The undeniable truth that marginalized groups are much more likely to experience negative environmental impacts needs to be a tenet of 21st century environmentalism. The inequality of environmental harm has existed throughout the age of development and continues today, despite more attention being paid to this interrelation. In 1987, the report “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States” shed light on the connection between toxic wastes sites and black communities, one of the first formal assertions that environmental justice is in many ways racial justice. A large percentage of the land where extraction occurs and waste is deposited is on contested Indigenous territory, with countless instances of projects threatening the health and livelihood of these communities. Just some examples from North America: the methyl mercury contamination of Grassy Narrows First Nation; the Church Rock uranium spill on the Navajo Nation; and more recently, the Supreme Court cases brought by the Clyde River and Chippewas of the Thames First Nations against seismic testing and pipelines in their territories.

Faced with injustice, the rhetoric of “we are all in this together” becomes largely irrelevant to modern environmentalism. Instead, environmentalists need to work from the acceptance that the playing field is not even, that we have not all had the same effect on the environment. Instead of the management and coopting of marginalized groups, environmentalists need to step back and act as allies and facilitators for those on the front lines of harm. ENGOs with access to resources working with those without that same access, while accepting that they too can be leaders in this fight.