UU Ministry for Earth is a source for actions, tools, stories, and connection to the global climate justice movement. Explore the major issue areas UUMFE focuses on, using a racial and economic justice-informed framework of environmental justice.
What is Climate Justice?
Climate justice is a concept that recognizes the unequal impacts of climate change on marginalized and vulnerable populations. It seeks solutions that address not only the environmental aspects of climate change but also a broad range of social, racial, and environmental injustices. It calls for a shift from focusing solely on greenhouse gases and melting ice caps to a civil rights movement with people and communities at its core.
Sources:
Mary Robinson Foundation Climate Justice
Use this tool to explore your local area and the communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate injustice.
- Start with your zip code.
- Then click to zoom in.
- Notice the categories on the right and the respective percentiles of risk.
So we don’t run the risk of white savior complex, which communities are already doing the work of climate justice near you? How are you in relationship with them and following their lead?
Front-Lines Solidarity for Climate Justice
A climate justice framework centers the needs, voices, and leadership of those who are most disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and climate change, including Indigenous and low-income peoples, people of color, island nations, and youth.
Top links:
- Indigenous Rights & Environmental Justice: faith grounding and resources compiled for Indigenous Peoples Day 2017
- UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: a groundbreaking document adopted by the United Nations in 2007 that sets out many rights, including those related to land and self-determination
- “Climate Justice is Racial Justice is Gender Justice”: a great interview with Jacqui Patterson, director of the NAACP Environmental Justice & Climate Justice Program, by Bill McKibben, published in Yes! Magazine, 2017
- “The Right to Be Rescued”: a short documentary that tells the stories of people with disabilities affected by Hurricane Katrina
- “Movement Building Practice: Margins to Center” (PDF): an activity guide for a group exercise to explore “Radical Connection” and intersectionality within movement work, developed by Move to End Violence and Movement Strategy Center to supplement their Transformative Movement Building Webinar Series
Recommended sources for info and action:
ALL FRONT-LINES SOLIDARITY POSTSSocial Justice & Human Rights
When cultures value profit over people, those who are already marginalized suffer the worst effects: from water and air pollution to toxic waste disposal to natural disasters to forced migration due to droughts, floods, and other climate impacts.
Top links:
- The Invisible Crisis: Water Unaffordability in the United States (PDF): a 2016 report by Dr. Patricia Jones and Amber Moulton, published by the UUSC
- Defending the Human Right to Water: A Decade of Support for Global Water Justice: a 2016 report by Amber Moulton, published by the UUSC (PDF)
- Who’s in Danger? (English) / ¿Quiénes Están en Peligro? (Español): a report that documents the risk of chemical disaster posed to low-income communities and communities of color
Recommended sources for info and action:
ALL SOCIAL JUSTICE & HUMAN RIGHTS POSTSFood Justice
Food justice involves ensuring that all people have access to nutritious food, that those who work in the food industry are free from exploitation and earn a living wage, and that food is grown, sourced, and consumed in ethical ways.
Top links:
- Food for Thought and Action: a Food Sovereignty Curriculum: a free, four-module curriculum from Grassroots International on how the food system works, its failures, and hopeful alternatives
- Ethical Eating and Food Justice: resources and actions for UUs on fair trade, labor, local food, and other ethical eating and food justice concerns, curated by UUMFE
- Reports from Farmworker Justice: a series of cutting-edge reports on the many issues faced by agricultural workers
Recommended sources for info and action:
- Farmworker Justice (don’t miss their great blog and latest news)
- Coalition of Immokalee Workers
- La Via Campesina
- Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy
Climate Change
There’s no denying that climate change is happening, and is human-caused. There’s also no denying that those on the front-lines of the climate crisis are among those who have contributed least to creating the problem, such as island nations, Indigenous peoples, and those who directly depend on the land for sustenance.
Top links:
- UUSC’s Environmental Justice & Climate Change Program: UUSC works with partners across the world to address the human rights concerns of climate-forced displacement
- Climate Change Index: The Climate Change Index gives you the facts about climate change and its impact on our economy, our health, our national security and other factors for all Americans.
- 10 Principles for Just Climate Change Policies in the U.S. (PDF): a set of principles that came out of the 2002 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit
- Faith and Climate Change: a guide from Climate Outreach and GreenFaith for how to effectively talk about climate change with people of faith and multi-faith audiences.
Recommended sources for action:
- Clergy Climate Action Pledge & the Climate Disobedience Center
- 350.org
- Climate Justice Alliance & Our Power Campaign
- Citizen’s Climate Lobby
Recommended sources for climate change info:
- United Planet Faith & Science Initiative – ClimateMatters.TV
- InsideClimate News
- NASA Global Climate Change portal
- Climate Central
- US Global Change Research Program
- The Climate Portal
Ecology & Rights of Nature
Ecosystems are communities of interacting living beings and natural systems, and the Rights of Nature is a framework for respecting the rights of “all beings to the freedom they require to realize their full potential in the larger web of existence.” This calls us to work for ecosystem conservation and restoration, biodiversity, clean air and water, and the rights of animals.
Top Links:
- World Wildlife Fund 2016 Living Planet Report: global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles declined by 58% between 1970 and 2012. This report details these findings, and actions needed to preserve & restore biodiversity.
- What is “Rights of Nature”?: a great summary of the Rights of Nature framework with links to additional resources, from the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, a global network of organizations and individuals committed to supporting legal systems that recognize, respect, and enforce Rights of Nature
Recommended sources for info and action:
- Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature
- Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
- UU Animal Ministry
- Center for Biological Diversity
- Earth Justice
- Waterkeeper Alliance
Sustainability
Sustainability means living within the ecological limits of the Earth’s ability to regenerate, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. Pollution, overconsumption, poverty, escalating inequality, habitat loss and biodiversity decline, and climate change all make our current global society fundamentally unsustainable.
Top links:
- Strategic Framework for a Just Transition: a zine by Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project
- Awakening the Dreamer & Game Changer Intensive: online education programs from Pachamama Alliance
- UN Sustainable Development Goals: seventeen goals adopted by the United Nations to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all, with specific target objectives to reach by 2030.
- “Responsible Consumption is Our Moral Imperative”: a 2001 Statement of Conscience passed by the delegates to the UUA General Assembly
- Earth Overshoot Day: a project to identify the date each year that humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. You can also calculate your personal Overshoot Day (aka ecological footprint).
