Written by Sharon Lewis, the Executive Director of the CT Coalition for Economic and Environmental Justice.
Every Earth Day, we’re told to plant trees, clean rivers, and recycle more. Those actions matter. But on this Earth Day, we must also demand that policymakers change the systems that are harming both people and the planet. We talk about sustainability as if it can exist apart from justice. It cannot.
On this Earth Day, let’s move beyond one-day cleanup events and demand that decision-makers stop routing pollution through the same overburdened communities.
In Connecticut, this is not theoretical. Communities like Hartford and Bridgeport have lived for decades with the cumulative impacts of waste incineration and regional trash disposal—policy decisions that concentrated pollution in the same neighborhoods generation after generation. In cities across our state, families are paying some of the highest energy bills in the country—not because they use more energy, but because they live in poorly insulated, inefficient housing that current building codes still allow. And in places like New Haven and Bridgeport, repeated flooding is no longer a future threat—it is a present reality, exposing how unprepared our infrastructure is for the climate conditions we already face.
Ending this cycle means saying no to new fossil fuel infrastructure, incinerators, and waste-burning facilities that add to the burdens on people already living with the worst air, water, and energy costs.
For too long, environmental protection has been treated as separate from human survival. This Earth Day, that must end.
We should call not only for stricter pollution limits, but also for polluters to pay for the damage they cause. That means requiring fossil fuel companies and the industries they insure to help fund climate-resilient infrastructure, community recovery after climate disasters, and the work of making neighborhoods more flood-resistant, heat-resilient, and energy-efficient.
That is why Connecticut must also examine the role of the insurance industry—not just as a responder to disasters, but as a system that determines which communities can rebuild and which are left behind. Proposed legislation to hold insurers accountable for their role in climate risk, and to require contributions toward resilience and recovery, is a critical step toward aligning financial systems with climate reality.
Connecticut is also considering policies that would require fossil fuel companies and the industries they insure to help pay for the damage they have helped create. This is not punishment—it is the same principle that underlies insurance itself: shared responsibility for risk.
At the same time, emerging proposals in Connecticut recognize that pollution is not evenly distributed. In valley communities, where geography traps emissions at breathing level, residents experience intensified exposure—yet current policy still evaluates pollution source by source instead of accounting for these cumulative, place-based impacts.
Here in Connecticut, residents already face some of the highest energy costs in the country, and anyone living in an uninsulated, inefficient home—especially low- and moderate-income households—bears a crushing energy burden. On this Earth Day, let’s call for clean energy policies that lower costs through deep energy efficiency, stronger building codes, and weatherization for homes. We should also demand that new home construction does not lock in tomorrow’s energy crisis, but instead delivers safer, healthier, more affordable housing that reduces energy use and bills at the same time.
Ending fossil fuel dependence is not optional; it is necessary. How we do it will determine whether we advance justice or repeat history.
This Earth Day, let’s call for a just transition that protects workers, invests in communities harmed by decades of pollution, builds climate-resilient infrastructure, and ensures those communities benefit from green jobs and clean energy—not more debt and more risk. It also means holding polluters accountable for the climate disasters they help cause by requiring them to help fund community recovery, adaptation, and resilience upgrades.
Earth Day should not be a single day of symbolism. It should be a call to action to change the systems that shape our lives every day.
Yes, we should plant trees, clean rivers, and recycle more—but we should also demand an end to policies that allow pollution, high costs, and climate disasters to concentrate in the same places generation after generation.
Saving the planet is not just about what we do once a year. It is about who pays, who decides, and who benefits—and who is sacrificed—by the systems we allow to continue.