It is Earth Day in which the 2026 theme for Earth Day Canada is Conscious Consumption which is commonly on people’s mind when considering the impacts of climate change. For me as a person who is deaf and disabled, the environmental and climate change advocacy space is complicated due to solutions that do not consider the needs of persons with disabilities. The theme Conscious Consumption adds to the uneasiness as some of the conflict is consumption habits due to access needs have been criticized such as plastic straws and pre-prepared ingredients and meals. The uneasiness is exemplified knowing that consumption tends to be towards individual consumers instead of corporations who are consuming the bulk of the resources.
The work towards improving our climate or mitigating risks due to climate change that do not consider the impacts on persons with disabilities is known as eco-ableism. This can be how persons with disabilities feel uncomfortable participating fully in climate advocacy and activism. The experience can come from the needs that are not considered eco-friendly to missing perspectives on accessibility is emergency planning due to the increasing weather events due to climate change.
Eviance recently released a brief called Why Disability and Climate? which explores the challenges and opportunities that persons with disabilities experienced in the climate space. I invited you to read the brief to learn more about this topic. I particularly connect with the advocacy side of understanding that persons with disabilities can contribute to climate change advocacy and activism and we should be considering the disability climate justice framework when building practices to a more inclusive and accessible way to reach the goals of the climate action movements.
If you are a person with a disability, your input in the impacts and solutions for climate change is important. Without being inclusive to all needs of our communities, sustainable development will be hard to achieve. The brief from Eviance is part of the Canadian Disability & Climate Change Network and Strategy Project which people can participate in.
Conscious consumption is for everyone and corporations. Doing it in a way that is equitable and sustainable for you is also something that should be considered in the conversation. We are all in different spaces with different needs, culture, and habits and looking toward your situation instead of blanket “solutions” that may not consider your situation is critical to moving forward. Small steps are better than not moving at all or moving backwards because we did not include everyone along the way.