by Sibyl Diver The March 18 & 19 Duality of Environmental Justice conference organized by Rodolfo Dirzo with support from the EJ Working Group, and co-sponsored by the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Doerr School, showcased important EJ Scholarship happening at Stanford and beyond. Image credit: The 2024 Duality of Environmental Justice Conference Key insights from presenters illustrated EJ research questions and methodologies prioritizing: 1) meaningful inclusion of local & Indigenous knowledge systems, 2) support for interdisciplinary research-to-action initi ..read more

By Amanda Campos It is no news that the fossil fuel industry is deliberately fueling the climate crisis. When your house’s insurance costs rise or your city becomes clouded with wildfire smoke, make sure to send a thank-you note to Exxon. Yet, its impact goes far beyond climate change’s devastation. The Global North’s fossil fuel industry, using the legacies of colonialism to its favor, has wreaked havoc in various developing countries, knowingly decimating forests (Ratcliffe), disrupting sustainable local economies, and inciting health calamities. One of the most notorious of such cases ..read more

By Isobel Taylor As wildfire season increases in intensity and duration, California residents’ sense of security about their housing situations declines. In 2018, the Camp fire damaged 19,531 structures (including the entire town of Paradise), becoming the deadliest in the state’s history. The fire destroyed 90% of the homes and less than 20% of the homes have been rebuilt. The town used to have 36 mobile home parks but only 6 of them have been able to reopen, displacing sixteen thousand residents. These patterns have only escalated and will continue to escalate as a consequence of global ..read more

It’s not just water: How the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) may leave community wells dry By Ellie Fajer California’s Central Valley provides ¼ of the crops that feed communities in America. But as climate change causes increasingly frequent and severe droughts, farmers are relying more and more on groundwater use to keep up crop yields. So much groundwater is pumped across the Central Valley that the land sinks up to one foot further each year. Since the start of 2023, this has caused 451 wells to go dry for families across California, with Latinx and low-income commu ..read more

By Mahina Kaomea Deep in the valley of Makaliʻi in Maunawili, Hawaiʻi, there are bubbling springs that feed an entire watershed, the most fertile soil on the island of Oʻahu, and trees home to an abundance of native birds. [1] However, five years ago, this ʻāina (land) was planned to be rezoned and split into gentlemen’s estates, its precious soil, water, and cultural resources bulldozed, and the largely open area and modest farmworker homes replaced with expansive, high-end housing developments. Many Native Hawaiians in my community, including the non-profit Hawaiian culture-based o ..read more

EJ Music, Eco-theater, community art-making, an inaugural EJ Anthology and More: the EJWG arts and humanities year in review By Emily Poly & Tanvi Dutta Gupta During the Environmental Justice Working Group’s annual retreat this year, organizers from Movement Generation led a two day training to help us envision and strategize how to move our EJ work forward in the new School of Sustainability and at Stanford more broadly. One of the wise mantras they repeated was, “If it’s not soulful it’s not strategic.” Grounding their work in Just Transition frameworks, Movement Generation col ..read more

By Aanya Dhruv My name is Aanya Dhruv, and I am a 10th-grade student at the Nueva School in San Mateo. My goal is to support communities affected by environmental injustice through solidarity and allyship. How do I plan to achieve this? By conducting EJ workshops and making students aware of inequalities, one story at a time. My goal is to hold these workshops around the world, one school at a time. During my life, I have been given many opportunities. I’ve lived in a safe neighborhood. I’ve never had to worry about my next meal. My world has been strongly shaped by the values exempl ..read more

By Eric Bear California’s in the midst of a wildfire crisis. Learning from the history, culture, and needs of the Karuk tribe is part of the solution. From September 26th to October 7th, the first Indigenous women-led Women-in-Fire Training Exchange (WTREX) took place along the Salmon and Klamath rivers in Northern California. For 12 days, roughly 30 participants learned how to light prescribed burns with cultural objectives through practical experience. The program welcomed participants of any background but prioritized Indigenous women. At the helm, Karuk tribal women who come from a lo ..read more

By Cole Dill-De Sa CCAs are revolutionizing the way Californians get energy. But their implementation throughout California’s counties are following a concerning trend. How can we fix this? Photo credit: Keavon / Wikimedia Commons For many decades, energy distribution in California has been dominated by a handful of privately owned companies. Most notably, these are Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Southern California Gas (SoCalGas), and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) who together provide roughly 75% of the energy transmitted in California. However, these companies ha ..read more

By Alexander Kearns and Judy Tsegaye This blog post was written as part of a new spring course and public seminar series, “Topics in International Justice, Rights and the Environment” (ENVRES 215A/HUMRTS 118) taught at Stanford University in Spring Quarter 2021. This class was designed and offered in response to a growing demand for environmental justice education at Stanford, specifically on the international scale. Anti-REDD Indigenious rights march against the expansion of this practice. Credit: Langelle for GJEP, 2011 (https://photolangelle.org/2019/09/watch-out-pollution-traders-are ..read more