Environmental & Social Justice

Fellow Candice Youngblood published a Note in UC Berkeley's Ecology Law Quarterly journal that seeks to paint a picture of what working toward environmental justice should look like.

In cities around the country, if you want to understand the history of a neighborhood, you might want to do the same thing you'd do to measure human health: Check its temperature. That's what a group of researchers did, and they found that neighborhoods with higher temperatures were often the same ones subjected to discriminatory, race-based housing practices nearly a century ago.

In the midst of the global climate talks last week in Madrid, Spain, climate justice and women’s rights activists introduced a set of collective feminist demands to help advance the Green New Deal, in the US and around the world. At 12pm inside the talks, with an audience of both country delegates and civil society, a broad coalition of activists spoke to the need for feminist climate policy.

Mayor-Elect Justin Elicker Friday tapped a diverse crew of grassroots activists — including a working families legislative leader, an immigrant rights champion, and a school parents organizer — to guide his transition and chart a policy course for the next two years. Elicker introduced the co-chairs and two dozen other members of his newly formed transition team, at a press conference held at his campaign headquarters at 161 Whalley Ave.

Plenty of Atlantans spend time on highways, speeding or inching or swerving along. But many people spend a lot of time near the highways, too: at their homes, schools or workplaces. And that’s not great for their health. So Fellow Christina Fuller, a Georgia State University public health professor, is studying how effectively trees can help filter out some of that pollution.

Fellow Frances Roberts-Gregory has a confession to make: She does not drive or own a car. For her, this approach is a part of a strategy to equip herself emotionally for inevitable future changes. The approach is also a part of her strategy to build deeper connections with her neighbors and colleagues so that she might survive the breakdown of systems and governance that she believes is likely to result from climate change.

Legal education isn’t just about scholarship. At Berkeley Law, it’s also about action—especially on issues as urgent as global warming—with students driving vital climate work across campus.

Fellow Candice Kim was honored by East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice in their 6th Annual Fighting For Life Celebration, which recognizes the work of social justice fighters that have been at the forefront with communities demanding an end to environmental racism. The event was held June 6 in Los Angeles. Read more about the honorees