After three years of working as a student employee at the Environmental Center, I can say that I’m pretty bad at watering plants. If you’ve been in the office lately, I can only hope they’ve livened up in the absence of my care. The truth is I never thought about the fact that the water has to drip all the way down through the soil in the pot to reach the bottom of the roots in order to be accessed. You can arch your neck over the top of the pot and poke at the top soil, but the surface tells you nothing of the tangled web of roots that make up the system beneath. In the midst of my all-too-recent leap from plant killer to career, I was reminded once again that the world has countless hidden connections. It only takes a few days in the E-center to show you, in varying scales (from plant to planet), the ever expanding matrix of sustainability.
I found myself at the Environmental Center through a somewhat predictable pathway. I grew up loving to be outside; in a house that had a garden, a family that encouraged exploration, dissuaded food waste, fed backyard chickens and ate mostly vegetarian. I was fortunate enough to go to a summer camp that allowed me to backpack in the mountains, milk cows, ride horses and spend every afternoon in a river. I felt assured that I was part of this larger ecosystem that welcomed and supported me. The word ‘environment’ was undoubtedly a positive term, it meant sunshine and mountains and ease. I went to college wanting to be an environmentalist because I felt this space needed to be protected, so we could continue enjoying the environment as I knew it, as I had experienced it.
It soon became glaringly apparent that there was a negative side to the word “environment,” and that this image comes to the mind of many people far before they think of a pitched tent or a babbling brook. Polluted, trashed, grey, toxic environments. Built environments, environments that feel unsafe, the political environment, hostile, unwelcoming environments. Too often, privilege decides the image we hold in our head about the environment.
In one of my courses freshman year I learned about Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement in Kenya, a project that aimed to train women with the necessary skills to plant trees, and therefore gain some control over the management of natural resources in a patriarchal society. The Green Belt Movement’s mission is to “mobilize community consciousness for self-determination, justice, equity, reduction of poverty and environmental conservation, using trees as the entry point.” In this way it served both an environmental and a social good. I always think back on this moment because it seems so obvious now. At the time it felt as if I had stumbled upon some giant glaring secret, in a ridiculous moment of realization I began to understand that sustainability can be used as a power for justice, and vice versa. The health of our environment reflects the health of people and communities.
That same week I saw a poster on the wall that featured a panel discussion titled “Women on the Frontlines of Eco-Social Justice” and a picture of Wangari Maathai sat right there front and center. I went to the talk, hosted by what is now the Eco-Social Justice team, and felt my view of the world completely open up in a deeply meaningful way. That summer I applied for the team, and worked with them for three years until I graduated this December.
The Eco-Social Justice team plans events around campus that illuminate the connections between social justice and sustainability. We explored topics like the decolonisation of food, indigenous rights, ecofeminism and climate justice. One by one, each event widened the web of connections for me. I found myself constantly questioning the interconnectivity - how are prisons related to environmental issues? When I took a step back and listened, it always became clear- prison communities have little to no access to outdoors and nature (which may be essential for their health and wellness) or that prisons often have unsafe waste management practices due to the sheer number of prisoners in the criminal justice system in the U.S. (Read more here). These events bring seemingly different topics together, but they also bring people together- who come for different reasons.
There are many pathways and starting points to getting involved with environmental issues. And I think, more often than not, they are inextricably, messily and uncomfortably tied to social, economic, racial, cultural and political factors. Our identities seem to shape the way we begin to approach these issues, and even how we name and think of them. When you approach the environment from the position of public health (e.g. our community has high rates of asthma) or law (e.g. our community is fighting for a superfund cleanup) or social justice (e.g. outdoor recreation is a space that POC often don’t feel welcome), problems and solutions start to look a lot different.
Working at the Environmental Center forced me to look at my own identity and privilege. Some connections are painful to uncover (why was my summer camp only kids that looked like me?) and I often felt/feel confused about my place within an Environmental Justice field, but I know that the thought process is important and necessary. I’m grateful to the E-Center for giving me the space to begin the lifelong process of discovering what lies under the topsoil.
Through the Environmental Center I learned that everything is connected. That we can’t always see the connections clearly or understand their roots, but nothing exists on its own. ‘The environment’ can’t be a separate space. We have to listen, hear problems from the source, learn from local and diverse leaders and form a picture of the cyclical and regenerative systems we might want to be a part of.
Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that in the end it's not really about this idea of ‘the environment.’ It’s about supporting life, in all forms - from the microbiomes in our soil to the flourishing of cultures around the world, to the health and wellness of all members of our complex and diverse ecosystem. This has to be the goal of sustainability, and I hope to keep working in spaces that question and grapple with these sometimes uncomfortable and necessary conversations.
Georgia Rodden graduated from CU Boulder in December 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies. During her time at CU she worked for the Environmental Center in various capacities including as a member of the Eco-Social Justice Team.