About
Read to learn more about why we decided to create the Disability Climate Justice website, as well as other related research conducted by our team.
The Researchers
The Disability Climate Justice website started taking form in September of 2023 and was first published in September of 2024.
This website uses a sociological perspective to understand Disability Climate Justice. Sociology is the study of society, meaning that it explores how societal structures impact individuals and how social identities influence perspectives, experiences, and lived realities.
This work came out of the Santa Clara University Sociology Department, located in Santa Clara, California, United States.
Santa Clara University sits on the land of the Ohlone and the Muwekma Ohlone people, who trace their ancestry through the Missions Dolores, Santa Clara, and San Jose.
Molly M. King
Molly M. King is a sociologist who studies knowledge inequalities and the implications of these inequalities for people's lives. She is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Santa Clara University. Read more about her research on her website.
Christina Nelson (she/her)
Christina Nelson is a Santa Clara University Class of 2024 grad, who has been a research assistant for Dr. King since spring of 2023. She studied Sociology, Spanish, and Sustainable Food Systems and was the Co-Chair of the Sociology Club from 2021 until she graduated in June of 2024. Read more about her on her LinkedIn.
Her passion for a better future, website design, sociological research, and justice combined to create this project – the Disability Climate Justice website.
The Research
Together with a team of undergraduate Research Assistants, Molly M. King has collected 40 qualitative interviews studying how disability affects people's experience of climate change and information seeking. At the intersection of these two topics lie important questions: How does identity influence information seeking? How do experiences with disability shape resilience in the face of climate disaster?
Throughout the website, we include quotes from our interview respondents to give you a sense of the first-person experience of climate change and climate-related disasters from the perspective of people people with disabilities. We hope this gives you a better sense of how we drew the conclusions we discuss.
This blog post by Molly King compiles information about inequitable resource distribution and highlights the need for disabled community input in disaster planning and policymaking.
"Disability and climate change: A critical realist model of climate justice." - Molly M. King and Maria Gregg, 2021
Based on these interviews, we've developed the Critical Realist Model of Disability Climate Justice. The critical realist perspective on disability asserts that individuals experience disability due to both societal barriers and limitations posed by physical impairments. Drop down to read more.
This model looks at relationships between the environmental features that disable, risk perception and information seeking, and adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change. It is an "interactional approach" between the individual factors (medical model), structural factors (social model), and social oppression. The critical realist model focuses on how people with disabilities adapt to climate change and develop resilience for climate-related disasters. With this model, we hope to enhance climate action and policy by including people with disabilities and other vulnerable populations.
Ensuring the Safety of People With Disabilities During Climate Change by Kina Velasco, interviewing Molly King, 2022.
A feature story that discusses "Disability and climate change: A critical realist model of climate justice" and why Molly King and other collaborators, including Maria Gregg, Ana Martinez, and Emily Pachoud, believe this work matters.
"Teaching & learning guide for disability and climate justice" - Molly M. King, Maria A. Gregg, Ana V. Martinez, Emily Y. Pachoud, 2022.
A guide with various resources, focus questions, and activities to aid in teaching on or learning more about the intersections between disability and climate.
“Standing Up for Environmental Justice for People with Disabilities.” Molly M. King and Emily Pachoud, 2023
Written for the Santa Clara University Environmental Justice and the Common Good Initiative, this brief history of the relationship between disability and climate justice identifies action steps Santa Clara University students, faculty, and staff can take. This webpage also contains guides for environmental justice and Latinx, Asian Americans, Black Americans.
Why disability inclusion is important for climate resilience by Molly King, with Christina Nelson as a collaborator, 2024
This short opinion article (4-minute read) gives a brief overview of the importance of active participation of disabled people in the fight against climate change. Much of what is discussed in the article is expanded on throughout this website.
'People with Disabilities are Devalued in Disasters’: Climate-Related Emergency Vulnerabilities and Structural Enforcements - Molly King, Ana Martinez, and Emily Pachoud, working paper, available on request.
An academic article compiling information from 40 interviews, finding "three key findings: vulnerabilities are the result of social, environmental, and physical factors; disabled people use their extensive planning experience to prepare for emergencies; and the majority of responsibility for disaster preparedness is placed on individuals rather than institutions."