Racial Justice – Climate Justice Now

Social Sustainability: Building Resilient Food Systems

Luz Ramirez COVID-19, Racial Justice, Sustainability August 1, 2021August 4, 2021

“The notion that the food system can be transformed through individual acts of consumption—rather than through lobbying, organizing, boycotts, mobilization, or direct action—fits nicely within the prevailing neoliberal economic rhetoric: that unregulated capitalist markets yield the most efficient allocation of resources.”

– Eric Holt-Giménez and Yi Wang, 2011

As this initial quote so eloquently puts it, post-colonial forms of domination have influenced practices and policies within food systems. Power of what colonists referred to as “barbaric” or “savage” nations continues to be embedded in the very structures of our society. What follows below is an abridgment/summary of some of the challenges that affect food systems and constructive ideas moving forward from the ongoing global coronavirus crisis.

Social Justice and Human Rights

Although there has been much media coverage of labor shortages and issues with global food distribution, there are underlying factors that are far more potent in terms of an actual threat. Such deeply rooted issues stem from public health concerns and social inequities faced by farmworkers, consumers, and all those, directly and indirectly participating in the food system.

Industrial farming and public health concerns:

Overcrowding on factory farms, where cattle, pigs and chickens are raised, is responsible for global health implications far beyond what we may have imagined. Industrialized factory farms can transmit zoonotic diseases via water, air, food, and directly through the transmission of farmers. Five modern diseases on the rise because of factory farms are E.Coli, MRSA, Mad Cow Disease, Salmonella and Obesity.

The need for intensive agricultural practices in monocropped corn, soy, and produce relies heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Herbicide exposure, like that of Glyphosate, threatens human health while disrupting the ecosystem of numerous organisms. Growing evidence by Environmental Health Perspectives and Nature suggest that the human gut microbiome is subject to intestinal dysbiosis (imbalance of microflora), when exposed to xenobiotics, organic pollutants, and foodborne chemicals. More in-depth recent research has been able to associate the dysbiosis of the lung microbiome with the development of respiratory diseases. The severity of these findings implies that continued use of agricultural chemicals can increase the risk of human vulnerability to acute respiratory infections like that of (SARS-CoV-2).

The production of inexpensive, low nutrient food contributes to agricultural runoff. And because agricultural runoff impacts water quality, the likelihood of tap water contamination along with seafood poisoning is greater.

For the farm and factory workers who make up the agricultural workforce, their fundamental human rights and health are neglected. A recent article by The Guardian revealed some of the labor-intensive and hazardous conditions experienced by U.S farmworkers. These ranged from long working days, exposure to extreme heat, to lack of access to water. Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) reported in 2019 that an estimated 70,000 farm workers were injured and 815 killed due to heat exposure. Findings by the Agricultural Health Study suggest that certain pesticides are linked to kidney cancer in agricultural workers. Other studies conducted by the National Library of Medicine say that farming populations in countries like the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States experienced one of the highest rates of suicide.

Social inequity/ human rights issues:

This section will examine some of the repercussions associated with incompetent policies and governments and their inability to protect different supply chain sectors.

Beginning with farmworkers, living conditions for workers vary depending on geographic location, immigration status, etc. Still, in places like the U.S., inflated housing prices accompanied by low-paying wages often force workers to live in “substandard housing conditions.” Similarly, living in remote areas deprives these workers of essential services, education, and support systems.

Increased production demand is one challenge often faced by the food processing workforce. Demand for food production, especially during the pandemic, revealed the invisible issues in our food system. Worker shortages halted food production worldwide and created enormous demand for production workers who needed time off.

The issue of food security among urban, low-income ethnic minority groups is another outcome of our ailing food systems. Availability of nutritious food and its affordability neglects the needs and root problems of diverse communities. Yet, it seems like the most immediate solution to these problems is to provide greater accessibility to fast food chains. As if this wasn’t bad enough, food pantries, which are supposed to distribute food directly to those in need, are also stigmatized. Invisible inequalities in our food systems are the reason why “more than one-third of American adults, and 48% of African American adults, are obese” (CDC, 2015). Ultimately, all these problems raise a critical question: How can consumers eat locally, ethically, and sustainably without purchasing power?

Thinking ahead:

To build socially responsible and sustainable food systems, we will need to:

Take Collective Action by:

Subsidizing urban and suburban farming industries that protect and promote soil biodiversity. Minimizing soil disturbance while maximizing microbiome biodiversity directly through regenerative agricultural practices will eliminate any dependency on fertilizer, solve agricultural runoff issues, and protect public health.
Increase public health safety measures by improving the way food is processed, shipped, and distributed.
Provide technical assistance by documenting more studies on the challenges faced by farmworkers. One example is to amplify nationwide real-time heat stress monitoring programs.
Establish workforce unions that protect incomes, families and farmworkers.
Provide education sessions on structural racism within the food system.
Support infrastructure that focuses on the development of small, local, sustainable food enterprises and initiatives.
Introduce a food systems approach to our food supply chain. Since every step of the supply chain requires human and/or natural resources, knowing how to support not just good environmental practices but the rights and livelihoods of individuals along the food chain are crucial. And lastly, establishing food policies that are guided by a concept known as agroecology.

Individual Actions:

Support farm and food workers with more than just your purchasing power. For example, opting to support grassroots movements that work locally by volunteering, donating, or advocating for what they stand for.

In this last section, I would like to provide a list of valuable resources:

I want to finish this review with a powerful quote from Policylink “An equitable food system is one that creates a new paradigm in which all — including those most vulnerable and those living in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color — can fully participate, prosper, and benefit. It is a system that, from farm to table, from processing to disposal, ensures economic opportunity; high-quality jobs with living wages; safe working conditions; access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food; and environmental sustainability.”

Featured image from CSRIO

What Now? Reflecting on 2020

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future, Racial Justice December 19, 2020December 19, 20202020, business, future, pandemic, politics, social justice, sustainability

There are a few weeks left of 2020. They might take a few days, or perhaps another few months, to pass—time didn’t move quite logically this year. It seems like a lot of people just want to fast forward through to get to 2021, a year still full with the hope that the vaccine will bring everything back to normal. I’d like to make a counterproposal: what if instead of wishing away what was for most people a bizarre year, we stop for a moment and look back at it? And what if instead of wishing for a return to the normal, we embrace the good that comes of change?

2020 was the year of COVID, of race protests, of isolation, one of the most dramatic U.S. elections in living memory. It was the year of the unprecedented. The borders closed between European countries for the first time since the establishment of the European Union. The border between the U.S. and Europe closed for the first time ever—and seems to be staying that way. Everything we accepted as normal, the good and the bad, tore away to reveal a messy, imperfect world. It’s a dark planet, but even from space it glitters with the lights of all our cities, grids connecting billions of people’s lives and stories. Perhaps in this year’s darkness the lights shone even brighter, because there was so much good in 2020, too.

This year, global conflict became unavoidably personal for everyone. This article phrases it perfectly, “In some ways, the pandemic has been a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis. Human beings throughout the world have been called upon to embrace science, change their lifestyles and make sacrifices for the common good.” This year was about awareness—maybe that’s why Americans’ concern about the climate crisis rose from 44% to an all-time high of 60% this year. Perhaps they realized that it’s no coincidence emissions dropped 9% at the same time that travel and consumption slowed—the biggest yearly drop on record. Though emissions are expected to increase again next year, they still won’t be higher than any year since 1990. Yet another reason this year’s timeline feels off: in some ways we’ve been time traveling. In San Francisco, traffic levels across the Golden Gate Bridge fell to levels similar to the 1950s, resulting in coyotes wandering across. The drop in noise from our usually bustling cities caused a change in bird song: “While it might have seemed to human ears that bird song got louder, the sparrows actually sang more quietly,” explains Dr. Elizabeth Derryberry of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

We also moved forward in time, making huge and exciting progress toward the future of global energy, renewables. During shutdowns, with reduced demand for power, grid operators relied more on cheaper renewable energy sources, and almost 10% of electricity generation in most parts of the world were sourced from renewable energy sources. Denmark, already a leader in wind energy, just announced that it will stop providing licenses for oil exploration in the North Sea, preventing the extraction of about 150 million barrels of oil by 2050. The plan, which Climate and Energy Minister Dan Jorgensen announced as a historic step toward a fossil-free future that will “resonate around the world,” was created as an economic response to the pandemic.

So with the present as an exciting conglomeration of the future and past, all de-familiarized by the fact that we’re still living through it, I ask…now what? What does the future need to look like, across government, business, and society, to create a clean and just world? In the United States, leaders would do well to learn from Nordic countries, China and India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. President-elect Biden’s outline of some of his climate goals, including rejoining the Paris Agreement, is cause for hope, but the support of the judiciary, in addition to the executive and lawmakers, is necessary. Globally, a total of 1,587 cases of climate litigation have been brought between 1986 and mid-2020: 1,213 cases in the U.S. and 374 cases in 36 other countries and eight regional or international jurisdictions. These numbers are increasing rapidly, and according to this LSE study, “These cases play an important supporting role in ensuring the national implementation of international emissions-reduction commitments, the alignment of national laws with the Paris Agreement, and the enforcement of laws and policies relating to climate resilience.” This year, in the U.S., a federal judge ruled that the highly controversial Dakota Access Pipeline be shut down because federal officials failed to adequately analyze the project’s environmental impact. Also this year, in Portugal, six young people filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, demanding accountability from 33 top-emitting countries for the climate crisis and that funds for economic restoration from the pandemic are spent in a way that ensures a rapid transition to renewable energy. While individual executive leadership is important, the role of other branches of government, and of international organizations, cannot be dismissed.

Change on a government level is infamously slow—passing progressive plans through multiple levels of bureaucracy and special interests can hardly be the only way to enact change, though it’s undoubtedly an important one. Businesses also have a role to play in ensuring a rapid transition to sustainability. From simplifying global supply chains to replacing physical structures with digital platforms, businesses occupy a unique position that enables not just rapid reaction to shifting norms but also the ability to spearhead change. One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of greenhouse gas emissions, and massive corporations must be accountable for their impact on the planet. In this area, there is good news. Walmart has cut 230 million metric tons of greenhouse gases out of its supply chain in the past three years, Uniliver vowed to replace the petrochemicals found in its detergents and household cleaners with renewable or recycled alternatives, Apple committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, and Lyft said 100% of its trips will be in electric vehicles within the decade. In the realm of startups and investors, a changing mindset is even more evident. Green startups are more common than ever, reimagining everything from how nitrogen fertilizer is created for global agriculture to how to simultaneously reduce food waste and hunger.

More than simply building back better, we need to build back equal, creating social change that reduces inequality as we focus on green growth. What a just transition entails varies by country, depending on the place’s particular culture, norms, and historical legacies, so there is no one solution to be prescribed in order to ensure equality and effective reform everywhere. But there is one commonality, one overarching goal we must keep in mind as the world pulls itself out of this chaotic year, and this unsustainable epoch of human history: what comes next is entirely up to us. The actions that governments, businesses, and individuals take now will affect everyone for generations to come. There is only one global climate future—the one whose foundations are being built by the decisions we make today.

Featured image from La Croix

Mental Health and Activism in 2020

Francesca Von Krauland COVID-19, Global Future, Racial Justice, Uncategorized December 16, 2020December 16, 2020activism, black lives matter, climate change, mental health, pandemic, racial justice

Earlier this year, the previous Climate Justice Now blogger, Dominique, wrote an article entitled Taking Care of Yourself and the Environment. As 2020 winds down, I think mental health, especially as it relates to activism, the events of this year, and racial factors, is an important topic to readdress. No one’s life was unaffected by COVID-19, but rather than giving into the despair that sometimes accompanies massive upheaval, many people focused on working toward positive change in areas they felt more control over—addressing racial injustice, making progress in the climate movement, and (particularly in the U.S.) political campaigning to ensure that we have forward-thinking leaders to guide us into the next year.

While admirable as a coping mechanism, and a necessary part of creating change to protect others in the future, those who engage in activism often experience adverse mental health effects because of their work. Often, the issues that people fight for are deeply personal, fueled by identity and trauma. Having such a stake in the outcome of one’s work makes for powerful activism, but also poses a threat to the emotional stability of those who engage in it. Activists are at a higher risk of developing PTSD and suicidal ideation when their identities are wrapped up in the causes they champion, and even those whose identities aren’t experience vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue, which also pose a risk. This organization points out that movements struggle to hold onto their most passionate, committed activists because of burnout. For people who make careers out of activism, the effects are magnified: the hectic schedules and low pay associated with activism can result in stress from familial tension, a lack of access to medical services, and anxiety about the future in regards to retirement or even homeownership. Those in the field emphasize that addressing activist mental health is essential to the protection of both individuals as activists and the movements themselves.

While mental health has long been an issue in relation to activism, this year, with the added stress of the pandemic and all of its associated disruptions, our collective mental state is perhaps more precarious than ever. The WHO explains, “Fear, worry, and stress are normal responses to perceived or real threats, and at times when we are faced with uncertainty or the unknown. So it is normal and understandable that people are experiencing fear in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.” In addition to the very-valid fear of microscopic particles floating about, ready to send any non-mask wearing person to the ICU, there’s the added burden of isolation from all the joys of life that usually help with coping: seeing family and friends over a meal, working out at the gym, and browsing one’s favorite stores, for example. Added to this, the fact that unemployment is rising, many people have lost loved ones to the virus, and living situations are altered, the rise in anxiety, depression, substance abuse, insomnia, and other mental health conditions is unsurprising. To compound the issue, the pandemic has disrupted or halted critical mental health services in 93% of countries worldwide at a time when they are most needed. As Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, urges, “World leaders must move fast and decisively to invest more in life-saving mental health programmes—during the pandemic and beyond.”

As the sun sets earlier and people retreat indoors, people who struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) are more at risk than ever of experiencing overwhelming symptoms of low energy, poor mood, and social withdrawal, among others. Dr. Desan of Yale Medicine states, ““We are seeing an obvious increase in the number of people seeking help for anxiety, and that’s not unreasonable. People are anxious about catching COVID-19, among other related issues,” Dr. Desan says. “This is a major mental health event.”

As with most other major issues, the collective suffers, but a particular segment of the population feels the effects most acutely. On the topics of both mental health as it relates to activism and mental health during the pandemic, while U.S. adults reported considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions this year, younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities, essential workers, and unpaid adult caregivers reported having experienced disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, according to the CDC. Particularly for people of color, who this year led the Black Lives Matter movement through emotional protests deeply tied to their identity, heightened rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide compound the pressures associated with the discrimination they protest in the first place, in addition to the pandemic, and the climate-related problems, and so much more. It’s no wonder that the term self-care was coined by black woman activist Audre Lorde when she famously said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” After a year like 2020, everyone, but especially those most impacted, must look after themselves—starting with mental health.

The language we use for particularly successful activists—”champions” of a cause—reveals the underlying psychology that fuels the mental health problem in activist movements. Linda Sarsour, one of the founders of the Women’s March and a Muslim Palestinian-American activist, says, “Activists often become caricatures to people, for some even super-human. Many don’t realize the deep depression and anxiety we experience. The work is overwhelming and [it’s] compounded by not feeling safe and worrying about your life and the lives of your children.” Recognizing that caring deeply for the world is a kind of emotional labor that taxes the mind and body is a good first step in the direction of protecting one’s mental health. Next, mental health care needs to be made more accessible to everyone, especially those from marginalized communities who most need it. And finally, until then, the most powerful tools activists, and anyone struggling with mental health has, is self-care.

Dominique’s blog wisely recommends that people feeling overwhelmed spend time in nature, reach out to others, and “remember that anxiety is rooted in love for the people and places in your life.” I think that last one is particularly important—gratitude is perhaps the strongest cure for despair. It is a privilege to love something so deeply as to ache at its absence, its obscuring. Acknowledging that pain is often rooted in one’s ability to imagine better means that hurting and hoping go hand in hand. This is the power of language: we can rephrase the problem. 2020 changed almost everything for almost everyone. This is a time of opportunity, not of crisis. We’ve ripped the bandage off of a wounded world and it burns. The world in 2020 is a messy gash with still-drying blood, but without the bandage, we can imagine what the skin will feel like when it’s healed.

Healing, despite its poetry, is a science. The world will not heal with hope and imagination alone—certainly, those need to be there, along with despair at how things are now, but most of all, we need science. Thought and logic and clear-headedness drives movements. Science makes up vaccines and holds the solution to climate change. Logic battles the judgement we have for the parts of us that are struggling: what is more logical a reaction to the horrors of 2020 than to, in fact, feel horror? And then to acknowledge it, and then to channel the horror into yet more logic, that needed to solve the problem. All is not as it should be—but only because the work isn’t quite done yet. We’re getting there. Painfully, hopefully, and with science and gratitude.

Featured Image from AmGen

Intergenerational Movement Building

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future, Racial Justice, Uncategorized December 15, 2020December 15, 2020black lives matter, climate justice, history, march for our lives, multigenerational activism

Few individuals bring as much attention to the climate movement as Greta Thunberg, whose efforts have rallied children, lawmakers, and skeptics alike to the cause of tackling climate change. Though perhaps the best known young activist, Greta is far from the only student taking the lead in a cause. In fact, historically, young people have led the way for social change, working alongside professionals and older activists to overhaul problematic norms all over the world. Today, in movements like Black Lives Matter and Fridays for Future, multigenerational movement building is an effective and necessary goal to achieve lasting improvements.

Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager, has addressed both the U.S. Congress and the United Nations about taking drastic measures to address climate change. Despite bringing attention to a movement involving several million people, the Global Climate Strikes, Greta emphasizes, “I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.” Yet societal problems affect young people profoundly, and they can’t always wait until they’re older to do something about it. The lives of young black and indigenous activists are shaped daily by systemic forces far older than them, and they can’t afford to hope that their parents’ generation will make the changes that are so long overdue. As I discussed in my previous article, people of color are particularly impacted by climate change, and are therefore very active in the climate movement. Indigenous young people who protested at Standing Rock, Kanaka Maoli youth who defended land at Mauna Kea, and students in Flint, Michigan are just some of the children whose lives are at stake because of environmental threats.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that every person under the age of 18 has the right to participate in the decision-making processes that impact them. Organizations like UNICEF work to give young people a platform to participate in climate action, hosting events like the 2019 United Nations Youth Climate Summit in New York City for activists to express their views in a public forum, but many young people actually founded their own organizations to spread their messages. For example, a youth group founded the Black Lives Matter Youth Vanguard to protect black children, particularly in schools, New Jersey teenager Anya Dillard founded Next Gen Come Up, an organization “dedicated to encouraging youth activism and community service through media and creativity,” and 18-year-old Sophie Ming organized large protests in Manhattan and founded the New York City Youth Collective to educate young people on issues related to the BLM movement. Some youth are even writing books to help other youth build the movement, such as Jamie Margolin’s Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other young people working for justice every day, even and especially throughout this chaotic year of the pandemic.

Throughout history, social change has always been spearheaded not by those in power, like lawmakers and judges, but by visionaries too young to be constrained by outdated ideas of how things should be. In fact, Ben & Jerry’s (another reason to love their ice cream) created a succinct outline of global student activism within recent history, from the 1960 Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-Ins to protest segregation, to the 1968 University Uprisings against government censorship in France and capitalist consumerism in Poland, to the Vietnam War protests of the ’60s and ’70s, to the Soweto Uprising of 1976 against South African Apartheid, to the Velvet Revolution in Prague to push the Communist party out of power after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protest in Beijing, to the 2010 Arab Spring, 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, and 2018 March for Our Lives against gun violence. The list includes movements led by college and, more recently, high school-aged people working to address the corruption, prejudice, and oppression that would limit their futures. It’s astounding that people so young could be so forward-thinking, but who better to envision a safer future than those who will live it?

Young activists are more likely to be flexible, think of the big picture, and use innovative means for campaigning, like social media, but without the support of adults who can actually implement changes, progress would still be years away. This is why it’s so important for older people to be involved with movements too—not only are they more likely to have wisdom to share on how to build and sustain social movements, they might also have the funds to fuel the movement, the expertise to guide its focus, and the wisdom to mentor young leaders, and protect them from the emotional exhaustion and physical threats sometimes tied to activist work. Movements today are not just intergenerational—they are also interdisciplinary. “The number of marchers is unprecedented, from different economic, ethnic, and racial groups—an awakening unlike any that I’ve seen on this Earth in over 70 years,” Bullard, a professor for urban planning and environmental policy, and activist, explains. “Today, the different movements are converging, and I think that convergence makes for greater potential for success.”

Movements also shape higher education, which in turn shapes the students who will then begin their careers with the goals of social and climate justice at the forefront of their minds. For example, Dr. Beverly Wright, a professor of sociology, trains leaders from historically black American universities in the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. She founded the HBCU Climate Change Consortium and the HBCU-CBO Gulf Equity Consortium, where her students assisted Hurricane Katrina victims and researched climate impacts on vulnerable communities. She also took them to the COP21 in Paris to witness the negotiation of the Paris Climate Accord. Such programs might not exist if climate activism were not so widespread, and students exposed to these kinds of opportunities are more likely to continue to pursue work that centers on sustainability and climate justice. The field of environmental engineering is another example of the institutionalization of the progress of the climate movement; a relatively new field in higher education, environmental engineering focuses on the prevention, control, and remediation of hazards to the environment using engineering expertise. With the existence of such fields, a young person today could learn about climate change in school, become an activist with the support of adult mentors, study a relevant field in university, and then go on to become a scientist, lawmaker, businessperson, or other global shaper in a position to implement the changes he or she studied the need for. It’s a hopeful path, but just one of many that exists for young people today who care so deeply about the planet and the people on it.

It’s easy to see young activists as heroes—altruists and outliers to their age group. But the reality is that young people have always cared, because they’ve always had to—it’s a matter of survival. Perhaps the fact that activists are younger, high schoolers and even middle schoolers rather than young adults, is a sign that no one is protected from the stark realities of our warming planet—least of all those who will inherit it.

Featured image from Time

Racial and Climate Justice: Shared Goals

Francesca Von Krauland Global Future, Racial Justice, Uncategorized December 12, 2020December 12, 2020activism, black lives matter, climate justice, defund police, racial justice

Skimming headlines, it’s clear that a few issues dominated our collective headspace this year: the COVID-19 crisis, racial injustice in the United States, and the increasingly alarming problem of climate change. Written out, they seem like separate categories, like one could place a given newsworthy event within a single topical classification without acknowledging the existence of the others. Obviously, this is not the case. In a country (and world) in which people of color are disproportionately affected by both the changing climate and the pandemic, in addition to facing direct discrimination, the three problems are closely intertwined, so that the discussion of one necessarily links to another. The movements for racial justice and climate justice share goals, and the ways in which these aims can be achieved have considerable overlap as well. One of the most-discussed ways of addressing the racial violence in the U.S. this year can be summed up by the slogan “Defund the Police.” But what does that actually mean, and why could it be a step in the direction of both racial and climate justice?

The idea of “defunding the police” actually refers to the idea of reallocating police funding away from traditional law enforcement. Much of the violence making headlines this year—in addition to the violence that hasn’t always made headlines for many, many years before this one—is perpetrated by the police against the black community in the United States. American cities collectively spend $100 billion per year on policing, resulting in police departments with military-grade equipment, while education, housing, health care, and other essential programs suffer chronic underfunding, disproportionately effecting communities of color. By decreasing the police budget and funneling money toward these programs, communities would be strengthened and the potential for the police to abuse their power severely undercut.

The social benefit to such a policy is matched only by the environmental one. Money previously put towards enabling violence could instead support environmental initiatives. According to this report, “As the state faces a pandemic-driven budget crisis, the programs that cap-and-trade revenue funds—including climate and environmental justice programs, investing in jobs and climate mitigation in black and brown communities—could now be at risk.” Freeing up funding to support these initiatives would be essential both to continuing to combat climate change and to supporting people of color, directly and indirectly. The Black Lives Matter movement has long supported what it refers to as a policy of “Invest-Divest,” or investing in Black communities by divesting from the forces that oppress them, such as police, prisons, and fossil fuels. It’s a policy that other countries have adopted with success. Sweden’s criminal justice system emphasizes short prison sentences that actually reduce the rate of reoffending. It focuses on rehabilitation rather than punishment, unlike the American system. In the U.S., it’s well known that long prison sentences stunt disproportionately-black former inmates’ successful reintegration into society, but a lesser known impact of the jail system is the environmental damage it causes. Many prisons produce waste and emissions far above local and federal standards because of overcrowding, an issue exacerbated by the growing prison population and the length of their punishments. Clearly, a reform of the criminal justice system, to include defunding the police, addressing unfair sentencing, and reconceptualizing prisons, would have both social and environmental advantages.

People of color also disproportionately live near these polluting prisons, in addition to other facilities emitting harmful pollutants. This study finds that people in poverty are exposed to greater quantities of fine particulate matter—including automobile fumes, smog, soot, oil smoke, ash, and construction dust, which are carcinogens—than people living above the poverty line, because they are much more likely to live near polluters. This exposure causes lung conditions, heart attacks, asthma, low birth weights, high blood pressure, and premature deaths, conditions statistically linked to poorer, nonwhite populations. The EPA states that decreasing the production of these particles and regulating emissions would directly benefit these populations—another example of the overlapping aims of the climate and racial justice movements.

The idea of combining the aims of the two movements is nothing new. Just as feminists support climate activism, black activists have drawn up their own version of the Green New Deal and Build Back Equal, which places racial and climate justices’ considerable overlap at the center of their goals. In 1966, the Freedom Budget by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin planned for a ten year program that would address employment, wages, health care, and clean air, with the aim of economic justice. Even then, the condition of the environment was a priority for the nation’s future—an essential component of ensuring a good standard of living for black and white Americans alike. This is a goal that has only become more urgent as climate change—and racial violence—worsens. Perhaps 2020 can be the year that movements converged, and racial justice became the goal of climate activists, and climate justice that of racial activists, because, after all, black or white, we need to make sure our shared future is green.

Featured image from Climate X Change

The Social Trend of Black Lives Matter

Dominique Agnew Racial Justice July 26, 2020July 26, 2020

In this final blog in the media blog series I wanted to talk about one of the most prominent social movements today, the #BlackLivesMatter movement. We are all aware of the protests around these three words but do we know where it originated or what is stands for? In these next few paragraphs I hope to answer a few of those questions and create insight for those that want to learn more.

Herstory - Black Lives Matter — From Left to Right: Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Image from BlackLivesMatter.com

In the summer of 2013, George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of 17-year old Trayvon Martin. As a young Black woman at the time, watching the case and seeing that acquittal hurt my heart… a lot. I remember the place I was where I heard the news. I remember the protests that ensued weeks after the case decision. This was the moment that three wonderful, brave, Black woman created the social movement #BlackLivesMatter. Seeing Trayvon Martin not get the justice he deserved prompted Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi to create a movement that showed America that Black people deserve justice. To show that the 17 year old kid walking down the street eating skittles should be alive today.

Throughout the last 7 years, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign has come in and out of what I call “popular circulation.” Currently it is in the most popular phase I think it has ever been in. Thursday night, while I was watching the Yankees vs. Nationals game, I noticed the Nationals had “BLM” ON THEIR FIELD. My mom and I were shocked. A couple weeks ago Amazon had a message of solidarity on their home page. Almost every college across the country has sent a message of solidarity to their students. There are different opinions about the motivations and effectiveness of actions and messages like these. However, what exactly is BLM now? I think that the initial message of BLM is still very prevalent but it has expanded. Initially it was meant to bring attention to the increased violence Americans have toward Black people, and this message still stands but it now expands to almost every aspect of systematic racism that affects Black Lives. It is becoming more and more apparent that there are systems across many fields that disproportionately affect Black people, such as the healthcare gap that exists and the environmental racism that affects thousands across the nation.

Companies Taking A Stand Against Racism and Inequality | Diversity ... — L’Oreal sending a solidarity message to its users.

Corporate America Finally Says 'Black Lives Matter' — Message from Nike

I am thankful for the increase in popularity of the Black Lives Matter movement. Personally it has made me look at some of my friends differently and put into perspective the kind of power that big corporations and social influencers have on society. However, there are some downsides. A lot of people are just seeing this movement as a trend that they can hop on and hop off of, and this is just not okay. Just like everything I have previously talked about in this blog series, lives are being greatly affected by these events and this goes beyond just posting an educational post on your Twitter page. I don’t like the fact that it is very likely that this time next year or even a few months from now the BLM on the baseball fields and the posts by Kylie Jenner are going to be forgotten or completely discarded. I mean, it kind of already happened already in 2013 when the original BLM mantra became popular. Just like every other topic I have talked about, no matter if the topic stays popular in media or not, there are still problems that are going to persist and still be relevant. Black Lives Matter, the Flint Water Crisis, the effect of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico and the Australian Fires are still prevalent to this day! They show us that even when social and environmental issues are not in the media or are not in your face on Facebook or Instagram, the problems are still happening and still deserve attention.

Written by Dominique Agnew, Senior at Cornell University and Climate Justice Now Intern

UPDATE: Flint, Michigan

Dominique Agnew Racial Justice July 11, 2020July 11, 2020

Flint is an example of Corporate America leaving a city to fend for itself in the worst way possible. In the 80s, Flint was a bustling community, home of the largest GM plant in the country but when the plant shut down, the city was in a financial hole and in 2011, the state took over the city’s finances. 3 years later, those in charge built a new pipeline to move the water from Lake Huron to Flint. Soon after the pipeline was finished and working, there seemed to be something wrong about the water quality.

Tests completed by the EPA and Virginia Tech in 2015 revealed that the water contained dangerous levels of lead. As we all know, drinking lead is not safe at all. Lead consumption can lead to heart and kidney defects and affect cognition, behavior and hearing problems in children.

Flint, Michigan is 39.7% White and 53.7% Black or African American. The previous blog intern here at Climate Justice Now has already described environmental racism in her comparison between those impacted most by COVID-19 and environmental degradation (you can access Tatum Eames’s wonderful blog here). Therefore, I am not going to go into the details of how BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Color) are more likely to be impacted by pollution. Flint, Michigan is a prime and extremely unfortunate example of the system letting down people of color. It would be one thing if the government did everything and were completely ignorant of the contaminated water supply. But some sources state that the Governor was actually aware of the lead-filled water a year prior to the pipeline through prior emails and telephone calls.

Some Flint residents had to drink out of water bottles for 4 years. Thousands of people were poisoned and many are still scared to drink the water and are distrustful of the government. This is not the first time that the system has let down Flint. In 1980, GM hired 90,000 Flint residents and by 2006, the number went all the way down to 8,000. While trying to combat unemployment, Flint was also an area of increased racist housing practices while financially supporting the white suburban areas and decreasing the metro revenue by $55,000.

Image from the European Citizen Initiative

In 2014, I remember when Instagram and Facebook were filled with posts about donating to Flint and calling Governor Snyder. Many wouldn’t have known that the problem was not fixed for some until 2 years ago. This is not only a social issue but an environmental issue. A city did not have access to clean water and instead were either forced to drink their dangerously contaminated water or buy non-reusable water bottles. Thankfully, Flint has access to clean water but we owe it to them and the cities across the nation and the world to hear them and fight for them. Clean water should be a given right not a privilege.

Written by Dominique Agnew, Senior at Cornell University and Intern at Climate Justice Now

Sources:

https://www.clickondetroit.com/consumer/help-me-hank/2020/04/24/6-years-later-where-things-stand-in-the-flint-water-crisis/

https://www.michiganradio.org/post/does-flint-have-clean-water-yes-it-s-complicated

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/01/21/what-snyder-knew-flint-email-dump-shows-attempts-shift-blame

https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2019-02-12/what-will-it-take-to-save-flint-michigan

https://spoonuniversity.com/news/why-you-should-care-about-the-flint-water-crisis

https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/us/flint-water-crisis-fast-facts/index.html

July 4th Special

Dominique Agnew Racial Justice July 4, 2020July 4, 2020

This blog is a July 4th special about my experience as a black woman on Independence Day

It’s July 4th aka American Independence day aka the best day for fireworks shops across the country. This year with Black Lives Matter and more focus on the racial injustice in this country, this holiday has a little more weight on its shoulders.

Illustration by Ayan Mukherjee
Retrieved from Twitter

I have always had an interesting relationship with my country. I love America. It gives me opportunities that I adore and the ability to meet people from different races and cultures. However, I have always felt American in a way that was very different from my white American peers. Despite what is emphasized in my history classes, my family before me didn’t feel so welcomed in this country. And, this feeling is carried from generation to generation, also known as transgenerational trauma. The way I connect to America mainly is the memories I have here and the values I hold that come from my experience of being born and raised in America and make me the American that I am. With this feeling of being a distant American maybe I do have some complicated feelings about Independence Day because what are we celebrating exactly? For my ancestors, life did not change one bit. They fought on behalf of the newly formed American people and we’re still no more valued than the years prior. I do understand that without the Revolutionary War, there is the possibility that we would be similar to Australia… a Queen loving yet democratic country that confuses a lot of visitors (aka me). However, for many people of color across the country, July 4th does not represent independence. It represents a distraction for many Americans to avoid the social injustices that existed in 1776 and continue to persist today.

One of the reasons I wanted to write this blog is to give readers, specifically non-POC readers, what a black person potentially thinks about and goes through on this holiday. I know this blog is not about an environmental issue nor related to environmentalism, but here at Climate Justice Now, we try to connect with people of different backgrounds and experiences. I believe that hearing a person’s experience first-hand is really important as an activist. So, I hope that my story connects with you all and makes you wonder what else you can learn by listening to people.

Written by Dominique Agnew, Senior at Cornell University and Climate Justice Now intern

Diversity in the Environmental Movement

Dominique Agnew Racial Justice July 1, 2020July 1, 2020

The fourth and most likely final installment of the blog series about the intersection between race and the environmental movement.

I have been in my fair share of programs dedicated to increasing diversity in certain areas of academia. I was able to visit Cornell and be a part of an amazing environmental internship program during my freshman and sophomore year of college because of diversity programs. Because of these programs, I was able to meet people that I probably never would’ve met otherwise. But did these programs have an actual effect on the diversity of Cornell or the environmental movement? I am not so sure. And here’s why.

One thing I have learned while being a part of these diversity programs is that sometimes you can feel like a token person. It can feel like the program didn’t choose you because of your potential or talent, but because they want to increase their “ethnic” numbers and appease the so-called higher-ups. It is great that they are trying to increase their diversity but if I don’t feel valued beyond the color of my skin it can lead to a lot of problems, such as imposter syndrome.

*SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Undergraduate Ethnic Diversity*
*Image from College Confidential*

Another reason I am not sure if these programs make a big impact on the actual diversity of the environmental movement is that with these programs they are directing their attention to students. This initiative is great, however, I believe that without educating the leaders of these national environmental organizations and the protest organizers, diversity will not be as valued as it should be.

But why is diversity important in the environmental movement?

Biodiversity is one of the biggest facets of environmentalism. If I asked an environmentalist why biodiversity is important in nature their answer would probably have something to do with the important role each animal has in nature and what would happen if their role was altered or disappeared in its entirety. That’s similar to why diversity is important in social and environmental movements. Each person has different things to offer. They bring about different solutions and different problems that their peers potentially wouldn’t even consider. According to a publication by Emily Enderle from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies “Diversity is about strengthening the movement we are dedicated to by making it resilient and capable of adapting, regardless of what we face in the future. Widespread understanding of the values that diversity can provide is essential to enhancing our collective effort and the world, yet such understanding is still absent in far too many places.“

*Data from a 2014 study by Taylor, D.E. The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations. Chart by Sean Quinn.*

I think that people underestimate their power to increase diversity in areas that need change. As a black woman, I would probably not have known I was passionate about the environment if I did not have the chance to take environmental classes in high school or talked to my next-door neighbor about her love for fishing and gardening. Pushing for education reforms can impact so many people so if you have the power to push for these reforms, do it! It can make such a difference. Another way is just by talking to different people and exposing them to different ideas and passions. It is not uncommon for people to be exposed and hear about the same things over and over and over again in certain neighborhoods or communities. Diving deep into the interests of other people is a great way of hearing about what else is out there.

You have the opportunity to increase diversity in environmental justice! Make the movement we care about so much, represent the people that we are fighting for.

Written by Dominique Agnew, Cornell University Senior, Climate Justice Now Intern

Intersectional Environmentalism

Dominique Agnew Racial Justice June 24, 2020June 24, 2020

The second installment in the blog series about the intersection between race and environmentalism

Intersectionality is important in any social and environmental issue. But what does it mean to be “intersectional” exactly?

A person is not just one thing. I am not just a Floridian. I am not just a woman. I am not just a college student. I am all, and more. As I am sure you can identify with numerous identities. You might be a father or a sister or an immigrant. Intersectionality recognizes those identities and recognizes the privileges and potential oppression that can come with those identities. A little over 30 years ago, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term to further describe the oppression of Black women and how their experience wasn’t just because of one of their identities but a mix of their race and their gender expression.

So, how does thinking intersectionality relate to being an environmentalist?

One thing I love so much about environmentalism is that as environmentalists, we fight for issues that encompass so many different things. My parents never thought they were environmentalists before they realized that fighting for people’s rights to clean air and clean water was a part of the environmental movement. The environment is a tool to push for many social problems and that is why Intersectional Environmentalism is so important. Protecting the environment just for fun is not what we do. We protect it so that everybody, no matter what their background is, can have equal access to what they deserve. We protect so that they can survive in a healthy and sustainable society. Society and the environment are linked in the most extraordinary way. A simple example of this is capitalism and the international push for economic growth in all sectors. When society values money more than they do social progress, the environment suffers.

Secondly, thinking intersectionally is instrumental when creating solutions to environmental problems. The solution for pollution in America will be very different as a potential solution for a community in India or Africa. Although we are all human beings, people in different areas have different values and different priorities. Recognizing these differences and values that come along with a person’s identity is the first step in achieving climate solutions that can benefit the world at large.

Fighting for the environment is not a privilege that everyone is able to hold. After reading that you might be thinking: “a privilege?? Everyone should be fighting for the planet that they live on!” Although that should be the case, putting energy toward something that goes beyond finding a job that creates financial security, or affording a bus pass so that you can access fresh food that is 20 miles away from your house is not a luxury that everyone has. As an environmentalist, I recognize that I have the ability to fight for things that some people cannot fight for. This is a part of intersectional environmentalism.

Written by Dominique Agnew, Cornell University Class of 2021, Climate Justice Now Intern

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