[5] Thomas grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri, 10 minutes from where the shooting of Michael Brown by police happened.
[6] She found no one was talking about the intersection of environmental and social injustices, such as the Flint, Michigan water crises where 57% of the population is Black.
[2][8][9] She runs Intersectional Environmentalist, a website targeted towards people interested in the relationship between the environment and social justice.
[2] She is the author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, which provides advice to environmental activists and describes theories of relationships between race, privilege, social justice, and the environment.
[10][11] Thomas advocates for climate change activists to adopt anti-racist approaches in order to facilitate an intersectional environmental movement.