This week, you’ll see a lot green, celebrating the earth. Businesses will promote their purported eco-friendly products wrapped in plastic, plastered with pictures of happy trees. Corporate greenwashing, or the practice of dispersing misleading claims about a product, service, or company that make it seem more environmentally friendly than it really is, has infiltrated Earth Day.

However, Earth Day did not begin with an obligatory promotion of trees. After Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring, in 1962, an enormous oil spill in Santa Barbara in 1969, and greater awareness about the links between pollution and the health of living organisms, Senator Gaylord Nelson established the first Earth Day in 1970. Protests rallied “against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife,” according to Earth Day’s website.

These issues are relevant, even today, and show that sustainability is important in many parts of the world, not just in exclusive forests. In addition, climate change could make the Earth unlivable, especially in communities where people do not have the resources and are not allowed the agency to move away or curtail the effects of global warming.

While paying tribute to our trees and natural ecosystems is incredibly important today (and every day), we also need to recognize that our environment is intimately connected to justice and equality. Pollution and the near effects of Climate Change have disproportionately affected minority and low-income communities. These same communities don’t typically have the resources to directly combat pollution or the effects of climate change. Seeking justice and equality is just as much a part of environmentalism as hugging trees.

Remember, on this Earth Day and every day, that Environmental Justice, Climate Justice, the ocean, the trees, the people, and the algae, are all important to protect and are all dependent on each other.

Farmers’ markets and organic grocery stores help local farmers and promote sustainable eating practices, but are often geographically and financially inaccessible to many. Poorer communities across the United States often have few healthy, fresh, and affordable food options, making them “food deserts.” The lacking access to healthy options in corner stores, liquor stores, and fast food restaurants can lead to serious health problems, including  heart disease and diabetes. Urban farms bring together these communities to grow food, health, and justice.

Check out these local urban farms:

ReVision Urban Farm

“Victory Programs’ ReVision Urban Farm is an innovative community-based urban agriculture project that grows produce in its own fields and provides access to affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food to residents of our ReVision Family Home and our extended community. In association with ReVision Family Home, we also provide job training for youth and Boston’s homeless.”

Grow or Die

“We deserve healthy affordable food.

Companies manipulate us into eating foods that lead to illness and death. All we have is corner stores, liquor stores, and fast food restaurants. As a result, we have higher rates of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease. The food system we know is rooted in racism, poverty, and corporate greed. Food should be about life, growth, health, community, and justice.

We need to grow our own food.

Many of our families have experience growing food. We should be proud of our own resources and provide for ourselves.

We will use vacant land to grow food.

Our neighborhoods are fully of empty lots that have been unused for years. The existence of so many lots is a result of Boston’s history of racism and classism. Neglected and empty land causes problems for our neighborhoods, but we can change that by building gardens.

We will grow food together, strengthen our neighborhoods, and improve our health now and in the future.”

Learn more about Food Deserts from this TED talk:

Job Description:

Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu serves as an At-Large Councilor representing all of Boston’s neighborhoods. Her office is offering a paid summer policy fellowship for a local graduate student to contribute a meaningful policy project in line with Councilor Wu’s focus on climate change, income inequality, and systemic racism. This fellowship opportunity is open to current graduate school students who will be residing in Boston during the summer. The fellowship may also include attending community meetings, managing and responding to constituent services requests, and providing staff support to the Councilor.

Job Description:

Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu serves as an At-Large Councilor representing all of Boston’s neighborhoods. To support Councilor Wu’s work to promote diversity within local government, especially on her focus areas of climate change, income inequality, and systemic racism, her office is seeking a positive, passionate, hard-working, local undergraduate student to participate in a paid, 8-10 week summer internship. This internship opportunity is open to current undergraduate students who will be residing in Boston during the summer.