When we look at environmental problems, the sheer size of the issues can be disheartening. These issues are difficult to resolve because their causes and solutions are interdependent. For example, people in the US need oil to create gasoline for cars and fuel for industry. This voracious need encourages oil companies to produce oil efficiently. Industrial efficiency may incentivize some companies to use gas flaring in Nigeria, as discussed on a prior page. The causes of environmental degradation are linked in both obvious and subtle ways.
Solutions to environmental problems, particularly when they are effective, also reveal the power of our interdependence. Making a difference with these social problems requires both/and thinking, both individual agency and collective action. To think more on this, one video that explores how we can take action is We WILL Fix Climate Change. We'll explore additional examples of collective action on regional, national, and international scales.
Laws, Policies, and Practices
The health of our planet depends on the successful implementation of environmentally-minded laws, policies, and practices. As sociology and science more broadly emphasize, the environmental problems that confront the world are the result of human activity, thus changes in human activity are necessary to save the environment. This is an example of individual agency in solving the climate crisis. However, these actions can be encouraged or even mandated by local, state, or national governments. Taking collective action can also pressure governments into implementing policies that can help address environmental problems.
One example of legislation that could have had a tremendous impact on environmental problems is the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The Act included a variety of funding programs to address environmental problems such as climate change, air pollution, and even environmental injustice. One mechanism of the act was the use of subsidies for businesses, taxpayers, and other entities when they make purchases or investments that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The passing of this act was seen as a major win. As one author at the Economic Policy Institute explained,
"Put simply, the IRA puts the U.S. on a path where meeting its global climate change commitments is within reach—commitments which would provide a genuine chance at securing a livable planet for future generations if they are kept. At the beginning of August 2022, there was no such path to secure this livable future, but there is now—and that is a mammoth victory" (Bivens 2023).
With the changing of the presidential administration, however, the disbursement of IRA funds was paused (WhiteHouse.gov 2025) and is likely to be canceled.
There are several other practices and laws that the US and other nations could undertake to help the environment. Environmental experts recommend a number of actions for the US to undertake (Lever-Tracy 2011; Madrid 2010; McNall 2011), including the following:
- Reduce the use of fossil fuels by several measures, including mandating higher fuel economy standards for motor vehicles, closing down older coal-fired power plants, and establishing a cap-and-trade system involving payments by companies for carbon emissions that exceed a cap to encourage them to reduce these emissions.
- Expand renewable energy (e.g., wind, sun) by setting a national standard to achieve in the years to come.
- Establish mandatory electricity and natural gas reduction targets for utilities.
- Reduce deforestation by increasing the use of sustainable building materials and passing legislation to protect forests.
- Increase mass transit – including individuals' access to it – and build more bicycle lanes in cities.
- Develop more efficient ways of using electricity and water and of recycling materials.
If the rooftops of houses were painted white or covered with light-colored shingles, atmospheric temperatures would reduce.
Ben Zibble – Shingles upon shingles – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Another interesting practice involves turning rooftops and paved surfaces white. In many US cities, roofs of houses, high-rises, and other buildings are covered with dark asphalt shingles. Dark surfaces trap heat from the sun and promote higher air temperatures. Painting roofs white or using white shingles to reflect the sun’s heat would reduce these temperatures and help offset the effects of global warming (Levinson et al. 2010; Lomborg 2010). A similar offset would occur from changing the color of our streets. Many roads in cities and other areas are composed of dark asphalt, but using a lighter material would also help reduce air temperature and counter global warming. If these measures reduced air temperature in warm cities, less air conditioning would then be needed. In turn, electricity use and carbon dioxide emissions would decline.
Global Policies and Practices
Entire nations can – and must – collaborate to address climate change. In 2015 the United Nations brokered an international treaty known as the Paris Climate Agreement. The goal of the agreement is to limit the emission of greenhouse gasses worldwide to prevent additional global warming. This agreement was signed by 195 parties when it initially became a formal treaty (194 countries plus the UN). President Trump later withdrew the nation from the agreement, and the US is the only party to have withdrawn.
The United Nations (2022) wrote that, "The Paris Agreement is a landmark in the multilateral climate change process because, for the first time, a binding agreement brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects."
The core components of the agreement were:
- Countries will enact limits on greenhouse gas emissions for their countries by 2020.
- Countries will develop energy alternatives that reduce emissions.
- Countries that need help will receive financial, technological, and infrastructure assistance.
As you might expect, the implementation of this agreement is complicated. Some environmentalists argued that the agreement doesn’t move fast enough to create the needed changes. When measuring progress in the five years since the agreement, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported mixed results. On one hand, the implementation of some of the limits is starting to slow the emissions of greenhouse gasses. On the other hand, the United Nations has very little money to enforce the agreements, and countries such as the US can leave the agreement anytime.
If you’d like to learn more about the Paris Agreement, watch the brief video What is the Paris Agreement and How Does It Work?.
The chart below shows both the goal for emissions and our progress. If we stay with current policies shown in the blue-shaded area, the greenhouse gas emissions would result in an approximately 3% increase in global temperature, which is bad news for environmental problems. If we actually do the work specified in the Paris Agreement, temperatures would only rise by 2.6 degrees Celsius, which is a start, but most climate scientists believe we need to do more to sustain life.
This chart shows the amount of greenhouse emission changes we would need to make in order to meet a variety of different scenarios related to limiting global warming. Do you think that the Paris Agreement went far enough to try to address this environmental problem?
“Greenhouse Gas emissions – goals, progress, and vision” from The Paris climate pact is 5 years old. Is it working? by Warren Cornwall, Science is included under fair use
Another example of global collaboration is the UN's writing of 17 Sustainable Development Goals that have potential to transform the world, listed in the image below. The UN explains:
"The Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection."
Goal 13 is specifically about climate change: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. They recognize that climate change is caused by human activity and that it impacts all individuals across the globe. They call for investments in renewable energy, the transformation of industries (e.g., energy, transport, agriculture, forestry), financially supporting developing nations so that they can move toward greener economies, passing policies to achieve net-zero emissions, and prioritizing adaptation to the consequences of climate change. Adaptation specifically involves strategies such as "building storm-resistant housing, planting drought-tolerant crops, installing reliable water supplies and investing in social safety nets are among many adaptation essentials" (United Nations n.d.).
The UN established Sustainable Development Goals to transform the world, one of which is directly about climate change whereas others are understood as inherently related to environmental protection.
Source: United Nations n.d.
Even though progress is uncertain, these acts of global solidarity are unprecedented. World leaders are recognizing our shared interdependence and acting on a global scale to make a difference.
Environmental Organizations
In addition to laws, policies, and practices including the collaboration of governments worldwide, local and national organizations have the power to create local and global change.
For instance, the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG), which one of the authors of this textbook (Kim Puttman) was involved in, is one organization that was successful at creating change locally. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the group was instrumental in environmental activism in the state. They advocated for laws and policies that would reduce consumer pollution. Their legacy includes the Oregon Bottle Bill. To learn more about it, watch the brief video How Did We Get Here: Oregon’s Bottle Bill.
Then Oregon governor Tom McCall signed this bill, formally known as the Beverage Container Act of 1971, into law. With the support of other environmental groups and the legislature, the law became the first one in the nation to provide deposits on bottles and cans, encouraging people to return them rather than throw them away. The concept was both revolutionary and effective. In this post from the Oregon Historical Society, we see the consequences of this law, both then and now:
"The Bottle Bill instantly reduced litter in Oregon. The share of beverage containers in roadside litter in the state declined from 40 percent before the law was passed to 10.8 percent in 1973 and 6 percent in 1979. The Bottle Bill also reinforces the practice of recycling. In the 2000s, about 84 percent of beverage containers were recycled, helping to make Oregon fourth in the nation for its rate of recycling" (Henkles 2022).
In the case of action in one state, activists, beverage manufacturers and bottlers, grocery store owners and clerks, the legislature, and the governor all had to agree on what to do about the pollution problem. From a relatively small beginning, the impact of this state law has grown. Multiple US states have enacted similar laws. The bottle bill has even grown in Oregon. The most recent iterations established bottle drops, a more efficient and hygienic way to process bottles and cans. Solving this kind of problem requires using our interconnectedness effectively, and the consequences continue rippling into the world.
In another example, the Almeda fire in southern Oregon impacted several communities which housed seasonal farm workers, mixed-status families, and low-income people. As a response, Latina and Indigenous women formed Coalición Fortaleza. It is a fire survivor organization which is creating options for survivors of the Almeda Fire in southern Oregon using sustainable practices.
Coalición Fortaleza grew from the experience of the Almeda Fire in southern Oregon. They value Unidad/Unity, Amor/Love, Dignidad/Dignity, Esperanza/Hope, Fuerza/Strength, Familia/Family, Justicia/Justice and Salud y Vida/Health and Life. With these values they are creating alternatives that support environmental justice.
“Artwork” © Erica Alexia Ledesma is all rights reserved and used with permission
Coalición Fortaleza are working to re-home everyone. In doing so, they are strengthening their community and finding solutions that sustain Mother Earth. They write:
As experts of our own lived experiences, we have the imaginations, local knowledge and largest stake in ensuring that the rebuilding solutions don’t recreate the systems and conditions that have kept us in poverty and without access to life-saving information and resources. We will focus on community-led solutions that will serve our most impacted members" (Coalición Fortaleza 2023).
The group is committed to using the disruption of their community and its rebuilding in sustainable ways to challenge the existing structures of power and create new, more equitable environmental justice.
Organizations that help address environmental problems may be community-based, or they may be governmental. For instance, the Superfund program of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), begun about thirty years ago, monitors and cleans up hazardous waste sites throughout the country. Their website states:
"EPA’s Superfund program is responsible for cleaning up some of the nation’s most contaminated land and responding to environmental emergencies, oil spills and natural disasters. To protect public health and the environment, the Superfund program focuses on making a visible and lasting difference in communities, ensuring that people can live and work in healthy, vibrant places" (EPA 2025).
Since its inception, the Superfund program has identified and taken steps to address more than 1,300 hazardous waste sites. About 11 million people live within one mile of one of these sites. To learn more, visit the EPA's Superfund website.
Individual Agency and Collective Action
We see individual agency in people calling attention to environmental problems with actions such as petitioning, engaging in lawsuits against offending corporations, or kickstarting a social movement. Two examples of individuals who created social change around hazardous waste dumping are described in the People Making a Difference box below.
People Making a Difference
In Praise of Two Heroic Women
Considering activism against hazardous waste dumping, two women stand out for their contributions.
One is Lois Gibbs, who led a movement of residents of Love Canal to call attention to the dumping of hazardous waste in their neighborhood. Gibbs had never been politically active before 1978, when evidence of the dumping first came to light. After reading a newspaper article about the dumping, she began a petition to shut down a local school that was next to the dump site. Her efforts generated a good deal of publicity and prompted state officials to perform environmental tests in the homes near the site. Two years later the federal government authorized funding to relocate 660 families from the dangerous area. Gibbs later wrote:
“It will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which industry’s rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the public’s right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The science is already there, showing that people’s health is at risk. To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children’s futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake.”
The second woman is Erin Brockovich, the subject of a 2000 film of that name starring Julia Roberts. Brockovich also was not politically active before she discovered hazardous waste dumping while she was working as a legal assistant for a small California law firm. As part of her work on a real estate case, she uncovered evidence that Pacific Gas & Electric had been dumping a toxic industrial solvent for thirty years into the water supply of the small town of Hinkley. Her investigation led to a lawsuit that ended in 1996 with the awarding of $333 million in damages to several hundred Hinkley residents.
Both Lois Gibbs and Erin Brockovich have remained active on behalf of environmental safety in the years since their celebrated initial efforts. They are two heroic women who have made a very significant difference.
Sources: Brockovich 2010; Gibbs 1998
The examples in the sections above also inherently involve individual agency and collective action. For instance, individuals use their agency in drafting legislation to help address climate change and joining environmental organizations. Individuals involved in those environmental organizations then engage in collective action to push for social change. Below we discuss other examples of collective action including social movements. This discussion helps set the stage for our final chapter on Social Movements and social change more broadly.
Ecofeminist and Youth Climate Action
Collective action can also be taken within social movements, and there are various movements across the US and the globe that are fighting against environmental problems.
In addition to being a feminist theory that fundamentally names the oppression of women and nonbinary people with the destruction of the environment, ecofeminism champions taking action. Women themselves say that they must become climate change activists to create a world where their children can survive and thrive. To witness one example, you may want to watch the TED talk EcoGrief and Ecofeminism, where Heide Hutner tells her own story of cancer. She also links her grief and her activism to the activism of women around the world.
Others are taking collective action to address environmental problems. One such group is youth, who have been incredibly inspirational in fighting for social change. Young people worldwide are taking action to end climate change, using social media to connect rich and poor countries. Their passion is creating action in new ways. Let’s meet two activists and explore what youth climate action looks like.
Quote
In my culture, my people believe that water is one of the most sacred elements. It’s something we honor. My people believe that when we’re in the womb, we live in water for nine months and our mother carries us in the water. As a fetus, we learn our first two teachings: how to love the water and how to love our mother. As women, we’re really connected to the water in a spiritual way. We believe that we’re in ceremony for nine months when we carry a baby. Another way to look at it is that water is the lifeblood of Mother Earth, and Mother Earth is female.
– Autumn Peltier 2021
Autumn Peltier (pictured below) is a world-renowned water protector, activist, and citizen of the Wikwemikong First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada. Since she was 8 years old, she has fought for clean water in Canada. In 2019, Peltier was appointed as the Anishinabek Nation Chief Water Commissioner following the death of her great-aunt, Josephine Mandamin, who had been the previous Chief Water Commissioner.
This is Autumn Peltier, youth water activist, at the World Economic Forum 2021. What unique worldview do Indigenous activists bring to climate change activism?
“Photo” of Autumn Peltier by the World Economic Forum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Peltier criticized the Canadian Prime Minister, spoke at the United Nations, and led youth and Indigenous advocacy efforts. If you would like to learn more about Autumn Peltier, she tells her story in The teen fighting to protect Canada’s water – meet Autumn Peltier.
Another youth climate activist is Greta Thunberg (pictured below), from Sweden. She began protesting in front of government offices in 2018 with other young people. This small action has grown into a worldwide movement, using youth energy and new forms of social media to mobilize and educate people. In a speech in Berlin in March 2019, Thunberg said, “We live in a strange world where children must sacrifice their own education in order to protest against the destruction of their future. Where the people who have contributed the least to this crisis are the ones who are going to be affected the most.”
Thunberg's movement, Fridays for Future (or #FridaysForFuture), started when she and other activists protested in front of the Swedish parliament to draw attention to climate change. Their social media posts went viral and encouraged other youth to take action (Fridays for Future 2022). The movement continues to mobilize youth around the world. 100,000 people marched in Glasgow in 2021 to protest during the Global Climate Conference. Some estimated that 7.6 million youth have participated in global climate action. Youth are taking action worldwide, in both rich and poor countries (Hasegawa 2022).
Karen O’Brian, Elin Selboe, and Bronwyn Hayward propose that young people engage in three kinds of activism regarding climate change and environmental justice: Dutiful dissent, disruptive dissent, and dangerous dissent.
The dutiful dissenters create change by working within the system. They may work with school organizations to create recycling programs or policies around investment. O’Brian, Selboe, and Hayward (2018) explain, “Through dutiful dissent, youth activists work within existing systems to express their discontent with business as usual and to promote alternative responses to climate change.”
In contrast, disruptive dissenters stage strikes and protests that highlight inequalities and injustices:
"Disruptive actions explicitly challenge power relationships, as well as the actors and political authorities who maintain them, often through direct protests and collective organization. They may involve starting or joining petition campaigns or boycotts, disrupting international climate meetings to draw attention to hypocrisy and exclusion of important voices, or protesting key concerns through political marches or rallies."
Finally, dangerous dissenters begin to create alternatives to existing structures and systems to create social change:
“Dangerous dissent challenges existing paradigms or ways of understanding the relationship between climate change and social change... [They] enable people to present organized challenges to mainstream power relationships and conventional environmental behavior” (O’Brian, Selboe, and Hayward 2018).
For example, the reading The Next Generation Sonoran Desert Researchers tells the story of the Sonoran Desert on both sides of the US-Mexico border. They provide alternative explanations of ecological issues and alternative methods of creating change.
In these three models, youth activists are leading actions and movements for social change and the environment.
Indigenous Resistance
Collective action also takes the form of resistance to oppressive practices, including those that harm the land and local communities.
Indigenous resistance to colonialism and climate destruction continues worldwide. Indigenous cultures are rooted in place, tradition, and land stewardship. Because there are Indigenous peoples on every acre of land that is habitable by humans, each act of destruction to the environment is also an act of destruction to the Indigenous peoples.
Indigenous people currently steward 80% of the world’s biodiversity (Raygoredetsky 2018). This is true because Indigenous peoples both resisted exploitation and created new systems for protecting the land, its inhabitants, and their cultures. These acts of resistance continue today. To learn more, watch Indigenous World View Can Preserve Our Existence.
A well-known example of Indigenous resistance in the United States is the land stewardship known as #noDAPL or Standing Rock. The picture below shows Indigenous Water Keepers protecting the water. The NoDAPL movement began when the Standing Rock Sioux people decided to fight the construction of a pipeline known as the Dakota Access Pipeline. This pipeline would be built on their ancestral land, destroying cultural resources and violating centuries-old treaties made between the tribe and the US government.
This picture is of Water Protectors protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock, North Dakota. Individuals from across the nation, and the world, joined in protest. Do you know anyone who went to Standing Rock?
“Photo” from “Cities, Schools, and Government Officials” by NoDAPL Archive is included under fair use
This led to intense protests where Indigenous peoples, allies, and community members from all over the world came to occupy and resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. More than 300 people were injured, and hundreds were arrested during these protests by the US government (Montare 2018). While the Dakota Access Pipeline was built, the NoDAPL movement paved the way for many contemporary Indigenous resistance movements in North America.
Another historical example of Indigenous resistance is the Zapatista movement (pictured below). In 1994, an Indigenous armed organization named the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) declared war on the Mexican Government. They demanded, “work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, liberty, democracy, justice and peace.” This uprising began in Chiapas, Mexico, as an occupation of land and continues to this day.
The Indigenous and some politically aligned non-Indigenous peoples still assert sovereignty over their economic, social, and cultural development. The Zapatista movement is a current example of how Indigenous communities can defend their lands, cultures, and each other.
Environmental Justice
Finally, the scientists, scholars, and members of the public who document the social problem of environmental injustice and racism have prompted the call for environmental justice (EJ). This call is both a social movement and an academic theory. As discussed on the Theoretical Perspectives page, environmental justice is an academic theory explaining the causes and consequences of environmental inequality and supporting action.
As a movement, environmental justice is an intersectional social movement pioneered by Black Americans, Indigenous peoples, Latinx, lower-income, and other historically oppressed people fighting against environmental discrimination within their communities and across the world. It is rooted in the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement and its fight to end racial segregation and structural inequality in the 1950s and 1960s. It operates “under the assumption that all Americans have a basic right to live, work, play, go to school, and worship in a clean and healthy environment” (Bullard 2000).
The EJ movement began to receive widespread public attention in the early 1980s after a series of grassroots actions took place against the polluting practices of toxic industries. Federal and state governments failed to regulate these industries in historically marginalized communities, which also experience discrimination in access to education, housing, health, and other institutions, social problems that we discuss throughout this book. With a deep awareness of institutional racism and the socioeconomic inequalities in the US and elsewhere, early EJ activists recognized that all forms of injustice were interconnected.
Therefore, the struggle for a healthy environment must also include access to quality schools and education, adequate and safe housing, green spaces, fresh food, clean water, and sustainable employment opportunities (Checker 2007). What makes this movement unique and strong is the intersectionality of the injustices it seeks to address and the diverse communities it brings together to address various types of social inequities (Schlosberg 2007).
Many EJ activists and scholars also recognize how social inequalities of all kinds are deeply embedded within the structure of the government. Therefore, they find it hard to rely on government oversight to protect their communities because often, the government and the legal system allow these injustices to occur in the first place (Estes 2019). Many communities who strive for environmental justice create local solutions themselves. They form alliances, conduct direct action campaigns, invest in mutual aid efforts, and practice direct democratic principles to achieve their goals (Pellow 2017). We’ll look at some examples in the section Environmental Justice is Social Justice.
Finally, critical environmental justice (CEJ) is often referred to as the 'second generation' of environmental justice activism and scholarship. In part, CEJ considers how all forms of structural inequality put targeted communities at risk of environmental harm and how all forms of inequality violate the human right to live in a healthy, safe, and thriving environment. By drawing on numerous fields of inquiry – critical race studies, Black feminist studies, Indigenous studies, and more – CEJ strives to understand, document, and radically oppose in action intersectional forms of injustice that perpetuate oppression and exploitation on multiple levels (Pellow 2018).
For example, a community might move because chemicals were spilled in their neighborhood. Environmental justice scholars might focus on the experience of that one group of people. Critical environmental justice scholars would point out that even if the people are temporarily safe, they are likely to experience environmental injustice again. The discrimination they face is structural and historical, not just located in their own neighborhood. In addition, critical environmental justice scholars look at the intersection of all social locations to better understand power and oppression in environmental degradation and healing.
In short, critical environmental justice takes a holistic approach to understanding, exposing, and ultimately resisting the practices and policies of governments and industries that prioritize profit over the lives of people, all other life forms, and even the future of our planet.
We live on one planet. All of our actions affect each other. Critical environmental justice tells us that those who create the least harm are often harmed the most. Laws like the bottle bill and the Paris Agreement, community re-building with Latina and Indigenous fire survivors, individual agency in changing human activities, and youth- and Indigenous- led protests show us the way forward. How might you commit to environmental justice?
