Read this book and save the planet
Leah Thomas’s debut book, ‘The Intersectional Environmentalist’, advocates for people and the earth
Tuesday 15 March 2022 By Salomé Gómez-Upegui
May 2020 was a tumultuous time. The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers sparked global Black Lives Matter protests, and pleas for change and justice overflowed on social media. That same month, young environmentalist, Leah Thomas – also known by her Instagram handle ‘@greengirlleah’ – posted her own call to action, introducing, for the very first time, the concept of intersectional environmentalism. ‘Social justice cannot wait… I’m calling on the environmentalist community to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and with Black, Indigenous and POC communities impacted daily by both social and environmental injustice,’ she wrote. Within days, Thomas went viral.
Since then, the activist has become an authority on environmentalism who tirelessly advocates for both the protection of people and the planet. She is the founder of the nonprofit, Intersectional Environmentalist, ‘a climate justice community and resource hub centering people of colour and historically excluded voices,’ and her new book, which shares a name with the nonprofit, is a primer on the subject.
Despite the pressing matters it discusses, The Intersectional Environmentalist is not a heavy read. Written in an accessible manner, both the text and graphic design of the book help the reader come to terms with information that might otherwise seem daunting. On a recent call with Soho House, Thomas said she wrote this book with her younger self in mind, and it shows. ‘This is an introductory textbook or even a supplementary text for anyone who’s starting their environmental journey at any age and might be new to some of these topics.’
Over five chapters and less than 200 pages in total, Thomas asks and answers key questions that are critical to understanding the importance of her theory. ‘What is privilege?’ is one critical subject she discusses at length in the third chapter. At no point in the book does she assume the reader has previous knowledge, which results in an engaging, didactic text that’s both welcoming and profound.
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of The Intersectional Environmentalist is how Thomas manages to avoid a monologue and instead bring in numerous and diverse voices into the text. In chapter one – a primer on intersectional feminism and intersectional environmentalism – she includes a passage written by Diandra Marizet, cofounder of the Intersectional Environmentalist nonprofit, in which Marizet considers the subject of intersectional feminism through the lens of her Chicana identity. To discuss accessibility and disability in the environmental movement, Thomas draws on the voice of disabled rights advocate and cofounder of Disabled & Outdoors, Ambika Rajyagor. And to underscore the importance of placing attention on climate justice in the global South, she centers the voice of Vanessa Nakate, Ugandan activist and founder of the Rise Up Movement, who eloquently writes: ‘We are on the front lines of the climate crisis, but we are not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers.’
Moreover, Thomas is wary of remaining in the world of theory and instead makes a point of presenting hard data to prove the gruesome reality faced by BIPOC communities when it comes to climate injustice. Chapter four, entitled ‘Who’s Affected: the Reality for BIPOC Communities’, compiles a wide array of research to concretely illustrate the way issues such as air quality, extreme heat, food security and water access affect the most vulnerable.
Thomas, who is set to be embarking on a grassroots book tour soon, is adamant about giving readers practical tools to begin moving in the right direction. And so, the final section of The Intersectional Environmentalist presents a useful and comprehensive tool kit complete with lists of organisations to support and resources to read, hear, and watch.
Granted, the first-time author concedes that learning a new subject can be overwhelming, and her biggest hope for the book is that readers will take their time reading through it, and eventually start asking questions they weren’t asking before. ‘If you go to a protest about endangered salmon, or learn about that issue, maybe you’ll ask, who are the communities that are being impacted by [this]? Or how is the waterway also impacting the food and agriculture in the area? For me, I’d say this book is a success if people start to ask more questions, because when you ask more questions, I think you can propose better, more holistic solutions,’ she says.
