Episode 13: Linking Climate Justice and Racial Justice through Eco-intersectional Analyses

What is the connection between race and environmental justice? Which communities are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis? How does including race along with class, gender, sexuality, and disability for climate justice provide a broader perspective on climate change research and adaptation strategies? In this episode, LAC member Müge Gedik interviews Dr. Nancy Tuana (Penn State, UP) about her new project “Climate Apartheid: Forgetting of Race in the Anthropocene.” We focus on an eco-intersectional analysis that is necessary to understand intersecting and co-constituting axes of systemic oppression of certain groups of people and environmental exploitation and degradation. Topics include the intersections of the COVID-19 pandemic and the disproportionate effects of ecological destruction and climate change on black, native American, and indigenous communities in the United States and Brazil. Dr. Tuana highlights the importance of integrating ethical issues into modeling in climate change research to have ethically and epistemically responsible adaptation practices geared towards what communities value and to make the decisions that matter to them.