ABSTRACT
I am examining the problems of urban climate change from an environmental justice perspective. In defining an environmental justice perspective on climate change, I highlight key examples where environmental justice and climate change are at the crossroads of recent social movement organizing, legislation, and communitybased action. I identify both the necessity in bringing disenfranchised communities into the climate change conversation, and the roadblocks to doing so. Drawing on the work of political theorist David Schlosberg, I argue that to have communities as substantive and enthusiastic partners in the arena of climate change, scientists, policy makers and urban planners need to keep complex principles of justice at the core of their inter-sectorial initiatives, both distributive and participatory. As well, they must recognize diversity and difference in a myriad of forms: racial, nation-state, class and gender. In other words, urban climate action that takes an environmental justice perspective must acknowledge issues of process and justice. I begin by posing a few key questions. What is environmental justice? What is an environmental justice perspective on climate change? What are examples of an environmental justice perspective related to climate change in the United States? What are the potentials and the pitfalls regarding community-based science and planning as the world faces these changes?
