Environmental Studies 216 - Global Environmental Justice

Many of the world's most urgent issues, like Black Lives Matter, biodiversity conservation, or Indigenous self-determination, are also environmental justice challenges. This course will survey the theories, concepts, and perspectives on environmental justice at local and global scales. We will first apply a global perspective in understanding environmental justice, environmental racism, and environmentalism. A second part of the course will emphasize the justice dimensions of responses to pressing global environmental issues (such as food). A third part will focus on 'decolonizing' the meanings of environmental justice, and on its intersectional dimensions -- for example, by analyzing the diverse definitions of justice of social movements and collectives.

Prereq: ENVST-100 or 4 credits in humanities or social science.