For someone who is just getting started, they can start with educating themselves and reading literature about environmental justice and allyship. - Leah Thomas

Social injustice and environmental injustice are fueled by the same flame: the undervaluing, commodification, and exploitation of all forms of life and natural resources, from the smallest blade of grass to those living in poverty and oppressed people worldwide. It's a point that many ecofeminists, environmental justice scholars and leaders, Indigenous rights and land sovereignty advocates, and climate politicians have argued for decades, but it hasn't been embedded deeply enough in modern environmental education.

Our identities flow through our politics, our advocacy, what we care about-whether we realize it or not.

I got the term “Intersectional” from Intersectional Feminism*, which is a type of feminism that I identify with. I feel like intersectional feminism shouldn’t have to exist, nor intersectional environmentalism, but because some people in both circles don’t factor in how race and culture can play a significant role in how people are treated or interact with the environment, it needs to be there. For example, people of colour are more likely to live next to toxic waste sites or in areas with higher levels of water and air pollution. I’ve spent the past 6 years in Environmental circles and have been frustrated at times by the lack of acknowledgement of its importance, so I felt like I needed to give words to the type of environmentalism that I practice and would hope all environmentalists adopt.