DialogueON: Marginalisation

On Saturday 17th October, Open Dialogues International hosted our monthly themed dialogue event titled ‘DialogueON: Marginalisation’. The session explored how discrimination continues to shape people’s experiences and sense of belonging, despite progress towards greater legal equality. 

Focusing on marginalisation within education, the discussion examined how exclusion can be reinforced through institutional structures. Participants reflected on the importance of recognising these inequalities and creating a more inclusive educational environment where different perspectives can be respected.

Bella Allen - Whose Knowledge Counts?

Our first speaker, Bella Allen, highlighted the importance of questioning who shapes educational materials and wider public narratives. Bella is interested in human rights, justice, climate change, outer space politics, and global security. She has an BSc in Politics and International Relations and is currently studying for her MA in International Conflict in London. She has previously worked for HeroesToo, an environmental NGO.

Bella noted that Western, male perspectives are often treated as the dominant default in much of the classroom literature. These assumptions are not always deliberate, but when left unchallenged they can marginalise alternative perspectives. She emphasised that this extends beyond academic environments and can impact journalism or social media, fundamentally reshaping how people understand the world around them.

Bella also stressed the importance of engaging critically with the information we encounter. Addressing knowledge discrimination requires conscious effort. This includes reflecting on our own assumptions and questioning established narratives. We must actively recognise whose experiences may be missing. Education has a key role in this process by encouraging people to challenge existing inequalities.

Zohaib Baig - Inclusive Classrom Practises

Our second speaker, Zohaib Baig, brought extensive experience in school management, teacher coordination, and inclusive classroom practices to the discussion. He explored how marginalisation can emerge in everyday classroom practises, even when teachers have no intention of excluding particular students.

He explained that schools often prioritise those who respond quickly or speak confidently. This leaves the quieter or less expressive students on the margins. Over time, these practices can create a classroom culture where some students feel more able to participate than others.

Zohaib advocated for a more flexible and inclusive teaching approach that recognises students have different strengths. Practical recommendations included pair-and-share activities and allowing students an extra five seconds before interruption. He also emphasised the importance of giving students time to independently explore issues. Education is designed to empower students. In Zohaib’s words, “once you have a choice, you have a voice”. 

Dialogue

Following both presentations, the discussion opened up to our participants. Their discussion highlighted how marginalisation intersects with education but also poverty, disability, gender inequality and displacement.

One participant noted that access to education remains unequal in rural and disadvantaged communities. Financial constraints, limited infrastructure and distance challenges can prevent students from accessing knowledge.

Participants also stressed that legal protections are insufficient when institutional accountability remains weak. Addressing marginalisation requires governments to ensure meaningful access to education and decision-making. This must be accompanied by grassroots action to counter the unconscious biases and social norms that perpetuate discrimination. 

All participants agreed that marginalised groups must be actively involved in shaping the institutions and policies that affect them. Education plays a critical role in exposing students to different experiences, encouraging critical thinking within the classroom and the wider world.

Final Thoughts

Our speakers shared their final thoughts:

• Bella argued that language can make things seem equal but in reality they are not,

• Zohaib stated “if we’ve made the chain then we can break the chain.”

Creating inclusive societies and education settings requires sustained effort to challenge the structures of marginalisation. Education should empower individuals with confidence and critical thinking skills. Overall, participants highlighted that the systems that perpetuate discrimination are human-made and therefore can be human-changed.

~Naomi Lea

Environmental Inequality: Unequal Exposures to Harm across Communities

Article by: Olivia Carling, Open Dialogues International Foundation

Effective environmental policy is essential for achieving equitable social outcomes, as environmental harms disproportionately affect marginalized communities, hence making environmental policies and social justice fundamentally linked. A key aim of environmental policy is to ensure a fair distribution of environmental benefits and protect vulnerable communities. Unfortunately, it is increasingly apparent that environmental degradation exacerbates inequality by disproportionately impacting vulnerable communities who rely on natural resources, pushing a poverty cycle of suffering with limited chances for development. Furthermore, environmental policies have the power to worsen social inequalities and further both class and race divides within an area, as well as globally. The distribution between who emits more and who feels the impacts of climate change is also an issue of social justice, seen in how the Global North, more affluent and industrialized, emits significantly more than the Global South, who bear the brunt of climate change and environmental issues. 

health.com/environmental-racism-8634397 

Part 1: Environmental Justice

Environmental justice aims for the fair treatment of all people through developing and enforcing environmental laws. By addressing the disproportionate burden of pollution and waste faced by marginalized communities, theoretically policies would aim to target both environmental quality and social welfare, benefiting multiple areas simultaneously. 

The Environmental Justice movement was primarily led by Black people, Latines, Pacific Islanders, Asian Americans and Indigenous people due to a key reason; those who live in the United States’ most polluted environments are overwhelmingly people of color and people living in poverty. This is due to environmental racism, affecting minorities’ health and living conditions, and rooted in historical discrimination and segregation, with the effects still present in modern societies. 

For example, to this day, majority-white and wealthy communities are where investments into infrastructure are more likely to be made, where environmental laws are more likely to be properly enforced, and where polluters are more likely to be held accountable or kept away entirely. By comparison, the most marginalized communities are routinely treated as the areas where highways can be built, waste can be stored, industrial warehouses and facilities can be concentrated, and where natural resources can be readily exploited or destroyed.

Environmental Justice through Art | Office of Sustainability - Student Blog

Evidence of this can be seen in Hurricane Katrina of 2005 in New Orleans, when the city’s black neighbourhoods were predominantly affected by the storm. Then, the black areas of Houston were largely destroyed twelve years after by Hurricane Harvey. Racism and climate change are two of the most pressing challenges of the 21st Century, and through examining how they are linked it is evident that environmental policies are created with social justice in mind, considering poorer and minority communities are significantly more affected by environmental degradation and the climate crisis. 

Aerial view of suburbs in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina 

Climate change - Evidence, Causes, Impacts | Britannica 

Robert Bullard is accredited with forming environmental justice as a theory and increasing its relevance, starting with an investigation into landfills and their strategic placements.

“..we found that from the ‘30s up until 1978, five out of five city-owned landfills were located in predominantly black communities. Six out of eight of the city-owned incinerators were located in predominantly black neighborhoods. Three out of the four privately owned landfills were located in black neighborhoods.” (Bullard, 2019).

At the time, Black people made up only 25% of the population, but somehow 82% of all the garbage was disposed of in landfills and waste systems in black neighbourhoods. A systemic imbalance that has been perpetuated throughout history shows how and why climate change and environmental concerns are inherently tied to social justice, particularly raising a concern of deep rooted, systemic racism. The two issues that can appear unrelated or separate, actually have deep ties in inequality, hence why countries have started to purposefully create environmental policies targeting low-income or minority areas in order to recognize the disadvantaged harms they face.

Part 2: Environmental Inequality and Gentrification

The impacts of climate change, such as flooding and heatwaves, can have severe impacts on livelihoods, such as the millions of reported premature deaths from air pollution, which are concentrated in lower-income regions. The fact that people of color across the Global South are those who are most affected by the climate crisis, despite their carbon footprints being generally very low is further evidence in support of how environmental consequences are unequally distributed according to who caused them, and innocent people continue to suffer because of power dynamics and inequality. 

Air Pollution in Low Income Areas - BORGEN 

According to the World Inequality Database, since the Industrial Revolution, the most affluent countries of the world (the ‘Global North’) have been responsible for approximately half of all emissions. In 2019, the top 10% of emitters were responsible for circa 48% of global CO2 emissions, whereas the bottom 50% emitted 12% (Generation Climate Europe, 2022). This shows the unequal exposure to harm, proving why environmental policies are increasingly being targeted at lower income areas. Social justice is based on the principle that everyone deserves equal rights and opportunities. However, when minorities and poorer individuals continuously become disadvantaged, like black Americans being exposed to 54% more particulate matter than their white counterparts, this becomes a serious social issue (Josey et al. 2023). 

A core fight for early environmental justice activists was to bring long-term environmental changes to benefit struggling neighbourhoods. They fought for green spaces, parks, fresh produce stores, playgrounds. However, activism today faces an unprecedented obstacle, presented by new forms of gentrification and unequal benefits of sustainable city planning and improvement. Neighbourhoods that were once undesirable become valued by outside private investors, as well as attract more privileged residents that have a higher purchasing power. Due to this process, previous lower-income residents, and often minorities, are unable to enjoy the new green amenities which they have been historically deprived of, and fought for through environmental justice movements.

The High Line aerial park in New York City, a former elevated railroad, was restored and then transformed into a large green space. 

Along with tourists, the green space came with high increases in area property values, squeezing out local businesses and the working-class residents that were once present around the old tracks. In fact, between 2003 and 2011, the property values near the High Line increased by an average of 103%.

With naive environmental policies that have good intentions come large risks for displacement and further inequality drivers, highlighting the deep need for social justice and environmentalism to be considered as a whole issue, rather than two separate concepts. The combination of land revaluation and improvement projects followed by displacement illustrates the process of “green gentrification” or “ecological gentrification”. This is a newer focus of environmental justice activism, demonstrating how complex the issue of bringing sustainable living opportunities to marginalized communities truly is, as there are many unintended outcomes.

Part 3: Successful Intervention

Well-designed environmental policies can reduce both environmental issues and target inequality at the same time. Regulations regarding pollution would improve public health. The Bradford clean zone in West Yorkshire, England is a government-mandated Class C+ zone aimed at improving air quality through reducing Nitrogen Dioxide levels, implemented in 2022. Bradford is a reportedly low-income area, ranked as the UK’s 13th most deprived authority. The zone is an area that spans the city center and Shipley/Saltaire corridor, a transport and development area that is a major artery. Reportedly after 1 year of the zone’s implementation, GP visits for respiratory illnesses were down by a quarter, saving the NHS over £30,000 monthly. Hence, it is clear that by minimizing pollution, the city saw real results on health, as well as taking some burden off the constantly overwhelmed NHS. 

Part 4: Conclusion

Understanding the issues present in our societies, and being aware of the reasonings behind them is key to achieving progress against them. Environmental inequality is rooted in racism and classism, that still continues to this day because of bias and privilege. It is vital that those who benefit develop an understanding of why they do, and what they can do to make things even. Raising awareness and starting discussions on a topic present at local and global scales is the first step to achieving change. 

Sources: 

Almond, G. (2022). Environmental Justice terms, Explained. [online] Greenpeace UK. Available at: https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/environmental-justice-glossary/.

Barragan, C. (2025). How the High Line Transformed Public Space in New York City? [online] Urban Design Lab. Available at: https://urbandesignlab.in/how-the-high-line-transformed-public-space-in-new-york-city/?srsltid=AfmBOoqlguOsYSwRABIcWjXFZH9Lscha7zRsJPQ1j4EB1SaGJeNbrLBU.

Bullard, R. (2019). ADDRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM. Journal of International Affairs, [online] 73(1), pp.237–242. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26872794.

Colmer, J. (2021). How Does Climate Change Shape inequality, Poverty and Economic opportunity? [online] Economics Observatory. Available at: https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-does-climate-change-shape-inequality-poverty-and-economic-opportunity.

Gerasimchuk, I., et al. (2019). Clean Energy Transition versus Fossil Fuel Path Dependence. [online] JSTOR. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep21911.5.

Jo Black, K. and Richards, M. (2020). Eco-gentrification and Who Benefits from Urban Green amenities: NYC’s High Line. Landscape and Urban Planning, [online] 204(103900), p.103900. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103900.

Josey, K.P., et al. (2023). Air Pollution and Mortality at the Intersection of Race and Social Class. New England Journal of Medicine, 388(15). doi:https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmsa2300523.

Kabisch, N., et al. (2016). Nature-based Solutions to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Urban areas: Perspectives on indicators, Knowledge gaps, barriers, and Opportunities for Action. Ecology and Society, [online] 21(2). Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26270403.

Skelton, R. and Miller, V. (2023). The Environmental Justice Movement. [online] National Resources Defense Council. Available at: https://www.nrdc.org/stories/environmental-justice-movement.

Strazzante, E., Rycken, S. and Winkler, V. (2022). Global North and Global South: How Climate Change Uncovers Global Inequalities - Generation Climate Europe. [online] Generation Climate Europe. Available at: https://gceurope.org/global-north-and-global-south-how-climate-change-uncovers-global-inequalities/.

Sustainability Directory (2025). How Does Pollution Disproportionately Affect Certain Communities? [online] Pollution Sustainability Directory. Available at: https://pollution.sustainability-directory.com/question/how-does-pollution-disproportionately-affect-certain-communities/.

UNFCCC (2023). Fifty Years of Environmental Action. [online] Unfccc. Available at: https://unfccc.int/news/fifty-years-of-environmental-action.

DialogueON: Water Sustainability

On Monday 17th August, Open Dialogues International hosted our monthly themed dialogue event titled ‘DialogueON: Water Sustainability’. As climate change intensifies droughts, floods, and water insecurity around the world, access to safe and sustainable water is becoming a key global challenge. We have all seen first hand the impact of poor water resilience planning over the summer months. 

The conversation examined how communities and governments can work together to understand the importance of our water sources. We also asked what practical actions we can take to build long-term resilience.

Ruby's Insights on Water, Planning, and Hope

We welcomed our first fantastic speaker: Ruby Lang! Ruby is a water resources engineer who works on water system planning, drought resilience, and regulatory compliance for communities across the western United States. She focuses on helping systems prepare for uncertainty, invest wisely, and remain reliable in a changing climate.

Drawing on her experiences in water planning, Ruby emphasized the need to plan for multiple possible water futures. She highlighted the importance of asking what could happen rather than relying on historical patterns. In her words, “what happens when we stop treating the future as something we are waiting for, and start treating it as something we can plan for?”. 

Her main goal is to understand where a system is vulnerable and to make decisions that stay useful even when our assumptions turn out to be wrong. These decisions look different for every community, business, individual, and household. 

Ruby also raised an important point: some parts of the future are conditions we have to prepare for, like droughts or wildfires, but others are shaped by the choices we make today. Water sustainability decisions must consider both factors. 

Alex's Insights on Water and Development

Our second speaker, Alex Herrlin, built upon these themes. Alex is a student of Global Sustainable Development (GSD) at the University of Warwick, where she focuses on the intersection of economic, social, and environmental sustainability factors. She also supports ODIF through our partnerships, outreach and communications work.

Alex pushed participants to consider the development decisions that are being made today. She highlighted the need to consider water alongside infrastructure, technology, and urban planning, including the growing water demands associated with AI through data centres.

She also pointed out the trade-offs involved in solutions such as desalination. While this process can provide essential freshwater, it also creates wider environmental impacts. Water resilience depends on how we design our cities, determines our patterns of consumption, and connects to a broader collective choice about our water systems. We cannot think about water in isolation.

Dialogue

The discussion that followed explored the growing relationship between climate change and water security. Participants emphasized that water must be understood as an environmental concern, but also as a foundation for health, food security, and economic livelihoods.

Several participants highlighted the increasingly unpredictable nature of water availability as climate change intensified changing rainfall patterns. Communities face greater extremes and uncertainty, making it essential to plan for larger emergencies. Participants also noted the importance of inclusive water governance and equitable access to safe, affordable water. The discussion centred around local knowledge to develop sensitive response and adaptation plans.

A recurrent theme was the need to move beyond short-term emergency responses towards long-term climate resilience. Participants exposed gaps in infrastructure, financing and water management. Community involvement was seen as essential to ensure that local needs are reflected in development initiatives. Others also stressed the importance of protecting water sources from pollution and addressing wider environmental challenges such as plastic waste. 

Overall, there was strong agreement that water should be treated as a core climate and development priority, with greater investment needed as the planning stage to ensure resilient access to water. 

Final Thoughts

The session concluded with our speakers’ final comments. Water must be placed at the forefront of climate decisions. Communities must have a meaningful role in shaping water decisions and the discussion on water must remain hopeful.

Rather than focusing only on the doom and gloom of water systems, the dialogue encouraged a shift towards asking what we can do to prepare. As Ruby stated during her presentation, “hope is not pretending the crisis is smaller, but giving us agency to plan for crises”. 

Water resilience depends on the choices made today, from how cities are designed to how water is consumed. Water systems do not exist in isolation and neither do the decisions that shape them. By planning for uncertainty, we can create great resilience to shape more sustainable outcomes.

~Naomi Lea & Alexandra Herrlin