“Whatever daunting situation you may be in, you have to feel a sense of joy to continue doing it," David N. Pellow tells a packed house in IESB 1010. Photo by Han Parker
UC Santa Barabara Distinguished Professor informs Anteaters that climate change is a matter of social justice
David N. Pellow enthralled audiences during the third lecture of the Climate Justice Lecture Series before more than 100 undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty members, staff members and members of the public packed into IESB 1010 on April 29. The Distinguished Professor and Dehlsen Chair of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara talked about the inextricability of social justice and climate justice during his lecture titled, “Climate Justice and the Black Radical Tradition.”
Pellow urged the packed auditorium to reconceptualize climate justice as a struggle for social justice. By reading movements such as Black Lives Matter as a climate justice struggle, he foregrounded the importance of thinking and acting in ways that redress intersectional social harms of race, gender, ability, and class. Professor Pellow emphasized the necessity of a multi-scalar analysis of global climate injustice. Lastly, within the context of rising authoritarianism, he argued that movements for climate justice must tackle state violence and treat all workers and people as essential.
Pellow is the third of four leading scholars and practitioners exploring the political, economic, and social dimensions of climate justice as part of the Climate Justice Lecture Series presented by the School of Social Ecology and its Social Impact Hub, Climate & Urban Sustainability Program (CUSP) and the UC Irvine Alec Glasser Center for the Power of Music and Social Change.
For more than two decades, Pellow has scripted new directions in the study and practice of environmental justice. His early book Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago foregrounded the role of social movements and workers in defining and resisting waste disposal in the United States. Garbage Wars received an award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems and has been aptly described as “one of the most thoughtful and best written works ever produced on environmental justice and injustice.”
Pellow’s subsequent works, including Challenging the Chip and The Silicon Valley of Dreams, presented pathbreaking analysis of the role of environmental racism and the exploitation of immigrant labor in the making of the tech industry.
He has consistently pushed the boundaries of analyzing the radical, intersectional, and global possibilities of environmental justice. His 2007 book, Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice, searingly exposes the role of corporations and nations in the Global North in producing toxic waste and environmental pollution that importunately impacts racialized minorities across the Global North and South.
Before the Climate Justice Lecture Series talk, a group of 12 advanced students joined Pellow and UC Irvine Assistant Professor Mukul Kumar, who teaches in the Department of Urban Planning & Public Policy, for a workshop. The focus was a discussion of the second edition of Pellow’s most recent publication, What is Critical Environmental Justice?. Prepared with copies of the book, students at the workshop had the opportunity to grapple with the concept of critical environmental justice and apply Pellow’s analysis to their own research projects.
The workshop was followed by the riveting lecture in IESB 1000, where Pellow ended on an inspiring note that centered the importance of joy in struggles for climate justice within the context of deepening forms of inequality across the planet.
“Whatever daunting situation you may be in,” Pellow noted, “you have to feel a sense of joy to continue doing it. The joy is in doing what you are doing, and you really feel that you are accomplishing something. You can just feel that you are changing the world, you can feel the love inside you that keeps humming, you can feel these things.”
The Climate Justice Lecture Series concludes 3:30-5 p.m. Wednesday, May 27, in SBSG 3260, with Thea Riofrancos, associate professor of political science at Providence College, who will talk about her upcoming book, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism. No RSVP is required for the lecture.
– Matt Coker
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