The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
In recent weeks, we have been witnessing the mobilization of young people from around the world, demanding urgent measures from the leaders gathered at the Earth Summit in New York to protect the future of our planet. The importance of these protests for greater environmental justice must not allow us to forget other cries, other daily struggles in multiple territories, most of the time invisible which create what Joan Martínez Alier called The Environmentalism of the Poor, a concept which is behind the essential thought process necessary for creating solutions for the environmental crisis facing the planet.
The starting point is to understand that climate degradation is not democratic and does not affect everyone in the same way. There is an unequal exposure to pollution depending on the systemic position of countries, power relations, as well as variables such as race, class or gender.
