Quotes & Sayings About Environmental Justice

Environmental justice [means that] no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other. — Majora Carter

Every religious tradition on which we draw has a reverence for life. We are a part of an intricate web of life. Every tradition on which we draw teaches that the ultimate expression of our spirituality is our action. Deep spirituality leads to action in the world. A deep reverence for life, love of nature's complex beauty and sense of intimate connection with the cosmos leads inevitably to a commitment to work for environmental and social justice. — Peter Morales

Today the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies. — Vandana Shiva

Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance. — Ban Ki-moon

The "environmental movement" is becoming an economic movement, is joining the social justice movement, is becoming a sustainability movement. It's leaving behind the "People's Needs versus Nature's Needs" conflict in favor of making the case for environmental health as the essential underpinning of prosperous and stable human civilization. — Edward Norton

The risks of transporting deadly nuclear waste, the environmental justice impacts and the long-term health effects of both these projects are untenable ... We cannot afford to be silent on these important issues. — James Cromwell

When the forest is destroyed, when the river is dammed, when the biodiversity is stolen, when fields are waterlogged or turned saline because of economic activities, it is a question of survival for these people. So our environmental movements have been justice movements. — Vandana Shiva

Environmental justice is the movement to ensure that no community suffers disproportionate environmental burdens or goes without enjoying fair environmental benefits. — Van Jones

To meditate for world peace, to pray for a better world, and to work for social justice and environmental protection while continuing to purchase the flesh, milk, and eggs of horribly abused animals exposes a disconnect that is so fundamental that it renders our efforts absurd, hypocritical, and doomed to certain failure. — Will Tuttle

So to hope to be able to have peace, to be able to have justice and environmental balance, are consequences of our behavior, not just our intentions. — Godfrey Reggio

I want Canada to be the country that is the best in the world at combining economic growth, social justice and environmental sustainability ... — Stephane Dion

Why is it that white people find it easier to think like a mountain than like a person of colour?'
Carl Anthony quoted by Rebecca Solnit — Rebecca Solnit

We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice. Now we must add a new fight - the fight for electoral justice. — Barbara Boxer

Discussions of sustainability as a political process have been taken up by a number of the social sciences centred on questions of power and outcomes for particular groups of people, across space and time. In short, this work raises sustainable development as a moral concept that seeks to define a 'fair and just' development (Starkey and Walford, 2001). The notion of 'environmental justice' is now a prominent part of contemporary discussions of the meaning and practice of sustainable development (see — Jennifer A. Elliott

We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy ... It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong. — Robert James Brown

I think we have reached a stage now where we need to find solutions to economic injustice in the same place and in the same ways that we find solutions to sustainability. Sustainability on environmental grounds and justice in terms of everyone having a place in the production and consumption system - these are two aspects of the same issue. They have been artificially separated and have to be put back again in the Western way of thinking. — Vandana Shiva

No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits ... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world. — Christine Stewart

Sustainable South Bronx advocates for environmental justice through sustainable environmental and economic development projects. — Majora Carter

I have long understood that climate change is not only an environmental issue - it is a humanitarian, economic, health, and justice issue as well. — Frances Beinecke

Nothing can ever fix nature' not even all monies in the world and money rules, are never worthy following. — Auliq Ice

If the long arc of history bends toward social justice, it also bends toward environmental justice and ecological sanity. — David Jaber

If ordinary people really knew that consciousness and not matter is the link that connects us with each other and the world, then their views about war and peace, environmental pollution, social justice, religous values, and all other human endeavors would change radically. — Amit Goswami

Country must confront what he called institutional racism. [We should] create a country which provides economic, social and environmental justice for all. — Bernie Sanders

If there is neither excessive wealth nor immoderate poverty in a nation, then justice may be said to prevail. — Thales

Justice needs money; it always has ... whether for abolition of slavery and early women's rights movements or the civil rights and environmental drives of our generation. — Ralph Nader

The struggle to create a nation and world of economic and social justice and environmental sanity is not an easy one. The struggle to try and create a more peaceful world will be extremely difficult. But this I know: despair is not an option if we care about our kids and grandchildren. Giving up is not an option if we want to prevent irreparable harm to our planet. — Bernie Sanders

I don't want people to write programmatic environmental poems, but I think sustainability should become deeply a part of the consciousness of poetry - an impulse toward compassion, empathy, and social justice. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies. — Suzy Kassem

Lack of accountability weakens the environmental and health rights of citizens; it damages peace- building and reconciliation initiatives; impedes the implementation of global health policies; leads to the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity; and weakens democracy, justice, human rights, and international security. — Widad Akreyi