Climate Literacy in Education

“We are all in this together”:

Critiquing the Issue of Water Equity through a Lens of Intersectional Environmentalism

Sean P. Connors

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/cle.v2i2.6447

Keywords: water equity, intersectional environmentalism, social justice, environmental justice

Abstract

As carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels warm the planet, altering the climate and causing severe drought in some regions and unprecedented flooding in others, and as state and local governments privatize once-public water systems in the name of fiscal austerity, the connection between water equity and social justice is increasingly evident. This article introduces a critical lens of intersectional environmentalism and identifies three questions that teachers and students can ask to examine how a society’s treatment of water is connected to its treatment of people. When students understand how the well-being of people, animals, natural resources, and the Earth itself are interconnected, they are better prepared to explain how working for environmental justice necessitates their working for social justice as well.