Requirements for the ENVS B.A. Concentration in Global Environmental Justice (GEJ)

Description of Concentration

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Environmental Justice is defined as ‘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.’ Today, EJ is a pillar of national environmental policy, with a swathe of laws and legislations that cover a wide range of sectors. It is a growing area in policy, advocacy and scholarship internationally, embracing topics as diverse as indigenous rights, gender equity and climate justice. In recent years, a parallel idea -- of human rights and the environment -- has emerged in legal and policy contexts. Environmental justice and human rights are thus amongst the fastest growing subjects in environmental public policy globally.

This concentration provides students within environmental studies majors with special depth of understanding of the issues and approaches central to global environmental justice.  The GEJ concentration is premised on the assertion that the distribution of environmental problems reflects longstanding, uneven terrains of power and privilege, exploitation, and dispossession. Globalization and the fluidity of corporate capital, commodity chains and community campaigns require approaches that conceptualize the frictions between the local and global, legacies of colonialism, and multiplicity of responses -- human and non-human -- in the face of oppression, adaptation, and resistance. The inextricable interconnections between ecological and social degradation, and the social implications of efforts to remedy ecological degradation, are an intrinsic and important core of Environmental Studies.

Course Requirements

ENVS B.A. Global Environmental Justice Concentration Major Worksheet (PDF) -- updated August 2023

Alternatively, you may view the program requirements on the 2023-2024 UCSC catalog. For prior catalog years, please visit this website.

Which GEs will get satisfied by this major?

It depends on which classes you take! Please refer to this chart to see which of your GE requirements may be satisfied by taking major courses for any of our majors. If you need help understanding the chart, please speak to ENVS advising.