In this episode, Dr. Joseph unpacks the first principle of environmental justice, which affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, the ecological unity of all life, and the right of humans and non-humans alike to be free from ecological destruction. This episode challenges the dominant idea that the environment exists solely for extraction and profit. Instead, Dr. Joseph reframes environmental justice as a moral obligation—one rooted in interdependence, stewardship, and responsibility.

Drawing on his Christian faith tradition, his lived experience, and environmental justice movement principles, he confronts the dangerous belief that progress must come at the cost of pollution, extinction, and sacrifice zones. Listeners are invited to rethink what development, innovation, and prosperity should look like in a world where we know better and therefore must do better.

This episode calls out wasteful, destructive systems and insists that protecting the Earth is not optional, symbolic, or secondary. It is foundational. This is where environmental justice starts: with the recognition that the planet has value beyond profit, that destruction is not inevitable, and that a livable future depends on how fiercely we choose to protect what sustains us all.

Resources: 
Principles of Environmental Justice

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Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

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Environmental justice is not just about pollution. It's about freedom.

In this episode, Dr. Joseph takes listeners deep into the Preamble to the Principles of Environmental Justice, first articulated at the 1991 First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. But this is not just a technical introduction. Dr. Joseph describes how the preamble is a bold declaration of resistance, connection, and liberation. This episode unpacks how environmental justice emerged as a global movement rooted in the lived experiences of peoples of color facing centuries of colonization, oppression, land theft, and environmental destruction. Dr. Joseph explores the preamble’s insistence on spiritual interdependence with the Earth, the protection of culture and community, and the demand for political, economic, and cultural liberation as essential to survival, not just for the people but for the planet. Dr. Joseph discusses how environmental harm is not accidental, but the direct outcome of systems built on exploitation and extraction, and why environmental justice has always been inseparable from civil rights, self-determination, and global solidarity.

This episode sets the table for everything that follows. The principles begin here - with clarity, urgency, and a refusal to separate environmental protection from human dignity.

Let's get to it!

Resources: 
Principles of Environmental Justice


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Environmental justice didn’t begin as a theory - it began as a movement.

In this episode of The Environmental Justice Lab, Dr. Lesley Joseph traces the roots of environmental justice, unpacking how race, class, power, and policy collide to determine who gets clean air, safe water, and healthy communities - and who is forced to bear the burden of pollution and neglect.

From the lived experiences of frontline communities to the emergence of environmental justice as a civil rights struggle, this episode explores how systemic inequality became embedded in land use, infrastructure, and environmental decision-making. You’ll learn why environmental justice goes far beyond “the environment,” how grassroots organizing reshaped national conversations, and why the fight for a truly level playing field is still unfinished.

Whether you’re new to environmental justice or deeply involved in the work, this episode will challenge listeners to see environmental harm not as accidental, but as political, and to recognize that justice is something communities have always had to demand.

This is where the work begins.

Resources: 
The Principles of Environmental Justice

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

What does it take to confront generations of environmental racism and win?

In this episode, Senior Attorney Chandra Taylor-Sawyer of the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) pulls back the curtain on what it really means to fight for environmental justice in the U.S. South. From zoning decisions that quietly turn Black neighborhoods into dumping grounds, to federal rollbacks that threaten the very civil rights tools that communities rely on, Chandra explains how injustice is built and how organized communities can dismantle it. She shares her journey from North Carolina to national leadership, the creation of SELC’s Environmental Justice Initiative, and the urgent battles unfolding right now to protect civil rights regulations, defend bedrock environmental laws, and challenge discriminatory permitting practices. Chandra also highlights SELC’s groundbreaking storytelling project, “Plantations to Pollution,” which traces how historic disinvestment shapes present-day environmental harms and how communities are rising to demand a different future.

This episode is both a warning and a rallying cry. Even as federal protections are dismantled and civil rights enforcement is weakened, communities still have powerful tools - public comments, citizen lawsuits, organizing, data collection, and collective pressure - to fight for the healthy, thriving environments that they deserve.

If you care about justice anywhere, but particulatly in the South, this conversation will inspire you, ground you in the realities of the struggle, and remind you that change happens when communities refuse to be silent.

Resources: 
Southern Environmental Law Center Website: https://www.selc.org/
Plantations to Pollution Project:  https://plantationstopollution.selc.org/ 

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

You probably do not know this, but your morning cup of coffee carries a dark story. It's a story riddled with deforestation, child labor, slavery, corporate denial, and environmental injustice. 

This week, Etelle Higonnet, founder of Coffee Watch, joins the Environmental Justice Lab to expose how the global coffee industry profits from environmental destruction and human suffering, and what must change. Etelle pulls back the curtain on the hidden costs of coffee production: forests cleared for plantations, farmers trapped in poverty, children and women enslaved, and powerful corporations dodging responsibility. But this isn’t just a story of despair. It’s a call to action. She lays out a vision for reform, from traceable supply chains to living wages and consumer activism that forces accountability.

If you drink coffee, you’re part of this system. But, according to Etelle, you can be part of the solution. Let's go!



Resources: 
Wake up and Smell the Deforestation - Coffee Watch Report

Morally repugnant’: Brazilian workers sue coffee supplier to Starbucks over ‘slavery-like conditions - The Guardian

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

What happens when the leaders in your hometown turn a Black neighborhood into a dumping ground?

In part 2 of our conversation, environmental scientist and advocate Kibri Hutchison Everett takes us back to my hometown of Rock Hill, South Carolina, to confront the legacy of the so-called “Trash Pile.” What began with the placement of unlined landfill in the heart of a Black neighborhood, the Trash Pile stands as a stark example of how racist policy choices create sacrifice zones in the United States. It is now a neighborhood with no water, sanitation, or city services, despite being within city limits.

Kibri shares how this desolate community still bears the scars of contamination, land loss, and disinvestment, and why she purchased a parcel of land there to transform it into a test site for community science and grassroots advocacy. Together, we explore how pollution, policy, and poverty intersect, and how data, organizing, and courage can shift the fight from environmental injustice to environmental and economic liberation.

This is not just a story about Rock Hill, South Carolina or even the plight of Black communities in the South. It’s about the structures that allow entire communities to be written off, and the movements rising to reclaim land, dignity, and a livable future.

Connect with Kibri Everett
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kibri-hutchison-everett-646b051b3/
Instagram: @the.enviro.vegan and @key.environmental.consulting
Websites: www.keyenvi.com & www.palmettofutures.org

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

What does it mean to fight for environmental justice when the very language of justice is under attack?

In this first episode (of a 2-part series), I talk with environmental scientist, small business owner, and consultant Kibri Hutchison Everett about the fight for environmental justice. We trace her journey from growing up in Rock Hill, South Carolina (my hometown), to working in federal environmental data analysis, and ultimately to founding her own company to support communities on the frontlines of pollution and disinvestment.

We talk about her work with the HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Collaborative, and Kibri speaks candidly about the realities of working with marginalized communities, and calling environmental racism what it is, even when federal agencies and political leaders try to erase the term. Together, we unpack how industries target poor Black, Brown, and rural communities, how changes in White House can roll back decades of progress overnight, and why grassroots organizing and data sovereignty remain critical tools for resistance.

This is not just a policy discussion; it’s a call to action. Tune in to learn how environmental justice plays out on the ground and why vulnerable communities are still forced to fight for clean air, clean water, and basic dignity.

Resources: 
HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Collaborative
Article: Environmental Justice in an Era of Federal Rollbacks
HBCU EJ Screening Tool
Justice40 Awards Tracker

Connect with Kibri Everett
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kibri-hutchison-everett-646b051b3/
Instagram: @the.enviro.vegan
@key.environmental.consulting
Websites: 
www.keyenvi.com
www.palmettofutures.org

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support.

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

In this episode of The Environmental Justice Lab, Dr. Joseph is joined by scholar, strategist, and activist Dr. Bruce Strouble, the founder of Citizens for a Sustainable Future and author of By Any Dreams Necessary - Anti-Racist Strategies for Sustainability, Resilience, and Environmental Justice in African-American Communities.

Dr. Strouble's expertise made for a dynamic conversation about what it really takes to build grassroots environmental power in Black communities. Dr. Strouble brings deep insight into how environmental injustice intersects with political disempowerment, economic inequality, and systemic neglect, particularly in the South. From democracy to youth organizing, he shares stories from the field and hard-earned lessons about community-driven change.

They dive into:
⚡ Why climate solutions often leave Black communities behind
🗳️ How local organizing and political literacy can shift power
🌱 What true sustainability means in communities that have been chronically under-resourced
💡 And why it’s time for the environmental movement to center justice

This episode calls us to rethink how we talk about “green” policy and who’s shaping the conversation. If you care about equity, grassroots organizing, and real solutions that empower the most affected, this is an episode you can’t miss.

🎧 Tune in to hear how Dr. Strouble is flipping the script and building a future rooted in justice, power, and people.

Connect with Dr. Bruce Strouble
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucestroublephd/ 
https://www.facebook.com/ProfessaStrouble/
https://www.instagram.com/dr_strouble/
https://twitter.com/ProfesaStrouble
[email protected]
https://www.brucestroublejr.com

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

In this episode of The Environmental Justice Lab, Dr. Lesley Joseph sits down with public health expert Dr. Diana Hernández of Columbia University and sociologist Dr. Jennifer Laird of Lehman College to talk about their new book, Powerless: The People's Struggle for Energy.

More than 1 in 4 U.S. households struggle to afford their utility bills, with many facing shutoffs, debt, and the constant stress of choosing between heating and food, or cooling and rent. Powerless brings this hidden crisis into the light, exposing how energy insecurity is not just a personal hardship but a systemic failure rooted in race, class, housing, and policy.

In this episode, Drs. Hernández and Laird reveal:
⚡ Why low-income and marginalized communities are disproportionately energy insecure
🏠 How housing conditions, debt, and disconnection policies deepen inequality
💡 And how we can rethink policy and infrastructure to create a more just energy future

🎧 Tune in now to learn how these two brilliant minds are helping rewire how we think about energy, poverty, and power in America.

Resources: 
Powerless - The People's Struggle for Energy

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

In this episode, Dr. Lesley Joseph sits down with author, conflict practitioner, and activist Somia Sadiq to discuss her new novel, Gajarah, a story that challenges how we understand land, justice, grief, and the tangled threads of human resilience. Born in Pakistan, raised in Canada, and shaped by a life between cultures and continents, Somia brings her lived experience, and her deep work in justice and  peacebuilding, to the page. Through her unforgettable protagonist, Emahn, she explores trauma, displacement, and the often-unspoken truth that healing isn’t linear, and justice doesn’t always come with closure.

Dr. Joseph and Somia explore questions like:
🌿 What if land was a character in your story?
💔 Why do some conflicts never really end, even when we say they’re resolved?
🔥 What does environmental justice look like when we move beyond human-centered narratives?

If you’ve ever felt stuck between cultures, longed for a language to express the “in-between,” or wondered how storytelling can bring us closer to justice—this episode will speak to you.

🎧 Tune in now to hear how Somia's new book, Gajarah, invites us to feel more deeply, think more critically, and honor the land and people that shape our stories.

Buy the book and follow Somia Sadiq on Social Media: 
https://www.somiasadiq.com/
https://www.somiasadiq.com/gajarah
https://www.instagram.com/somiasadiq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/somiasadiq/

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [email protected]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support