LibGuides: One Book 2023-2024: Environmental Justice &amp; No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay: Energy Equity & Environmental Impacts

Energy Equity & Environmental Impacts

“Imagine that while our neighbors were holding a giveaway, someone broke into their home to take whatever he wanted. We would be outraged at the moral trespass. So it should be for the earth. The earth gives away for free the power of wind and sun and water, but instead we break open the earth to take fossil fuels. Had we taken only that which is given to us, had we reciprocated the gift, we would not have to fear our own atmosphere today.”

- Kimmerer, from Braiding Sweetgrass, pg. 383
(cited below)

Featured Resources by Source Type: Energy Justice

Featured Organizations & Online Resources

350.org
Climate 350 is an international organization working to end the use of fossil fuels and build sustainable and equitable energy sources.
Climate Reality Project
"The Climate Reality Project is holding 24 Hours of Reality: Spotlight on Solutions and Hope, a global day celebrating action and solutions that confront the climate crisis."
Climate Solutions
From the Pacific Northwest, Climate Solutions "primarily works in the state legislatures, with the utility commissions and regulatory agencies, at times directly with voters on initiatives, and also with major counties and cities to drive down pollution and increase the uptake of needed solutions."
Earth Justice: Fossil Fuels
Earthjustice’s Fossil Fuels Program is taking on the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to pursue new paths to profit that not only accelerate the climate crisis, but also continue to cause harm to marginalized communities.
Indigenous Environmental Network
"The Indigenous Environmental Network is an alliance of grassroots Indigenous Peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth from contamination & exploitation by strengthening, maintaining and respecting Indigenous teachings and natural laws"
Northwest Energy Coalition
"Promotes the development of renewable energy and energy conservation, consumer protection, low-income energy assistance, and fish and wildlife restoration on the Columbia and Snake rivers."
The Sunrise Movement
"The Sunrise Movement is a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. We’re building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect leaders who stand up for the health and wellbeing of all people."
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Carbon Footprint Calculator
"The calculator estimates your footprint in three areas: home energy, transportation and waste. Everyone's carbon footprint is different depending on their location, habits, and personal choices."
World Economic Forum
"The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas."

Featured Articles

Use the links below to find articles from different publication types.

Reference Articles

These background or overview articles are useful for defining and understanding the history and key concepts of a topic. They come from subject-specific books and reports and aim to help you understand the basics. Find more articles like these in the databases Gale Ebooks, Opposing Viewpoints, or CQ Researcher.

Renewable Energy A 2019 article from Examining Energy and the Environment around the World
Fossil Fuels and Mining A 2019 article from Examining Energy and the Environment around the World
Pipelines and Protests from Encyclopedia of Environmental Racism in the United States and Canada: Seeking Justice and Sustainability, 2020
Offshore Drilling A 2021 article from the Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection
Renewable Energy Worldwide A 2021 article from Environmental Issues Today: Choices and Challenges
Renewable Energy in the United States from 2021 Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues Today: Choices and Challenges

Scholarly Articles

Scholarly journal articles are written by scholars/experts/researchers for others in their field with the aim of sharing, reviewing, and building new information. These publications can give us insight into the ways that environmental justice topics are being studied at a research-based, academic levels. Find more articles like these in ProQuest Combined, Agricola, OR Global Issues in Context.

Emissions: World has Four Times the Work or One-third of the Time Nature, Mar 5, 2020. The past decade of political failure on climate change has cost us all dear. It has shrunk the time left for action by two-thirds. In 2010, the world thought it had 30 years to halve global emissions of greenhouse gases. Today, we know that this must happen in ten years to minimize the effects of climate change. Incremental shifts that might once have been sufficient are no longer enough.
Empowering Vulnerable Consumers to Join Renewable Energy Communities—Towards an Inclusive Design of the Clean Energy Package Energies, April 2020 The unequal distribution of costs and benefits of the energy transition is a challenge for energy justice and energy policy. Although the empowerment of consumers to participate in renewable energy communities (RECs) has great potential for a just energy transition, vulnerable consumers remain underrepresented in RE projects.
Who’s Fighting for Justice?: Advocacy in Energy Justice and Just Transition Scholarship Environmental Research Letters, June 2022. Recent political, economic and policy change in the US, Australia, and Europe, in particular, have put transitions towards low-carbon energy futures at the forefront of local and national policy agendas. How these transitions are managed is likely to affect the feasibility, timing and scope of transition policy. Recognizing the existing maldistribution of the benefits and burdens of fossil fuel-based extraction, energy generation, and distribution, advocates and scholars increasingly call for policies that not only support decarbonization goals, but also those of equity

Featured Videos

There are some DVDs you can check out from the library on environmental topics as well. The links here, however, are largely for online videos as there are so many great organizations with content. Streaming education films can also be searched in the database Films on Demand, linked in the "Digging Deeper in Your Research" tab of this guide, or from the library's homepage.

Environmental Justice: Energy Equity and Transitions A 60+ min video from Resources for the Future
Nuclear Power: the Clean, Green Energy Dream? A 2022 video from The Economist

Featured Podcasts & Streaming Radio

Green Light For Solar, The 'Danger Season', 1,001 Voices on Climate Change and more
Earth on the Air Podcast, June 10 2022
GND [Green New Deal] Policy Writer Explains how Climate Solutions Must Address Racial Inequity
"Income inequality and climate change are linked," explains Rhiana Gunn-Wright, a lead policy writer for the Green New Deal. "If you're going to tackle climate change in a way that is sustainable, you have to be talking about inequity. You have to be talking about racial equity."

Sources used on this page:

Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Epilogue: Returning the gift. In Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. (pp.380-384). Milkweed Editions.