We’ve Been Winning Environmental Battles for 50 Years. Here’s What We’ll Fight for in Our Next 50.
Today, the concept that the environment can be protected through the power of the law is no longer up for debate.
This page was published 3 years ago. Find the latest on Earthjustice’s work.
Behind nearly every major environmental win of the last 50 years, you will find Earthjustice.
Because of our legal work, grizzlies still roam free in Yellowstone, and wild salmon still swim through the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. Nearly 50 million acres of national forest stand intact. Mercury emissions from power plants have declined by 80%, saving up to 11,000 lives a year, and cancer-causing pesticides that once poisoned farmworkers are no longer in use.
When the first Earthjustice attorneys walked into a courtroom in 1971, many of our nation’s environmental laws were brand new. A groundswell of public concern about industrial pollution had moved Congress to pass regulations protecting our air, water, wildlife, and public health. Yet it quickly became clear that these laws didn’t mean much without someone pushing for enforcement. The earth needed a good lawyer.
That’s where Earthjustice came in. We partner with organizations, environmental justice groups, Indigenous peoples, and thousands of passionate supporters to take on the most pressing environmental challenges of the day — and we win.
Today, the concept that the environment can be protected through the power of the law is no longer up for debate. And unfortunately, the environment urgently needs those protections more than ever.
We can’t afford to fight solely on one front or tackle environmental threats sequentially. We must be aggressive on all fronts. But our first 50 years have prepared us for this. We have demonstrated time and again that we can create systemic change through the power of the law, and we are continuing to work toward a thriving, equitable, and climate-resilient world, leaving no one behind.
Here is the future that Earthjustice is fighting for:
Stop extracting and burning harmful fossil fuels
In the race against climate change, one thing is clear: we must quit fossil fuels.
We’re fighting the dirty energy industry’s aggressive plans to lock in new oil and gas infrastructure in the form of pipelines, petrochemical facilities, and crude oil and gas export terminals. We’re using the law and the courts to keep this infrastructure — which would dramatically increase fossil fuel consumption and cook our climate — from ever being built.
Key cases:
- Standing Rock Fight Against the Dakota Access Pipeline
- Grassroots Victory Against Giant Oil Terminal in Washington
Power everything with 100% clean electricity
Our goal is simple: a swift and equitable transition to zero emissions and 100% clean energy.
That means working with policymakers — across the U.S. and internationally — to move off the old, planet-warming economy built on burning fossil fuels, and into a future where everything is electrified.
Earthjustice is fighting for the right of local communities to keep dirty energy out of their lives and open their doors to a clean energy future.
Key cases:
Secure clean drinking water and clean air as a right for all, not a privileged few
Earthjustice is working to strengthen protections for the air we breathe and the water we drink, and to hold polluters accountable when they violate those protections. Air and water pollution disproportionately harms communities that are already burdened by racism and classism.
We wield the power of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act to ensure that all people can live full lives with lower risks of cancer, heart attacks, and debilitating asthma episodes.
Key cases:
Build a justice-centered environmental movement in partnership with communities and allies
Earthjustice partners with communities around the country to uphold the principle that no one’s home should be treated as a sacrifice zone. Polluters often prey on communities disempowered by many forms of injustice, including racism, colonialism, and xenophobia. Environmental fights are inextricably linked to related forms of justice.
We use laws like the National Environmental Policy Act to ensure our allies’ voices are heard in court. We take on cases like the fight against Trump’s border wall, where racism and xenophobia lead to serious scars on the environment. Our climate strategy looks beyond just greenhouse gases and focuses on how we leave no one behind in the transitions we must make. And we join coalitions in related areas of justice to make our legal tools available to a wider movement.
Key cases:
Remove toxic, dangerous products from our daily lives
We’re pushing for bans or significant restrictions on chemicals that are harming communities and the planet. There are no safe levels for chemicals that remain in our bodies and our drinking water for decades.
Key cases:
Farm sustainably to ensure healthy lives, lands, and climate
Our current food system threatens our health by polluting the air and water, imperiling native wildlife, and exposing workers and consumers to dangerous chemicals. Big Ag also poisons our climate, releasing about one-third of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
We’re using our track record of success at cleaning up dirty industries to reform our nation’s food and farming system. We partner with activists, environmental justice communities, sustainable farmers and ranchers, scientists, and others to help accelerate this shift to a safer, more climate-friendly food system.
Key cases:
Safeguard forever our public lands and waters
The evolution of dynamic wild ecosystems unfolds over centuries — but it takes far less time to destroy them. The Earth’s last remaining wild places are under constant threat from extractive industries and reckless development, and the growing climate crisis.
Earthjustice is preserving our last wild places by advocating for strong protections of our land and ocean ecosystems, and by reducing stressors that are forcing nature into decline.
Key cases:
- Shielding the Country’s Largest, Oldest ‘Climate Forest’
- 3 Ways We’re Working to Make the Ocean Thrive
Halt the mass extinction of species
We are living through a mass extinction of humanity’s making. Without stronger protections for wildlife, thousands more species could disappear forever due to climate change and habitat loss.
We wield the nation’s strongest environmental law, the Endangered Species Act, to force government agencies to protect wildlife life on the brink and restore failing populations.
Key cases: