ENVS 2301

Global Environmental Justice

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

This course offers an introduction to global environmental justice as a field of scholarship, a social movement, and a set of demands for transformative change. Beginning with the origins of the US environmental justice movement, we rapidly expand our frame to examine how environmental injustices unfold across scales and continents — from the toxic burden carried by specific communities to global commodity chains, international governance frameworks, and planetary-scale crises. Students will develop a shared conceptual toolkit based on theories of justice and use it to analyze case studies drawn from around the world. We examine struggles over land sovereignty and Indigenous rights, the justice dimensions of climate transitions and conservation, the emergence of the rights of nature, and competing visions of just transformative change.

Distribution Requirements (KCM-AG)

Exploratory Studies (CU-ITL, CU-SBY)

Last 4 Terms Offered (None)

Learning Outcomes

• Explain the historical origins of the environmental justice movement in the United States, and similar movements internationally.
• Distinguish between distributive, procedural, and recognition justice, and explain how each applies to environmental conflicts across different social contexts.
• Compare and contrast mainstream, critical, decolonial and Indigenous frameworks for environmental justice.
• Describe and analyze how EJ concerns manifest across distinct policy arenas - e.g. climate, extractivism, conservation - and operate across scales and geographies (global to local).
• Evaluate justice implications of nature-based solutions and energy transitions, and articulate and assess competing visions of just transformative change.
• Collaborate on a group project that synthesizes course content and cases and builds a justice argument.

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