Introduction to: Social justice & the politics of global climate change: Governance, political economy, political ecology, and health equity – global, national, and indigenous pespectives

Our Spirit of 1848 integrative session, titled “SOCIAL JUSTICE & THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: GOVERNANCE, POLITICAL ECONOMY, POLITICAL ECOLOGY, AND HEALTH EQUITY – GLOBAL, NATIONAL, AND INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES,” intends to spur integrated and critical public health thinking and action regarding the critical twin tasks of:

(a) envisioning and creating equitable and ecologically sustainable economies & ways of living that afford everyone the possibility of living healthy & meaningful lives, and

(b) combating global climate change and the corporations, governments, and global institutions who push for and profit from political economies premised on fossil fuel and the non-sustainable exploitation of the earth, sea, animals, and plants, along with human labor, for non-sustainable production of material commodities.

The session's three speakers will grapple with these complex issues from the perspectives of 3 different but interconnected levels of governance & accountability: (1) global, (2) national state (including federal-regional-local), and (3) Indigenous tribal/First nation. Each presentation will be historically grounded, analyze current realities, and offer ideas for next steps we in public health can take to address the politics of global climate change and its collective and differential embodied consequences for the world's peoples and other species with which we inhabit this earth – as shaped by the power relations and property inequities underlying the social divisions between and within the global North and global South, including in relation to class, nationality, Indigenous status, immigrant status, race/ethnicity, and gender.