Combating Environmental Injustice
Stop playing Climate Negotiation Simulations by the “Rules”
Before I left UK Higher Education, to become an independent intellectual, I taught on the UK’s leading program focused on Global Sustainable Development (B.A.Sc.).
As part of that work I regularly contributed to teaching about our shared and growing Climate Emergency and the theme of social justice. Moreover, I worked hard to persuade students to become involved in resisting environmental threat and potential physical and social collapse, even as they participated in their learning. It’s was one of my proudest moments when my students asked me to support them force the university to declare a Climate Emergency; even more exhilarating when they achieved this. (If not one of the most disappointing moments of my life when university management made the announcement without even one mention of the student petition; they essentially claimed responsibility for the initiative themselves).
In one guest session — held during the the UN Conference of Parties, to which many of my colleagues had rushed to be part of the scene, as it was held in Glasgow — for a module specifically focused on the global climate emergency, I shared the below. The presentation was both a summary of climate injustice as I understand it, and also a concrete proposal for…
