Ecofeminism and environmental justice

The great moral issue confronting our generation is climate change and our efforts to reverse its effects will continue to be unsuccessful as long as they are centred upon economic considerations rather than on a moral obligation to safeguard nature. If we wish to ensure a future for generations to come, we must work towards creating justice for all nature, human and non human, based on moral rightness, not on cost effectiveness.Whilst recent speeches on climate change, such as President Obama’s UN climate change speech and initiatives such as Australia’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme allude to a moral obligation to create change, economic considerations still remain at the forefront. In contrast, ecologists of feminist and non-feminist persuasions consider the creation of a society based on reciprocity, mutuality and diversity to be essential for the survival of the earth as a whole. The ecological feminist (or ecofeminist) critique of modern capitalism points to the ongoing injustices and inequalities that are being perpetrated on the earth and its people by economically powerful Western nations and uncovers the origins of these injustices, which they argue are based on counterproductive traditions and ideologies inherent in Western thought and perspectives.