Program on the Environment

The environmental movement’s predominantly white and upper class base creates a major problem concerning how and where environmental injustices get addressed. Even though people of color are more likely to believe in and be greater impacted by climate change, many environmental organizations and non-profits have failed to build relationships with diverse communities to increase representation within their groups. Using my internship with Cascadia Climate Action as a case study and conducting qualitative interviews and literary analysis, I gathered information on the barriers to diversity within the environmental movement, such as lack of representation, misinformation about engagement, and the poor or the absence of outreach strategies to communities of color. Through shadowing Mary Manous on her networking techniques I began to understand how to collaborate with other environmental, institutional and social organizations to help overcome these barriers. Through conducting interviews, I determined that to overcome the overwhelmingly white demographic of environmental movement, there needs to be more outreach and time invested in building relationships with communities of color. By building these relationships and collaborating with existent organizations and leaders, the environmental movement can increase representation of people of color to amplify everyone’s voices, instead of just a small sliver of the population. A more inclusive conversation about climate change will give new perspectives and bring up environmental injustices that need to be addressed.