Description

Committ2Respond is an inter-religious organization led by Unitarian Universalists.  This video touches on inter-religious activism and the UU church a little, especially through the author’s personal story, but focuses mostly on discussing the difference between environmentalism and environmental justice.  While the former is concerned with pollution, air quality, biodiversity, and so on, environmental justice is concerned with how these issues unfairly impact our own communities.  For instance, rich countries contribute the bulk of green house emissions, but poorer countries are least prepared to deal with the consequences of climate change.

Discussion Questions

• What is the difference between environmentalism and environmental justice?  What are each most concerned with?
• Can you have one without the other?
• Is environmentalism important separate from how it impacts people’s lives?  In other words, is protecting the environment important in and of itself?   Or is it only important because or insofar as pollution and other ecological problems negatively affect human communities?
• What are some of the problems that the environmental justice movement tries to solve?
• How can we try to fix some of these problems?

Keywords: environmentalism, justice, social, pollution, inequality,