Climate Justice and Inequality

Low income, working classes, indigenous, and people of color have historically been exposed to a disproportionate share of environmental harms. Others have gained immense wealth and power by extracting from and polluting the environment. The climate crisis is set to exacerbate this inequality, but also offer new opportunities for justice. In this course, we will trace the uneven distribution of climate harms and goods across social groups. We will ask how climate change inequality can be identified and measured and examine how groups have mobilized in the name of climate justice. Different societies, cultures, and historical moments have articulated varied (and sometimes competing) visions of climate justice, and we will follow how national, state, and city governments, firms, environmental NGOs, and justice movements are crafting responses to concerns of environmental racism, inequality, and climate change. We will explore how projects to respond to climate change can create new inequalities, and opportunities for justice, revealing difficult paradoxes between claims of justice.

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