Sustainability and Justice

This chapter addresses the intertwined problems of global environmental degradation and extreme inequality and injustice. It examines two narratives within American environmentalism that unwittingly exacerbate unequal access to environmental privilege and perpetuate unsustainable patterns of resource consumption. These are the narratives of pristine places and environmental sacrifice zones. In Aspen and the roaring fork valley, the drive to preserve pristine places has imposed costs on low-income communities and immigrants while also disserving aspects of environmental protection. On the high altitude mesas of the four corners region, the designation of sacrifice zones has relegated thousands of Navajo and Hopi people to substandard living conditions to further the growth of far-away cities and the protection of off-reservation sites.The chapter proposes that as we move forward, post climate change, with only a murky comprehension of how best to preserve remnants of the faultless non-human world, we should also recommit to weaving human communities and their just demands for equitable treatment into the picture. Otherwise, we risk defaulting to compartmentalized approaches to environmental protection, which will benefit only certain classes and strata of humanity. Instead of arriving at an equitable version of sustainability, we may find ourselves in a very hierarchical and rigid system of doling out environmental privileges and harms