EARTH DAY 🌎 today we celebrate the earth’s beauty and champion environmental preservation, but let us not forget the ever growing threat of climate change and environmental hazard disparities. Low-income and POC communities bear a disproportionate share of environmental hazard burden due to cumulative exposure and proximity to hazardous sites. As Dr Robbert Bullard said, “the right to breathe is a basic right” — environmental justice is a human rights issue. Further, as Rev Derrick Weston shared this past Sunday at Riverside Church in his sermon, “one of the biggest environmental tragedies that can be experienced is war. Creation justice is a peace movement”. And perhaps most relevantly, we must remember this country has relied on the agricultural labor of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian farmers since its founding yet racial discrimination and unjust labor systems still persist. So while today is a day of celebration, may we simultaneously acknowledge the earth’s suffering and commit to environmental justice reforms, conservation efforts, and sociopolitical awareness- for everyone on this earth, and for the generations to come.
