Epistemic Justice in Environmental Science

Sor Juana's struggle for intellectual credibility despite sexism and colonialism illuminates epistemic injustice—when some people's knowledge is systematically undervalued or disbelieved. In climate science, this manifests when frontline communities reporting pollution, Indigenous peoples documenting ecosystem changes, and women scientists face dismissal compared to credentialed Western men. Epistemic justice demands actively centering these testimonies as valid evidence, examining how institutional power shapes whose observations count as knowledge. It means believing workers who report chemical exposures, honoring Indigenous fire management data that outperforms Western conservation, and recognizing how gender, race, and class shape whose climate expertise is believed. Achieving epistemic justice in environmental science requires structural change: diversifying scientific institutions, platforming marginalized researchers, and treating community-based monitoring as legitimate climate data. This alignment of justice and knowledge production creates more accurate science and more legitimate climate action.