I'd like to add a small disclaimer to this blog before I start:

I am not well versed in the subject of Feminism. While it is one that my friends and I have brought up in discussion on numerous occasions, I do not count myself as one who understands it as well as I know it deserves. However, a subject that I have spent a bit more time working with, is Environmental Justice (EJ). I think a good definition of EJ is from the EPA's website, "Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies."

The reason I'm bringing up EJ is because I've given up on keeping track the number of times I've compared the Feminist movement to the Environmental one. If you were to interchange a few words here and there, they'd seem nearly identical. In bell hooks' book Feminist Theory, she has a big beef to pull with the bourgeois women feminists--and for good reason. "The condescension [the white bourgeois feminists] directed at black women was one of the means they employed to remind us that the women's movement was 'theirs'--that we were able to participate because they allowed it, even encouraged it; after all, we were needed to legitimate the process. They did not see us as equals" (12). This exact feeling of being 'used' as tools to legitimate a process has been felt by every single person in MSU Beyond Coal, as well as all others working in the environmental movement on campus. 

For the past two years, I've been president of this incredible group working to transition MSU off of coal and other fossil fuel energy to 100% renewable energy. We currently have the largest on-campus coal plant in the entire nation, which begs the question: exactly how Spartan Green are we? When 37 people die in Ingham county every year because of coal related issues, I say--not very. Last year, the University decided to put together an Energy Transition Steering Committee to map out MSU's energy future--this was a public acknowledgment that our current energy infrastructure would not do for the long haul--some of our boilers are over 45 years old, and some without regulatory measures taken to ensure the smallest amount of emissions are emitted. When we administration told us of this committee, we were ecstatic! Finally, we could actually get somewhere in protecting human health and the safety of the environment--this plan could do that. When they asked me and a member of MSU Greenpeace to be on this committee as the student voices, we were encouraged even further. 

However, it was mere weeks into this committee that we learned our presence on the committee was no more than a PR move. They didn't actually want our opinions on the matter, considered the suggestions we posited naive and it seemed had an agenda the whole time without a true effort of wanting to work towards something new. And so I bring us back to the aforementioned hooks quote. The exact same feelings she and the black feminist community were feeling are shared by the MSU environmental community, as well as the environmental movement as a whole. 


We cannot allow our movements to become complicit with those who would try to prevent us from moving forward. The most important thing for us all to do is to continue on full speed ahead. Change has happened in the past and it can happen again, but not without some serious passion to fuel it.