Founder, Writer, Social Entrepreneur, Creative Ops, Biz Dev, and Content Strategy Consultant, working to achieve gender parity+ inclusion one business at a time.
We talk about climate change, and how scary it is, and how bad it will get (the understatement of the century). Yet, we talk far less about who it truly impacts and what it looks like right now. If you don’t know some of these stats, use this as your next anti-racist, decolonizing, unlearning and re-schooling this week. It’s not a shock that environmental destruction will impact poor people more. It’s not surprising people with disabilities suffer more when climate crisis hit. It’s important to note however the intersection of gender and race compounding the negative impacts of environmental hazards. Environmental Racism: “…these problems face low-income communities as a whole, but race is often a more reliable indicator of proximity to pollution. A landmark 2007 study by academic Dr Robert Bullard – the “father of environmental justice” – found “race to be more important than socioeconomic status in predicting the location of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities”. He proved that African American children were five times more likely to have lead poisoning from proximity to waste than Caucasian children, while even black Americans making $50-60,000 a year were more likely to live in polluted areas than their white counterparts making $10,000. In the UK meanwhile, a government report found that black British children are exposed to up to 30% more air pollution than white children.” Environmental Sexism: 80% of those displaced by climate change are women and girls. So if you count yourself among those ringing alarm bells and freaking out (which is fair) please make sure you ring them for everyone. Learn about all the damage already done… Read everything by Erin Brokavitch. Read Naomi Klein’s book. You listen to Greta but do you know Mari? Learn from environmental justice experts like the Sunshine Movement. Learn about Benjamin Chavez. We don’t fight for our children’s children. We fight for those already living in 120° or those in our own country drinking lead-laced water, breathing in asthma-causing toxic highway air. (Both existed at my kids schools and took far longer to fix than the mostly white schools less than 1 mile away). Motivate to make the world just and safe now, for everyone, with the same urgency. I don’t mean to be that person but the sheer hell to come for many, the one we keep saying is sooner than they thought…it’s already here, and been here for many communities around the globe. Finally push like hell for radical change, green solutions, and ignore every ESG initiative from any corporation or govt. Do not give them your attention or kudos. Give to communities in need. Push for transitioning the purpose of our military to provide care and “managed retreat”—or at least managed support, eliminating our global economic system that survives on scale, stuff, and fossil fuels. There is no environmental justice without gender, racial, and disability justice. Period.
From July 2020.
I'm supportive of this subject, but I can't track this statistic: "80% of those displaced by climate change are women and girls." In checking the actual study "Gender and the Climate Change Agenda" (which I had to dig to find, since the host website had deleted it) the 2010 study made a claim that made no sense. It only quoted a figure for Hurricane Katrina -- not worldwide disasters -- and that quote made no sense: "Despite making up 54% of the population of the city, 80% of those who were left were women. In many cases, this was because they lacked the means to leave." It makes no sense that 80% of women left because they "lacked the means to leave." If they lacked the means to leave, they would have stayed. That paper then repeats the "80%" quote worldwide, attributing it to another study, titled "Climate Change and Disaster Mitigation - Gender Makes the Difference" by L. Alguilar. That paper simply states, "Women constitute up to 80% of refugee and displaced populations worldwide," without providing any data or links to any studies at all. And that quote was related to all possible refugee crises, not environmental. BBC then attributes this quote to a "UN Environment" study but I can't find anything by the UN on it.
Grace Colón
1y
Unfortunately most ESG metrics are not truly impactful. Corporations pay themselves on the back when they improve ESG scores but the scores need dramatic improvements in real impact. Only when it hurts their shareholder value will they change. Kick em in the pocketbook.
Jean Lordeus
1y
Emily O. Weltman, M. Ed., Another excellent article aims to jolt our mindset towards the light of "Truth" about gender, race, global warming, and the state of " our being." Well done, and Keep plowing!!!
speaking truth and leading the way.
Founder, Writer, Social Entrepreneur, Creative Ops, Biz Dev, and Content Strategy Consultant, working to achieve gender parity+ inclusion one business at a time.
1yThese are Ads on NYT. This should be illegal.