Climate, as a Racial Justice Solution

An opportunity to entrench or redress racial harms

This Black History Month, Black American adults are 30% more likely to have asthma than White Americans, three times as likely to die from exposure to pollution once age 65, 75% more likely to live in communities that border a plant or factory, breathe in 56% more air pollution than they produce, and face greater likelihoods of exposure to laboring in extreme heat, death from extreme heat, property loss from coastal flooding, and damages from inland flooding. These are racial injustices. They are also environmental and climate injustices.

Definitions

Environmental racism is a form of systemic racism where communities of color are discriminated against through policies and practices that target their communities for the siting of polluting industries, disposal of toxic wastes, high-polluting traffic corridors, and disproportionate exposure to other environmental harms.

Examples of environmental racism in the US are nauseatingly numerous. One of the most infamous is literally called Cancer Alley. It’s a part of Louisiana where the cancer risk is almost 50x the national average (EPA) due to the toxic air pollution there. Mott Haven in the South Bronx is also known as ‘Asthma alley.’ 97% of its population is Black or Hispanic, and residents require asthma hospitalizations at five times the national average. There’s also Flint, Michigan, the poor, majority-Black city, where residents are still dealing with the consequences of the water crisis that started 10 years ago.

As the definition alludes, these disparities are the direct result of decisions by both government and industry. Redlining was the racist official federal policy that lasted from the 1930s through the 1960s. It legally discriminated against Black people in the housing market by denying them access to credit. Majority Black areas were ‘redlined’ as regions in which banks were directed to deny people loans. Redlining made it extremely difficult for Black people to buy homes, which is a crucial pathway to building wealth and generational wealth, as the value of wealth compounds over time.

Redlining also often forced Black communities into the same areas that were zoned for industrial uses, the cause of such high rates of pollution among Black Americans. Now, redlining is outlawed, but it’s both government policy and industry practice to concentrate polluters in these same areas already facing high pollution. They’re becoming “sacrifice zones,” because the system is set up so already polluted areas only get worse and worse, literally sacrificing the people that are stuck living there (ProPublica).

Environmental racism affects many different communities of color such as Indigenous people, Latinx communities, and other context-specific minoritized groups across the globe. In the US, its effect on Black Americans is especially poignant due to centuries of oppression in various forms, so anti-Black racism in the US is the focus of this article.

Environmental justice seeks to remedy environmental racism so that environmental safety is equally distributed to all people. This is achieved through corrective policies and by communities of color having meaningful involvement in the decisions that affect their communities.

Climate justice recognizes that in addition to enduring environmental racism, low income and communities of color have contributed the least to climate change and are yet the most vulnerable to its disastrous effects. This is true locally and globally; most of the millions of people adversely affected by climate change every year live in countries that have contributed the least to global emissions.

Climate justice seeks to solve the climate crisis in a way that advances social justice.

Why climate and racial justice can’t be achieved without the other

First things first: vulnerability, resilience, and exposure are distinct concepts in ‘climate speak,’ and important to understand. A hazard is a physical disaster. Exposure means being exposed to the risk of adverse impacts of a hazard. Vulnerability is the likelihood that exposure to a hazard will result in suffering adverse impacts. So, communities with high climate vulnerability have a range of social and environmental factors that amplify the damage they endure from hazards. Resilience refers to the capacity to prepare for, adapt to or cope with, and recover from a hazard. This report introduces a new term, the climate vulnerability gap. It combines climate vulnerability data with census data on geographic racial makeup. The climate vulnerability gap captures the unjust reality that race and climate vulnerability are highly correlated. It finds that “climate vulnerability is driven more by racial differences in underlying social vulnerability than exposure to hazards.”

That means climate change and race are intimately intertwined.

But the two problems often aren’t treated that way. Climate change has gained a reputation as a problem of the privileged. It’s a very fair and valid criticism of the movement at large. A study found that less than 12% of leadership positions in US environmental orgs are held by people of color (University of Michigan), despite people of color making up 40% of the US population. White privilege has dominated the global narratives in the climate space, narratives that eclipse the root cause of the climate crisis. A closer look at that root cause reveals that the cause of both racism and of the climate crisis is the same: capitalistic exploitation.

Addressing the climate crisis is an opportunity to usher in a more just world that is not dependent on the exploitative, extractive, and cruelly unjust systems that gave rise to the crisis. But so far, the approaches that have gained the most traction in the policy and cultural realms do not actually challenge the status quo. They reinforce it.

Climate, race, and economics

Climate change is a threat multiplier. Those who have a lot of resources have high resilience to climate disasters. In contrast, those already harmed by threats of racism, pollution, poverty, etc, experience compounded damages when exposed to climate hazards.

A stubborn and wide racial wealth gap exists in this country between Black and White people. The median Black household in the United States is $240k less wealthy than the median White household (Brookings). This is in no small part thanks to generational wealth-building opportunities that Black Americans were barred from enjoying decades ago.

Despite the adage that money doesn’t buy happiness, economic security can literally save your life. This is true from a racial lens as well as a climate lens. Money helps people weather the storm of medical emergencies, chronic illnesses, afford healthy foods, afford quality education to get a life-sustaining job and…the list goes on.

So, climate heightens the vulnerabilities of the most vulnerable. Due to racist policies, Black people are some of the most socially vulnerable in the US. Money does a lot to improve resilience (or decrease vulnerability). Therefore, climate, race, and economics are all connected. Solutions should reflect that.

Climate ‘solutions’ that maintain the unjust status quo

Though any climate solution can fail to advance social justice if poorly developed and/or deployed, here are a few examples of false climate solutions that can easily gain traction.

Strategies aimed at overpopulation

The overpopulation argument has gone through waves of popularity over the years, and can seem extremely reasonable at first. It follows this logic: 1) looks at the sheer number of people on this planet, 2) considers the fact that as a whole we are living way beyond what the planet’s resources can support, 3) points to the exponential growth projections of humans over the rest of the century, 4) and concludes that a necessary solution to our climate collapse must be somehow limiting the global population.

The truth is, this argument is a slippery slope into racist suggestions and uses scapegoating to distract from the real problem. Humans are capable of living in large numbers in sustainable relationship with Earth’s resources. The overshoot we are in is a result of just the richest 6.5% of the world, who are responsible for 50% of the world’s heat-trapping emissions (Sierra Club). No iteration of ethnic cleansing nor reproductive control is the solution. The solution is to change the cultural and economic system that normalizes the irresponsible lifestyles of the rich.

Tech that excuses further exploitation

(and other neo-colonialist practices)

Electric vehicles (EVs) are lauded as a climate solution that rich people love. Unfortunately, the EV industry has some skeletons in its closet. One example is the currently-occurring exploitation of countries for rare metals to meet the growing demand for EVs. This is an example of neo-colonialism, a modern day recreation of the extractive practices of colonialism and capitalism that eventually gave birth to the climate crisis. It’s a practice by which “rich countries are investing in the Global South and dictating how to maintain land and forests to people who have lived there for, in some cases, thousands of years” (Columbia Climate Society).

~New and different~ facilities that pollute

We must be careful to not perpetuate the cycle of racist polluting with new industries that position themselves as climate solutions.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen production facilities are starting to crop up more across the country. Hydrogen is a contentious fuel that is purported to be clean. But many climate justice advocates view these facilities as a way to extend the usage of fossil fuels in environmental justice communities. In fact, most current hydrogen production relies on fossil fuels and thus contributes to more pollution and heat-trapping emissions. There are different types of hydrogen based on the energy source it is converting from, which range from renewables to natural gas (Grist). It’s necessary to hold hydrogen producers to account for any pollution and emissions they produce in pursuit of this ‘new clean fuel.’

Carbon capture

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) are technologies that capture carbon emissions at fossil-fueled power plants and industrial facilities. The carbon is then either sequestered underground or put to use. This is another strategy fossil fuel companies love to promote as it allows them to extend their fossil fuel production. It lets them claim that it’s possible (even worthwhile) to produce oil and gas while minimizing emissions. In reality, CCS technology poses additional health and safety threats to neighboring communities, is not completely effective, does nothing to reduce other harmful pollutants, and diverts attention away from real climate solutions (Earthjustice).

Solutions that champion both climate and racial justice

Improve air pollution by ending oil and gas combustion

Fossil fuel happens to be both the biggest driver of climate change and the biggest contributor to deadly air pollution. Roughly half of all air pollution-related deaths in the US are from the burning of fossil fuels. When we finally quit burning oil and gas, we will be saving many thousands of lives each year, most of which will be Black lives. That’s a win for for racial justice, and for the climate fight.

Learn from the majority-Black cities with low climate vulnerability

The aforementioned climate vulnerability gap analysis also found there are several majority-Black cities and towns across the US that have low climate vulnerability, even some in areas with high exposure (Brookings, Tables 1 and 2). We should focus on what they are doing right and learn how to implement potential resilience improvements in other locales with higher climate vulnerability for Black communities.

It is not surprising that these cities all share lower poverty rates, relatively higher median household incomes, and higher rates of home ownership. Which brings me to…

JOBS.

Due to the tight links between climate, race, and economics, climate solutions should lift up the poorest among us and work to solve the racial wealth gap. Building economic power among Black Americans is crucial.

It’s difficult to organize and scale community-wide solutions to the growing threats of climate change when so many people are struggling to simply make ends meet and stay out of poverty. That’s why all locales should focus on creating more green jobs with livable wages, targeted to the communities that need it most. Such local green jobs must improve community wealth and climate resilience through community-led projects like planting trees and native plants, insulating buildings, and producing community-owned energy. Community-owned solar projects are an especially exciting model. Benefits include cleaner air, improved health, green jobs in the construction and maintenance, community empowerment and wealth building, and improved resilience during blackouts.

Addressing the climate crisis does not guarantee racial justice is achieved or progressed. Climate and racial justice have to be fought for all along the way. If they are not at the forefront and woven all throughout, those ‘solutions’ will further entrench the inequities and injustices that exist. Reigning paradigms and social orders continue like inertia unless challenged and pushed towards an alternative. Meanwhile, meaningful climate and racial justice solutions exist and Black advocates have been fighting for them all along. If we focus on uplifting those leaders and solutions, a healthy, safe, joyful world for all people is within reach.