Achieving Environmental Justice: 'Just a Transition' or 'Just Transformation'
By: Dr. Jalonne L. White-Newsome, CEO/Founder Empowering a Green Environment and Economy, LLC
We are experiencing and witnessing many transitions in our world: whether it's the emerging season of graduation commencements, the political transitions at all levels of government, or, how we as a society will begin to transition to a life post-COVID. While transitions are good (in most cases), just changing from one state to the other is not enough to tackle the legacy of environmental racism, climate injustice and extraction in this country. It will take more than 'just a transition' to achieve that aspirational world where we can all live, work, play and pray in communities and homes that are no longer hazardous to our health. In fact, what I am calling for is a JUST Transformation . Something that will dramatically change our culture, our physical environment and the social aspects of our society. Whether you consider how The Black Lives Matter Movement has transformed our
society, or the simply transformation of a larvae to a butterfly, we need transformation-JUST TRANSFORMATION- to achieve environmental justice. When we achieve this JUST Transformation (a transformation guided by truth, reason, fairness) it will not resemble the previous version; it will feel different; it will require a deeper introspection; the solutions will be shaped by its environment; and, we all will emerge with a deeper power and purpose. I posit that we can only achieve environmental justice through a JUST transformation of the three "I's": INFRASTRUCTURE, INSTITUTIONS, AND INCLUSION. First, Infrastructure can mean many things from the physical infrastructur e of our homes, to our health, financial and policy infrastructure. We must create the infrastructure that will meet (or exceed) the needs of our changing climate, especially the needs of our Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor communities.
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