Care/of Conversation: Climate Justice and the Power of Collective Care

By Bristol Sternfield, May 2021

Bristol Sternfeld, Care Syllabus intern and MCLA Class of ‘21, spoke with Dr. Susan Edgerton, Professor of the Interdisciplinary Program at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in March 2021. After taking Dr. Edgerton’s Environmental Justice course, Sternfeld spoke with Edgerton to learn more about her perspectives on climate justice, collective care and community action, and lessons for environmental activism from the current pandemic. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Bristol Sternfield (BS): Can you tell us about what you teach, and how you apply it to your everyday life?

Susan Edgerton (SE): I have taught many different kinds of courses over the thirty five years that I've been a teacher. I have a bachelors and masters in chemistry, and I started teaching as a high school science teacher at a small school where I was the entire department. My doctorate was in curriculum theory and cultural studies. I've been in the education field for most of the years at the college level. My main focus has been teaching about issues of social justice, cross-cultural studies, and environmental issues.

I read the news compulsively and I think about what's going on in the country and in the world regarding issues of justice, fairness, and environmental degradation. I'm always thinking about my role in all of that as an individual. But certainly as a teacher, I feel my impact is probably the greatest. I interact on social media about these issues as well. So I try to spread influence in that way for people to both have a better understanding of what's going on in the world and how they might also have some impact on that in their own lives through their buying habits, voting, and through organizing and activism.

 
BS: I think that is super cool that you get to do something you actually care about.

SE: I'm lucky and it's a privilege. I see that.

 
BS: Absolutely. How do you personally define environmental justice and then how do you think the framework that we use to study environmental justice provides insight or helps us look at the environmental processes that we have going on?

SE: Just the idea that certain groups of people tend to pay a higher price and bear a larger burden of the kinds of environmentally destructive things that we as human beings do. There's a big move right now for climate justice in particular. That's one piece of the environmental justice puzzle.

Climate justice is a huge one, really, probably the most complicated one. The movement recognizes that there are parts of the world that are suffering from climate change more than other parts of the world, and that those parts of the world suffering the most often had the least to do with putting carbon in the air. Those things happen on a smaller level with pollution--where polluting industries are located and how well they listen to the community. Those who have less power and less voice tend to be burdened more; for example, they tend to have polluting industries next door to them and to not have the resources or the understanding for how to go about fighting that. All of that is connected. So that's how I would begin to define it.

BS: How do you think the framework of environmental justice helps us look into all of the crises that we're facing right now?

SE: Many of the crises we face now are matters of social justice and/or environmental degradation. Not all social justice issues are environmental justice issues and not all environmental problems are environmental justice problems. But the need to understand the economic, social, and cultural underpinnings is common to all. That is the same framework that activist groups have to use for thinking about environmental justice. One difference: environmental justice work often includes the need to find scientific evidence that, say, a pollution problem is the specific cause of harm to a community. The problem with evidence sometimes is that it's slow to be gathered. It takes a long time, especially if you want to prove something scientifically even while common sense will tell us that there's a problem before we can prove it. Sometimes waiting on the evidence takes too long to mitigate the problem. So there's a balancing act that activists have to come to between when to shout and make a claim.

BS: How do you think that environmental justice and the work that relates to it relates to ideas of what collective care is and community action? And who do you think has the responsibility to do this caring, if anyone in particular?

SE: I think it's all of us at the same time. As we become more educated on these matters we need to share what we know at the same time we learn to listen to the concerns of others. We also have to gather and expand our voice. And what I mean by gathering is organizing, doing various things to put pressure on politicians. In fact, politicians need for people to do that because they can't make a case to their colleagues in the legislature that this is important unless there is political pressure from the voters behind that. We all need to be brave and strong and to work hard. And we have to give our legislators the reasons for changing policies by organizing and growing our numbers. It doesn't just begin with you, the individual, and magically end in some big collective explosion.

BS: Because there are so many people engaging on so many different scales with environmental justice issues, how do you think that we can make sure everyone's voices are heard and especially those who are being the most affected, who often have the least voice?

SE: That is one of the big problems historically that environmental groups have had. Too often in any kind of movement, certain people tend to be the leaders. Oftentimes it's been white males because they dominate in general in society. So it's the responsibility, I think, of everyone to learn how to listen very well, and to draw out people by giving them the confidence that they're going to be listened to, that they're going to be heard when they speak and that they can speak and should speak.

BS: I think it kind of gets harder to some degree, as time goes on, because we continue to not listen to those who are most affected and at the very bottom. So they have this historical precedent to not want to speak up on these things because we continue to not listen.

SE: Right. It can become a vicious circle where people feel discouraged from even trying to speak out or trying to understand issues better from scientific and legal standpoints. So that's a big problem. People who want to be involved in environmental justice activism have to leave their hubris behind and do the time consuming work of gaining the trust of people who are most affected by particular situations.

BS: Do you have any advice for people who are looking to care more about these type of issues or become more involved, on their local scale or even in a more global way?

SE: Well, I don't know that I'm a really great model for all of that, because mostly what I've done is educate myself and try to educate others. I do give money to organizations when I'm able, but that might not be possible for everybody to do.  I have also attended rallies and marches and have at times worked with organized groups. There's always work to be done. I would recommend that people who have the capacity, time, and resources to get involved with organizations that are successful right now. Social justice groups that aren't necessarily focused on the environment can be one place to start for those who are interested in environmental justice. Especially if one is of the dominant class and/or dominant race, gender, sexual orientation, that would be a good place to learn some humility and gain a deeper understanding of the issues of people who are suffering social injustices most directly.  So just learning, learning, learning and then volunteering, whatever it is you have to give, whether it be time, some kind of skill or money. After enough time spent doing these sorts of things, some people will be ready to become organizers who can inspire others.

BS: My last question was going to be how do you stay hopeful in our current climate when everyday things are getting worse? But actually, do you stay hopeful? Do you see room for more negative feelings, given how everything is going?

SE: I have good days and bad days, there are days when I feel that I just don't see us getting out of this situation of climate change, pollution, extinctions, and social injustices. And if we don't, I see some really awful consequences coming to people in the future and maybe not even that far in the future. I get really frustrated when I read the news and I see what people are focused on and how awful that is. But I have to remind myself and seek out news about the work that people are doing, good, encouraging work in scientific fields, in activist organizing, in the development of new technologies, and in many other areas.

I do think we're going to be challenged regardless of what happens right now. We're most likely going to be very challenged in the future to deal with what we've already put into the atmosphere. I am hopeful and despairing at the same time, and I vacillate from one to the other depending on what is happening on a given day in my life or in the news.

BS: Anything else you would like to add?

SE: I did just finish a chapter for a book. The book is an edited collection about the work of a now deceased environmental educator, Chet Bowers. My chapter is entitled “Lessons from a Pandemic: Can We Reclaim Our Cultural and Environmental Commons?”  The pandemic is deeply interconnected with environmental degradation and climate change  and I think that's a very important link to make. I think it's important for people going through this thing to recognize some of the root causes of the pandemic, and that might actually inspire more people to get involved with environmental justice. That recognition can also, perhaps paradoxically, be healing.

Dr. Edgerton’s recent writing is forthcoming in the volume Curriculum, Environment, and the Work of C. A. Bowers (2022). Learn more here.