Climate Change, the Intersectional Imperative, and the Opportunity of the Green New Deal

This article discusses why climate change communicators, including scholars and practitioners, must acknowledge and understand climate change as a product of social and economic inequities. In arguing that communicators do not yet fully understand why an intersectional approach is necessary to avoid climate disaster, I review the literature focusing on one basis of marginalization – gender – to illustrate how inequality is a root cause of global environmental damage. Gender inequities are discussed as a cause of the climate crisis, with their eradication, with women as leaders, as key to a sustainable future. I then examine the Green New Deal as an example of an intersectional climate change policy that looks beyond scientific, technical and political solutions to the inextricable link between crises of climate change, poverty, extreme inequality, and racial and economic injustice. Finally, I contend that communicators and activists must work together to foreground social, racial, and economic inequities in order to successfully address the existential threat of climate change.