Valerie Novack is an incredible policy researcher working at the intersections of disability justice, emergency management response and inclusive city design.

In today’s episode, we dive deep into disability justice and the connections with Earth care. We explore some core elements of disability justice including rest, sustainability, the ability to learn and interdependence and why they are key to helping us reimagine the environmental movement.

Valerie also explains why our definition of community should include our more-than-human beings and how that is connected to disability justice.

This episode is not one to be missed!

Episode timestamps

00:00 Introduction

03:12 Valerie’s relationship with nature

06:27 How Valerie got into disability justice

16:18 What is disability justice

23:40 How rest and sustainability enables disability justice in Earth care

30:02 How the ability to learn enables disability justice in Earth care

31:37 How interdependence is crucial for disability justice

35:32 How and why ableism shows up in Earth care

39:50 Individual action versus systems change