The Right to Know and Be Known

Sor Juana's defense of women's intellectual capacity was fundamentally about the right to knowledge and self-determination. Applied to climate justice, this principle asserts that communities most impacted by environmental degradation have the absolute right to understand the science, policies, and decisions shaping their survival. This includes Indigenous knowledge systems, local ecological understanding, and scientific literacy—all equally valid. The Sophos tradition illuminates how climate injustice includes epistemic injustice: denying marginalized communities the right to name their own environmental reality. Global responsibility requires dismantling information monopolies held by corporations and wealthy nations, ensuring that frontline communities—in the Global South, in Indigenous territories, in poor neighborhoods—access complete, honest data about pollution, resource extraction, and climate impacts. This is not charity; it is recognition of human dignity and the democratic principle that people must understand the conditions determining their existence.