by Lucy Diavolo
Clean Power Plan: announced by President Obama in August 2015, the plan set the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from U.S. power plants, the largest source of the pollution in the country that’s driving dangerous climate change.
Colonialism: the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. In this process, the colonizer imposes their religion, economics, and other cultural practices on occupied peoples.
Environmental classism: the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on low-income people and neighborhoods. This occurs when poor neighborhoods, towns, and cities are unjustly subjected to hazardous surroundings in a manner that wealthier areas aren’t.
Environmental Protection Agency: an independent executive agency of the United States federal government for environmental protection. Its stated mission is to protect human health and the environment. More information is available at epa.gov.
Environmental justice: a movement aimed at addressing and abolishing environmental racism and environmental classism. The EPA defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” Some activists take issue with that definition because they see it as a mandate to poison people equally, while their mission is to ensure that people are not poisoned at all.
Environmental racism: the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color. This occurs when corporations or local, state, and federal governments target and unfairly subject minority communities to unhealthy living conditions.
Extinction Rebellion: a global environmental movement with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse. More information is available at https://rebellion.earth.
Food desert: an area that lacks access to affordable and nutritious foods.
Fossil fuels: fuel formed by natural processes, such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms, containing organic molecules originating in ancient photosynthesis that release energy in combustion.
Fracking: the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, and other formations. so as to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas.
Global warming: the ongoing rise of the average temperature of the earth’s climate system. It is a major aspect of climate change which, in addition to rising global surface temperatures, also includes its effects, such as changes in precipitation.
Global Youth Climate Strike: the September 2019 climate strike, also known as the Global Week for Future, consisted of a series of international strikes and protests to demand action be taken to address climate change; it took place September 20–27.
Greenhouse effect: the process by which radiation from a planet’s atmosphere warms the planet’s surface to a temperature above what it would be without this atmosphere. Radiatively active gases in a planet’s atmosphere radiate energy in all directions.
Greenhouse gases: Greenhouse gases that absorb and emit radiant energy within the thermal infrared range. Greenhouse gases cause the greenhouse effect on planets. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
Green New Deal: a proposed package of United States legislation introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts that aims to wean the United States from fossil fuels. It also aims to guarantee new high-paying jobs in clean-energy industries, and to address climate change and economic inequality. The name refers back to the New Deal, a set of social and economic reforms and public works projects undertaken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression.
Indigenous: describes First peoples, First Nations, Aboriginal peoples, or Native peoples; ethnic groups who are the original or earliest known inhabitants of an area prior to colonization.
Microplastics: not a specific kind of plastic but rather any type of plastic fragment that is less than 5 mm in length according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They enter natural ecosystems from a variety of sources, including cosmetics, clothing, and industrial processes.
The Paris Agreement: a landmark environmental accord that was adopted by nearly every nation in 2015 to address climate change and its negative impacts. The deal aims to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, while pursuing means to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. The agreement includes commitments from all major emitting countries to cut their climate-altering pollution and to strengthen those commitments over time. The pact provides a pathway for developed nations to assist developing nations in their climate mitigation and adaptation efforts, and it creates a framework for the transparent monitoring, reporting, and ratcheting up of countries’ individual and collective climate goals.
Petrochemicals: the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sources such as maize, palm fruit, or sugar cane.
Pro-environmental behavior: a set of behaviors that a person consciously chooses in order to minimize the negative impact of their actions on the environment.
The Red Deal: drawing from Black abolitionist traditions, this platform calls for divestment away from the criminalizing, caging, and harming of human beings and divestment away from the exploitative and extractive violence of fossil fuels. It was crafted by community members, Native people, young people, and poor people and has four key tenets designed to build on and push forward the ideas in the Green New Deal. First, what creates crisis cannot solve it; second, change must come from below and move to the left; third, politicians can’t do what mass movements do; and fourth, the climate conversation must move from theory to action.
The three R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle—all help to cut down on the amount of waste we throw away. They conserve natural resources, landfill space, and energy.
Salinization: the process by which water-soluble salts accumulate in the soil. It is a resource concern because excess salts hinder the growth of crops by limiting their ability to take up water. The process may occur naturally or because of conditions resulting from management practices.
Slash-and-burn agriculture: a widely used method of growing food in which wild or forested land is clear cut and any remaining vegetation burned. The resulting layer of ash provides the newly cleared land with a nutrient-rich layer to help fertilize crops. However, under this method, land is only fertile for a couple of years before the nutrients are used up. Farmers must abandon the land, now degraded, and move to a new plot—clearing more forest in order to do so.
Sunrise Movement: an American youth-led political movement coordinated by Sunrise, a 501 political action organization that advocates political action on climate change.
Two spirit: a term coined in 1990 as a means of unifying various gender identities and expressions of Native American/First Nations/Indigenous individuals. The term is not a specific definition of gender, sexual orientation, or other self-determining catchall phrase but rather an umbrella term. The term does not diminish the tribal-specific names, roles, and traditions nations have for their own two-spirit people. Examples of such names are the winkte among the Lakota and the nadleeh among the Navajo people.
Waste colonialism: a term describing how waste and pollution are part of the domination of one group in their homeland by another group.
Zero Hour: a nonprofit that seeks to center the voices of diverse youth in the conversation around climate and environm
ental justice. Zero Hour is a youth-led movement creating entry points, training, and resources for new young activists and organizers (and adults who support its vision) wanting to take concrete action around climate change. Together, the participants are a movement of unstoppable youth organizing to protect young people’s rights and access to the natural resources and a clean, safe, and healthy environment that will ensure a livable future where they not just survive, but flourish. More information is available at http://thisiszerohour.org.
Index
“Passim” (literally “scattered”) indicates intermittent discussion of a topic over a cluster of pages.
Abdulkarim, Zeena Gasim, 125–30 passim
AFL-CIO, 195, 196, 197–98, 213 African Americans, 144–49 passim, 181, 182; Flint, Mich., 143, 153; Houston, 155; New York City, 160
agriculture, 203; Malawi, 169, 170–71, 173; Navajo Nation, 178. See also animal agriculture
air pollution, 123, 156, 191
Alaska, 59–67, 122–23
Alicia, Niria, 203–4
Amazon rainforest, 105, 106
American Chemistry Council, 28
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. See AFL-CIO
animal agriculture, 18, 88
Antonio, Cheyenne, 181–87 passim
Arctic and subarctic regions, 54–67, 177, 188, 189, 192, 200
Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act, 66
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 59–67 passim
Arizona, 120, 204
Asperger’s syndrome, 95–96
Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America, 199
Bangkok, 160–61
Bangladesh, 127, 164–67, 207
Banuri, Mishka, 33, 35–36, 37–38
Baring, Nathan, 122–23
Bastida, Xiye, 94, 101, 102, 103, 132–39
Bayou Bridge Pipeline, 92, 149
beach pollution, 44, 57
Belliveau, Emilia, 118
Berry, Seth, 75
birds, 57, 60
Black Americans. See African Americans
black lung disease, 108, 213
Blue-Green Alliance, 198–99
Boston, 74, 102
Bourque, Martin, 35, 37
Bozuwa, Johanna, 73–74
Brazil, 105
Break Free From Plastic movement, 35, 37, 49
Brown, Phillip, 115–16
Bullard, Linda McKeever, 155
Bullard, Robert, 155, 156
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 185
Butler, Jaime Lynn, 120, 121, 123
Cabrera, Amanda, 104
California: IBEW, 197; plastic use, 150; textbooks, 28; utilities, 28–29, 74; wildfires, 23
Campbell, Tavish, 42
Canada: university divestment campaigns, 118. See also First Nations of Canada
Canadian Arctic and subarctic, 54–58, 188, 189, 92
Cannon, Dan, 44
Cantu, Adelita, 30–31
carbon dioxide and carbon gas emissions, 15–16, 18, 34, 97, 106, 122, 168, 194
carbon footprint, 18, 125
caribou, 61, 65–66
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, 185
China, 18, 36, 48–49, 150, 178, 190, 191
Christie, Chris, 195
classism, environmental. See environmental classism
Clean Power Plan, 18, 214
Clendenin, Michael, 71
“climate change” (term), 17, 213
climate refugees, 160, 200–209 passim, 213–14
Climate Strike. See Youth Climate Strike
coal miners and coal mining, 109, 194, 196, 198
coal-powered power plants, 138, 144
Coca-Cola, 35, 51
Coleman, Haven, 89, 90–91
Colombia, 106
Colón, Luis Collazo, 161–62
colonialism, 189–92 passim, 214
Con Edison, 69, 71
Congress, U.S. See U.S. Congress
Copeny, Mari, xii
COVID-19
pandemic, 146
cyclones, 20, 23
Dakota Access Pipeline, xii, 92, 144, 149, 156, 208
Dakota and Lakota people, 10, 12, 20, 149–50
Damian, Sharon, 83
deforestation, 90, 169
Demientieff, Bernadette, 61
denial, 9–10, 11, 15, 24
disabled people, 151
dogsledding, 56–57
drought, 21, 22, 170, 171, 177–78, 207
Earth Uprising, 89, 90, 103
Ebbesmeyer, Curtis, 41
Eder, Katie, 86–87, 132–38 passim
Eisenberg, Aaron, 70
energy companies, 68–75 passim
environmental classism, 144, 145, 154–55, 156, 214
environmental justice, 144–49 passim, 154–57 passim, 214–15
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 15, 42, 73, 109, 155, 157, 214
environmental racism, 143–57 passim, 208, 215
erosion, 62, 63, 123, 165
extinction and extinctions, 23, 85, 88
Extinction Rebellion, 102, 131, 135, 215
extreme weather. See weather, extreme
ExxonMobil, 28–29, 35, 207
Fairbanks, Alaska, 122–23
farming. See agriculture
farmworkers, 156, 203
Fei, Steven, 26
firewood, 169–70, 172, 173
First Nations of Canada, 55–56, 57, 62, 64, 190–91
fish and fishing, 45–46, 165
Fisher-Salmon, Julia, 64, 65
Flint, Michigan, 143–44, 153–54, 208
floods and flooding, 22; Bangladesh, 164–67 passim; Malawi, 171, 174; Mexico, 101, 137; South Dakota reservations, 12, 21
Flynn-Jambeck, Katie, 46
food deserts, 160, 215
food security, 55, 63, 64–65, 160, 177
forest fires. See wildfires
Fort Yukon (Gwich’yaa Zhee), Alaska, 60, 62–63
fossil fuel consumption, 16, 17, 23
fossil fuel industry, 18, 24; Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 59–60; plastics and, 25–31, 47; public lands, 185; Southwest, 117; university divestment, 117–18. See also oil industry; petrochemical industry
“fossil fuels” (term), 215
Foytlin, Jayden, 91–92
fracking, 27, 30, 31, 47, 73, 182, 185, 215
Fridays for Future. See Youth Climate Strike
Fulton, Kari, 163
Future Coalition, 86
garbage incinerators. See incinerators
garbage pickers. See waste pickers
Gates, Kristin, 56–57
gender inequality, 164–74 passim
Gilbert, Galen, 66
glacier melting, 63, 64
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), 36, 191–92
“global warming” (term), 17, 216
global warming figures, 14–17 passim, 22, 52, 85, 101, 175, 177, 200; Paris Agreement, 217
Goldstein, Grace, 82–83
Gore, Al: Inconvenient Truth, 87, 136
Grate, Froilan, 36, 37
Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), 39–53 passim
greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect, 15, 16, 27, 97, 216; animal agriculture and, 18, 88; plastic and, 31, 35, 43. See also carbon dioxide and carbon gas emissions; methane
Green New Deal, 24, 108–13 passim, 119, 130, 145, 194–99 passim, 205, 216–17; movement coalition, 69; Red Deal and, 180–87 passim; Sanders version, 72
Greenpeace, 40–53 passim, 134, 135
G7 Ocean Plastics Charter, 49
gun violence, 1–2
Gwich’in, 60–67 passim
Gwich’yaa Zhee, Alaska. See Fort Yukon (Gwich’yaa Zhee), Alaska
Harris, Cole: Making Native Space, 190
hazardous waste, 147–48, 156, 190
health, public. See public health
Herbert, Gary, 37
Hirsi, Isra, 89, 125–30 passim
/> Hispanic Americans, 30, 148, 203
Houston, 155
HP, 51
hunting, subsistence. See subsistence hunting
hurricanes: Bahamas, 104; New Orleans, 144; New York City, 104, 137; Puerto Rico, 23–24, 144, 145, 161, 162, 208
ice-sheet melting, 15, 54, 57, 63, 85, 123, 177
IKEA, 51
immigration policy, 204–5
incinerators, 34, 155, 191–92 An Inconvenient Truth (Gore), 87, 136
Indigenous peoples, 175–79; Arctic and sub-Arctic, 55–56, 57, 60–67 passim, 177; Red Deal, 180–87. See also First Nations of Canada; Native Americans
Indonesia, 36, 48, 115, 190
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 22, 175, 193
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), 197
intersectionality, 4, 144–46 passim, 160–61, 200–209 passim
Inuit, 55–56, 57, 188
Iñupiak, 64–65
Isaac, Oscar, 161
Japan, 46, 49
Jimenez, Nayeli, 202–3
job-training programs, 197
Juliana v. U.S., 91, 92
Kalibuk, Jennifer, 55, 57
Kentucky, 108–13 passim
Klein, Naomi, 94–98 passim
Krajewski, Corey, 74
Kroger Company, 50
Kyoto Protocol, 29
labor, 194–99
Labor Network for Sustainability, 198
Lakota and Dakota people. See Dakota and Lakota people
landfills: environmental racism, 147, 155, 156; plastic waste, 32, 33, 34, 46, 48, 189; “three R’s” and, 218
Larsen, Brooke, 117
Latinx people. See Hispanic Americans
lawsuits, 81, 91, 92, 116, 120–23, 155
lead poisoning, 143, 153, 154, 156
The Leap, 207
Louisiana: Hurricane Katrina, 144; oil pipelines, 92, 149
Louisville, Kentucky, 109–11
Mahmud, Sabirah, 125–30 passim
Maine, 74–75
Making Native Space (Harris), 190
Malawi, 168–74
Mallet, Nyiesha, 159–60
Maoris, 177
Margolin, Jamie, 87–88, 102, 106–7, 149, 152
Marino, Frank, 162
Markey, Ed, 194, 216
Martinez, Xiuhtezcatl, 91, 94
Maupin, Siqiniq, 64–65
McConnell, Mitch, 108–13
melting of ice sheets and permafrost. See ice-sheet melting; permafrost melting
Menezes, Maria, 201–2