Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger

American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present

by Julie Sze

“Let this book immerse you in the many worlds of environmental justice.”—Naomi Klein

We are living in a precarious environmental and political moment. In the United States and in the world, environmental injustices have manifested across racial and class divides in devastatingly disproportionate ways. What does this moment of danger mean for the environment and for justice? What can we learn from environmental justice struggles?
 
Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger examines mobilizations and movements, from protests at Standing Rock to activism in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Environmental justice movements fight, survive, love, and create in the face of violence that challenges the conditions of life itself. Exploring dispossession, deregulation, privatization, and inequality, this book is the essential primer on environmental justice, packed with cautiously hopeful stories for the future.
 

Genres: Environment, Nonfiction, Nature, School, Sociology, Politics, Education

155 pages, Paperback

Published January 7, 2020

Reviews

[Abbie Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 class but good af!!

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. Sze highlights the relevance and importance of environmental justice and environmental racism, linking them to a variety of contemporary happenings. She also encourages us to think about restorative environmental justice and envisioning new ways to redress environmental racism. So many quotable passages. I know this is a book I will return to.

[Grace Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was really epic, for political theory

[Karen Kohoutek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very slim book, almost a pamphlet, but a clear, well-written introduction to environmental justice issues, with chapters on how they affect specific areas in the U.S. The water protectors of Standing Rock are linked to areas of agricultural pollution in California, where farm workers suffer shortages of drinkable water, the hurricanes in New Orleans and Puerto Rico are briefly discussed, and there's some information about an entire Alaskan community that may need relocating due to climate change. Not super in-depth, due to the length, but a good starting point for familiarity.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read - a decent “primer” of sorts on environmental justice with some good calls to action and a lovely bit about the importance of storytelling. However, missing some nuance that I was looking for and assumes a lot of prior knowledge (which can be good or bad depending on the reader). Lovely writing and language, but was hoping it would be more grounded in human experience (too much academic synthesizing, not enough storytelling, maybe? Ironic...)

[Kai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great/cheap teaching book for an American Studies perspective on the climate crisis. A bit too culturalist at times, and the third chapter (there are only three) is somewhat weaker than the other two. My students really liked it I think.

[Marisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hopeful, accessible, a mix of cultural criticism, EJ theory, and storytelling/case studies. Sze's restorative environmental justice adds to the growing exploration of an expansive EJ, rooted in an indigenous approach.

[eliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Marina Román]

~ leído para una de mis clases de Gender and Women’s Studies ~

[maddiegill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grand jumping off point!! Looking forward to following threads (relating to other novels, essays, studies, films, etc.) that Sze begins to weave through.

[Harper Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good as basically a crash course on environmental justice for United States Americans. I think the ways it talks about Hurricane Katrina and Flint Michigan are very thorough and it keeps its focus on the source of the problem. That being said, it's a crash course. If you want a book that's really gonna get into the nitty gritty of the nature/society binary or reparations ecologies, there are probably better ones that exist. This is just a good book if you've ever heard people say that capitalism has to be overthrown if we want to meaningfully save the environment and the world, but you don't get what they mean. The best thing you can learn as a propagandized US-American is that the end of capitalism does not equate to the end of the world. So yeah, you could argue that they should've gone more in-depth with their analysis and explanation, but to be fair, this book isn't really trying to be that, it's trying to be a short intro to the topic that adequately stresses the issue's importance, and I think it does a good job at that.

[Matthew Eck · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely a fantastic introduction to environmental racism, though there were just soooo many parts where I wanted more specificity and elaboration before jumping to the next part. some points also just felt like the same concept worded differently, so the repetition became a bit much

[Sophie]

Read for my Political Theory course based in Climate Action and it was a great introduction to the idea of Environmental Justice with some interesting critiques of Neoliberalism. Would I read it outside of the course? No, but I actually found it super interesting to be honest.

[nance ! · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for class and it was very informative but I did not like the way this was written 😭😭😭 it was hard to get through and a lot of my classmates agree that this was their least favorite read of the semester 😭

[Susannah Champlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction that made me hungry for more

[Nate E · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could spend substantially more time defining and contextualizing terms.

[Veronica Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

forgot to log this when i read it for class but this was lovely and very insightful,,, <3

[Cici]

4 class

[Aylin Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

gotta make my thesis research readings count towards my goodreads goal