The Fight Against Climate Change Needs To Address Environmental Racism

By Sara Radin


In 2018, three children and one young adult died from cancer and other illnesses in St. John The Baptist Parish, Louisiana, linked to emissions from the LaPlace chemical plant. In Flint, Michigan, the mostly Black community has been drinking poisonous water containing lead since 2014, when the city changed the drinking water provide from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in task to save cash. The allocate, which is still ongoing, has since “officially” caused 12 deaths, and several more sick children and adults. And at Standing Rock, indigenous folks are fighting for water protection land sovereignty against harmful oil spills as a result of the North Dakota Access Pipeline.


Each of those communities have been massively affected by environmental racism, a widespread crisis that impacts marginalized people living in lower-income areas across the nation. A scientific study published on March 11, 2019 in the journal PNAS, revealed a grim, albeit not shocking, reality about “pollution inequity”: Air pollution is disproportionately caused by the mass consumption done by white Residents of the
U.S., However it is unduly inhaled by black and Latinx Americans.


The study noticed racial-ethnic disparities in the origin and effect of exposure to fine particulate matter, revealing that non-Hispanic white people experience a "pollution advantage" in which, “they experience [approximately] 17 percent far less air pollution exposure than is caused by their consumption.” This is in stark contrast to the numbers for Black and Latinx people, which on average bear a “pollution burden” of 56 percent and 63 percent excess exposure, respectively, which is relative to the exposure caused by their own consumption.


While the vicious impact of air pollution on specifically lower-income, mostly Brown and Black communities has been perplexing by a few scientific research, Anjum Hajat, an epidemiologist at the University Washington, pointed out to NPR that this is the initial one to quantify a direct correlation between white consumption and the impacts of their air pollution on marginalized people. In addition, Hajat posed an important question: "If you're contributing far less to the problem, how come you should suffer more from it?"


This is a key but usual critique among activists who have long argued environmental issues disproportionately impact the lives of marginalized people, thanks in part to outdated, colonial, white supremacist ideas.


“I would argue that In the
U.S. This offer goes all of the way back to the nation’s founding,” Mia Eastman, a mobile member of Earth Guardians, a youth empowerment corporation working to defend the planet, tells MTV News. “This nation was built by white people for white people; naturally environmental racism was going to be a byproduct.”


The 18-year-old activist cites the 1982 Warren County protests against the unlawful dumping of soil contaminated with harmful chemicals called PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) which have been linked to cancer, because the birth of the national environmental justice movement. According to the New York Times, the landfill affected residents in Afton, North Carolina — a tiny town where more than 64 percent of the community was Black; protestors argued that the dump could contaminate the local water allocate, and that dumping the polluted soil there was “racially motivated.” Benjamin Chavis, a African-American civil rights leader, later coined the term “environmental racism” to describe the ways in which the government and firms perpetrated institutionalized racism at an organic resource level.


According to Erika Galera, the programs and marketing manager for the Food Empowerment Project, environmental racism occurs any time communities of color are impacted by negative pollutants. “This would be from toxic dumps, oil refineries, or farms that raise animals for food,” she tells MTV News. “But I would mention it also impacts people in terms of their environment, with some communities lacking things like roads, sidewalks, and access to healthy foods.”


Privilege and racism have routinely played a part in this country’s history and policy. Case in point, the connection between the environment and racism is exceptionally intertwined. Celine Semaan, a supporter and the founder of a sustainable conference series called The Library Study Hall, also cites the ways in which nature has been treated as “a resource waiting to be conquered and exploited for the (white) man's benefit.”


the largest culprits of environmental racism, according to Eastman, are capitalist corporations, the government, and people with “unchecked privilege” who take advantage of society’s most susceptible. As numerous manmade environmental disasters have proven to us, big firms tend to put profit before generic human needs like safe drinking water, healthy soil for growing food, and good air high quality. Brandie Alexander, an activist who often gives talks about environmental racism from an indigenous perspective, says this is “an injustice people of color face due to industrialization — profit over people," especially given that minority groups and specifically Black and Brown folks are more likely to be working class, lower-income or unemployed, and are also more likely to suffer from a lack of affordable housing and housing discrimination.


It leads to a vicious and often inescapable cycle: “Without housing, several [of these individuals] return to areas that are not safe due to industrial plant pollution, water contamination by lead, and animal agriculture run off of urine and feces,” Alexander points out.


The health issues that people often experience as a result of environmental racism can also compound upon other health issues; as soon as individuals reside in close proximity to air pollution, it may gravely impact their health, worsening or causing a span of respiratory problems, cancer, and other serious issues. As an example, in 2018 a study by Boston University revealed that air full of smog can impact one's reproductive endocrine system, causing teen ladies to have uncommon periods. Researchers at the University of Southern California noticed that higher levels of air pollution could cause inflammation in adolescent brains, leading to an increase in instances of teen delinquency.


For people who reside in these affected communities and are incensed by this disparity, the avenues to fight back are limited; these individuals often don’t readily have access to lawyers capable of taking on the big corporations poisoning their water, soil, or air. “Those who have the most cash have the power to control what laws are made,” Alexander says. “Since these agencies pay lobbyists to protect their dangerous practices, there really are very relaxed federal protections." In Alexander's view, white folks are simply disinterested in the environments of communities where people of color live and raise their families. “It’s out of sight, out of mind,” she says.


“Climate change is racist because this world is racist," Semaan adds. "Race and the environment are interlinked issues and this must be taken care of in a holistic way, by looking at colonialism and its impact across countries, not only via American lens."


While the environmental justice movement is building greater momentum, Eastman says it’s essential to remember to amplify the voices affected by environmental racism. “More indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander voices must be heard and allowed the space to lead,” she says.


And as members of Generation Z like Eastman come of age, they can play a bigger role in making a more equitable and environmentally-sound future. Young people can donate their time, cash, and votes to corporations, activists, and politicians devoted to combatting environmental racism and nearing the allocate intersectionally.


“We can continue taking to the streets, training the youth on how to be more impactful leaders, speaking to our local government officials, and running for office ourselves,” Eastman proclaims. “We are taking back the power.”