Minnesota Environmental Justice Program
(612)-436-5402
Organizer: Karen Monahan
karenejam@yahoo.com
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Regional Projects: Minnesota
EJ Program Director Leslie Fields, U.S. Representative Keith Ellison, and EJ Program Organizer Karen Monahan at the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota's Annual Founder's Day celebration
Campaign Highlights
Many Minneapolis residents live in an area know as the "Arsenic Triangle", where levels of this toxic chemical are dangerously high. Sierra Club organizer Karen Monahan works with Minneapolis communities all over the city who are disproportionately affected by the toxic by-products of industry, providing them with resources to fight for their health and safety. In addition, Karen works with Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota (EJAM) on their Climate Justice campaign, which works towards solutions to the disproportionate impact of global climate change on low-income, Indigenous, and communities of color in Minnesota.
The Environmental Justice movement has demonstrated that pollution's effects often fall disproportionately on the health of people of color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities. The effects of climate change, which is caused in large part by fossil fuel emissions, are no exception. Climate change, in fact, could have broader and more severe impacts. For example, people of color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities are the first to experience negative climate change impacts like heat death and illness, respiratory illness, infectious disease, and economic and cultural displacement. Climate policy must protect our most vulnerable communities. To this end, Karen worked with EJAM to develop ten climate justice principles, derived from the 10 Principles originally developed by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative.
Ten Principles for Just Climate Policies in Minnesota
- Stop Activities that are Changing the Climate
Global climate change will accelerate unless we can seriously slow the release of heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere. To protect vulnerable people and ecosystems, we must find alternatives for those human activities that cause global climate change.
- Ensure Just Transition for Workers and Communities
Reaching the level of emission reductions needed requires a fundamental shift in our society. A just transition must incorporate equity into every step. A just transition would create opportunities for all people and communities to participate and co-facilitate the development of the new economic order. A just transition compensates for job loss, increases in energy prices, loss of tax base, and other negative effects disproportionately felt by displaced workers, low-income, Native and communities of color.
- Ensure a Just New Energy Economic and Social Order
In order to reach these reductions we must acknowledge that it will require a societal transformation and a new economic order. The energy social order should not mirror the existing centralized system of consolidated wealth and infrastructure. We should strive for a more democratic and locally-based economy. Large Hydropower that flood Native nations, carbon offsets that appropriate land, and re-investments in nuclear power are NOT Just solutions to climate change.
- Provide Resources for Adaptation for Vulnerable Individuals and Communities
Low-income workers, people of color, and Indigenous Peoples will be most affected by climate change. We must provide funding and analysis so that these impacted communities can adapt and thrive in a world that is already experiencing the effects of climate change.
- Require Meaningful Community Participation
At all levels and in all realms, people must have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. Communities most affected must be engaged as decision-makers in the policy process. The U.S. federal, state and local governments must be accountable to these communities, practice inclusiveness in the spirit as well as the letter of the law.
- Support Local Efforts and Actions
Support community vision, community education, community actions such as greenzones, and other local based efforts.
- Take Responsibility
The U.S. is four percent of the world's population but emits 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. Of these emissions, it is largely the upper and middle class consumptive, growth-oriented lifestyle that is the dominant contributor. Historically, the U.S. has also used up a large part of the atmosphere's carbon sink. We must take responsibility for these historic and current emissions when looking at other countries and within communities here domestically. All people should have equal rights to the atmosphere.
- Stop Exploration, Mining, and Use of Fossil Fuels and Uranium
Presently known fossil fuel and uranium reserves will last far into the future. Fossil fuel and uranium exploration destroy us unique cultures and valuable ecosystems (i.e. Alaska and the U.S. western States). Exploration should be halted as it is no longer worth the cost. We should instead invest those public dollars in renewable energy sources, energy conservation, and community scale renewable energy systems.
- Act Now, not Later
No amount of action later can make up for lack of action today.
- Plan for Future Generations
The greatest impacts of climate change will come in the future. We must make policy decisions on the basis of their impacts on future generations.. We must enact policies for our children, our children's children, and seven generations beyond. Our future generations must have the same rights to the atmosphere and the same opportunities for a sustainable and meaningful relationship to Mother Earth.
Learn More
Get Involved
On the third Tuesday of every month Sierra Club organizer Karen Monahan chairs the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota's Global Warming Working Group meeting. If you are interested in attending, or in getting involved with the Minnesota EJ program, send an email to karenejam@yahoo.com.
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