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.
Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance.
Animals are our younger brothers and sisters, also on the ladder of evolution but a few rungs lower. It is an important part of our responsibilities to help them in their ascent, and not to retard their development by cruel exploitation of their helplessness.
Wine is earth's answer to the sun.
I think global warming is the gravest threat. With global warming, it's the product of a war between old energy - between the carbon cronies, who, by the way, could not stay in business in a true free market capitalism.
It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth.
If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.
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