Environmental Justice, Science and Technology
Learn about the environmental justice movement, its history, and how science and technology can be used to tackle environmental challenges and injustice.
Environmental Justice, Science and Technology
Learn about the environmental justice movement, its history, and how science and technology can be used to tackle environmental challenges and injustice.
Over the past few decades, scholars have documented how people of color and other socio-economically marginalized groups around the globe experience a disproportionate burden of environmental challenges. This pattern of unequal exposure to air pollution, contaminated water, and corresponding health risks, as well as habitat loss and disrupted livelihood due to natural disasters and climate change, is known as environmental injustice. The field of study working to address these challenges is referred to as environmental justice (EJ).
What you'll learn
- Describe the foundational history, principles, and values of the EJ movement
- Explain the roles of capitalism, colonialism, racism and other forms of oppression in the production and examination of environmental inequality
- Describe diverse strategies and tools, with a special attention to science and technology, that environmentally burdened communities have employed to combat injustice
- Explain opportunities, challenges, and limitations of employing science and technology in the pursuit of environmental justice
- Apply environmental justice theory and science/tech and technology methods to analyze environmental injustice case studies
- Learn directly from community organizations engaging in environmental justice related work. These include HEET, GreenRoots, and Earth Hacks.
Prerequisites
None
Meet your instructors
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Associate Professor of Law and Urban Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning -
Education Program Director, MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative -
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Arizona, School of Geography, Development, and Environment
Justin Steil
Justin Steil
Associate Professor of Law and Urban Planning, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Justin Steil is an Associate Professor of Law and Urban Planning. As a lawyer, a paramedic, and an urban planner, his research focuses on spatial dimensions of inequality. Justin analyzes spatial inequality in the domains of environmental justice, housing and land use policies, and health equity, among others. Recent research on environmental justice focuses on the effects of climate-change-related disasters on renters, including on rents, evictions, and affordable housing production. Work on housing policy includes scholarship on housing discrimination and its effects, fair housing law and policy, gentrification and displacement pressure, and eviction dynamics. Scholarship on land use disentangles how the structure of local governance and the regulation of land use interact with housing policies to shape the spatial structure of our social world in ways that produce economic and racial inequality. Recent research on health equity focuses on the effects of neighborhoods on health and on the role of emergency medical services in advancing health equity.
Chris Rabe
Chris Rabe
Education Program Director, MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative
Chris is the Education Program Director at the MIT Solutions Initiative, where his main area of research focuses on better understanding and expanding climate justice and sustainability education at MIT and beyond. Chris is also interested in exploring environmental education and community engagement that centers inclusive and anti-racist practices and supports students who experience challenging emotions in relation to the climate crisis.
In addition, Chris helps advance the varied goals of ESI’s education program by supporting faculty, advising students in the Environmental and Sustainability Minor, building curriculum, co-teaching courses, and conducting research on educational practices. Current examples of this include leading the Climate Environment and Sustainability Infusion Fellowship (CESIF), developing and promoting The Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit, and conducting a cross-disciplinary study on climate justice teaching and learning experiences at MIT. Chris also serves as an affiliate postdoc in the Social and Ethical Responsibility in Computing project, where he leads a reading group that is exploring the intersection of climate justice and computing.
Ufuoma Ovienmhada
Ufuoma Ovienmhada
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Arizona, School of Geography, Development, and Environment
Ufuoma Ovienmhada is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Arizona, School of Geography, Development, and Environment where she researches satellite data and machine learning applications for measuring flood exposure inequity. Prior to beginning this position, Ufuoma completed a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In her dissertation, she employed a multi-method approach to research the environmental injustice in carceral landscapes, co-design Earth Observation technologies to support environmental justice advocacy, and make recommendations for how the Earth Observation ecosystem at large can better serve environmental justice goals. Before arriving at MIT, she completed a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.