meeting on climate change, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for fair environmental policies.
Smart infrastructure can provide cost-saving ways for municipalities to handle both infrastructure and social needs. And we want to shift the systems that open the doors for people who were formerly tax burdens to become part of the tax base.
Poor people of all colors are getting poorer and our communities are getting more toxic. There is a misconception that to grow our economy we will have to do business as usual, because cleaning up the environment, mitigating climate change is just too costly. Well, I say the business of poverty is just too expensive a bill for humanity to pay any longer.
One thing I noticed working in the Bronx is that leaders come in the craziest places. They don't always show up at community board meetings. Sometimes it's just the guys on the corner that the boys on the block respect.
Environmental justice, for those of you who may not be familiar with the term, goes something like this: no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other.
I personally think that gentrification happens long before you start seeing white people in formerly people-of-color neighborhoods. It starts happening when we start telling the young, hard-working, quote-unquote 'smart' kids that they need to measure success by how far they get away from our communities.
We need to work together to embrace and repair our land, repair our power systems, and repair ourselves. It's time to stop building the shopping malls, the prisons, the stadiums, and other tributes to all of our collective failures.
The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?
If my grandchildren were to look at me and say, 'You were aware species were disappearing and you did nothing, you said nothing', that I think is culpable. I don't know how much more they expect me to be doing, I'd better ask them.
Though not a natural world by any means, more like a collection of living dioramas, a zoo exists in its own time zone, somewhere between the seasonal sense of animals and our madly ticking watch time.
To country people Cows are mild, And flee from any stick they throw; But Iβm a timid town bred child, And all the cattle seem to know.
Is it 10 years, 20, 50 before we reach that tipping point where climate change becomes irreversible? Nobody can know. There's clearly a probability distribution. We need to ensure this planet, and we need to do it quickly.
Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.
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