A Book List for Intersectional Environmentalists
In light of recent events, there has been a plethora of resources being shared across social media platforms. I myself, am very grateful for this and have been spending the last week learning, and let me tell you, I have learned more about our TRUE history than I ever did in high school! It has really brought to light how much our education system has failed us.
One philosophy that has really stuck with me, and I pledge to incorporate into my life, is Intersectional Environmentalism. This term was coined by activist, and eco-communicator, Leah Thomas. You can find her on instagram @greengirlleah. She describes Intersectional Environmentalism as…
“an inclusive version of environmentalism that advocates for both the protection of people and the planet. It identifies the ways in which injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are interconnected. It brings injustices done to the most vulnerable communities, and the earth, to the forefront and does not minimize or silence social inequality. Intersectional environmentalism advocates for justice for people + the planet”
Keeping these values in mind, I have compiled a book list for Intersectional Environmentalists. If you scroll further down, I have provided a short description, image, and a link for each book! The link will take you to the Toronto based company, A Different BookList. This is a Canadian multicultural bookstore specializing in literature from the African and Caribbean diaspora and the global south.
Let’s do our best to support small, local businesses!
A BOOKLIST FOR INTERSECTIONAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS
Climate: A New Story
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore
Black Faces, White Spaces
There’s Something in the Water
A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind
Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism
The Ecology of Wisdom
Silent Spring
From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement
Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions
Braiding Sweetgrass
Climate: A New Story
Written by Charles Einstein, this book reimagines our journey to heal from ecological destruction. Einstein explains how the quantification of the natural world has lead to a lack of compassion and action surrounding the Climate Crisis. He advocates for us to see the broader picture, not just our carbon emissions but the sacred forests, the vulnerable oceans and how we can reimagine the solutions for climate change. His book refocuses us away from impending catastrophe and instead helps to cultivate meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture of how everything from prison reform to saving the whales can contribute to our planetary ecological health, we resist reflexive postures of solution and blame and reach toward the deep place where commitment lives.
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore.
Written by Elizabeth Rush, is the book on climate change that has been missing. Guiding readers to some of the places where the change has been most dramatic, she recounts stories of residents from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Bringing a voice to those underrepresented, this book shows us how to powerfully shift conversation around ongoing climate change to one that is diverse and empowering.
Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors.
Written by Carolyn Finney, this book looks beyond the discourse of the environmental justice movement to examine how the natural environment has been understood, commodified, and represented by both Black and White Americans. Connecting environmental history, cultural studies, critical races studies, and geography, Finney argues that the legacies of slavery and racial violence have shaped cultural understandings of the "great outdoors" and determined who should and can have access to natural spaces.
There’s Something in the Water.
Written by Ingrid R. G. Waldron, this book examines the legacy of environmental racisms and its health impacts in Indigenous and Black communities in Canada. Using settler colonialism as the overarching theory, Waldron unpacks how environmental racism operates to enable the in intersection dynamics of racial violence, and racial capitalism in White settler societies. By redefining the parameters of critique around the environmental justice narrative and movement in Canada, Waldron opens a space for a more critical dialogue on how environmental racism manifests itself within this intersectional context.
A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind.
Written by Harriet A. Washington, this book looks at the devastating consequences of environmental racisms and what we can do to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities. Featuring scientific research, this book is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate.
Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States.
Written by Carl Zimring, offers a history of environmental racism in the United States focusing on constructions of race and hygiene. Zimring draws on historical evidence from from statesmen, scholars, sanitarians, novelists, activists, advertisements, and the United States Census of Population to reveal changing constructions of environmental racism. The material consequences of these attitudes endured and expanded through the twentieth century, shaping waste management systems and environmental inequalities that endure into the twenty-first century. Today, the bigoted idea that non-whites are “dirty” remains deeply ingrained in the national psyche, continuing to shape social and environmental inequalities.
The Ecology of Wisdom.
Written by the philosopher Arne Naess, this book provides his most groundbreaking and seminal essays, which have remained influential among environmentalists to this day. Drawing from influences as diverse as Eastern religious practices, Gandhian nonviolent direct action, and Spinozan unity systems, Naess's writing calls for cooperative action to protect the earth on which we dwell, encouraging individuals and communities to develop their own distinctive 'ecosophies.' These writings, full of Naess's characteristic enthusiasm, wit, and spiritual fascination with nature, provide a look into the remarkable philosophical underpinnings of his own social and ecological activism, as well as an inspiration for all those looking to follow in his footsteps. This is an essential anthology from one of modern environmentalism's most important and relevant voices.
From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement.
Written by Luke Cole and Sheila Foster, this book examines one of the fastest growing social movements in America, the movement for environmental justice. Tracing the movement's roots, this book combines long-time activism with powerful storytelling to provide gripping case studies of communities across the U.S, and their struggles against corporate polluters. Environmental justice struggles transform individuals, communities, institutions and even the nation as a whole.
Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions.
Written by Kimberly N. Ruffin, this book expands the reach of ecocriticism by analyzing the ecological experiences, conceptions, and desires seen in African American writing. Ruffin identifies a theory of "ecological burden and beauty" in which African American authors underscore the ecological burdens of living within human hierarchies in the social order just as they explore the ecological beauty of being a part of the natural order. Blacks were ecological agents before the emergence of American nature writing, argues Ruffin, and their perspectives are critical to understanding the full scope of ecological thought. Black on Earth highlights the ways in which African American writers are visionary ecological artists.
Braiding Sweetgrass.
Written by Robin Wall Kimmerer, this book follows the life of Kimmerer as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman. She shows how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
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