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The
COVID-19 pandemic has left its permanent imprint on society in just a
few short months and cost thousands of lives needlessly due to
government inaction and negligence, ineptitude, and malice. The virus
has laid bare the longstanding inequities and injustices of American
society and forced the nation to confront an ongoing emergency
plaguing the poor, people of color, and Indigenous communities.
The
coronavirus has shone a spotlight on an economic system lacking
robustness, and a political system designed to meet the needs of the
powerful. A devastating, protracted, and yet manageable crisis with
the proper planning, political will, and allocation of resources, the
coronavirus has much in common with the specter of climate change.
The former is a turbocharged version of the latter, and a preview of
what will become of vulnerable, at-risk, and disenfranchised
populations as the U.S. responds to natural disasters.
Climate
change and pandemics are inextricably linked. The ravages of climate
change will result in more pandemics, and both will take more of a
toll on communities of color and the poor. Rising
temperatures
are impacting the migration patterns of disease-carrying animals. As
human beings continue their incursion into the natural world -
deforestation,
extracting natural resources, disrupting wildlife, and dislocating
communities for the sake of commercial development and corporate
profiteering - we will unleash more microorganisms and create more
plagues. And air pollution, which disproportionately affects
low-income and Black and Brown communities and compromises the
respiratory systems of those who are exposed, increases
their risk of death from COVID-19.
While
coronavirus has led to lower
short-term carbon emissions,
it has not eliminated climate change. That would require net-zero
emissions. Therefore, we should expect more
extreme weather,
including floods, wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves, and drought,
which exacerbate present-day inequities and impose a burden on the
poor, who are already stretched thin and impede their ability to
recover.
People
of color live at the front lines of two crises, and both crises
require a wartime mobilization against the poverty and disruption
they create - and illuminate. It is no accident that the
disproportionate victims of the coronavirus pandemic and climate
change are Black,
Latinx,
Native
American,
and Pacific
Islanders,
those who are among the most vulnerable in America and most
susceptible to injustice and systemic inequities in society. The
emergency and essential workers, the “heroes” who are
forced to work like hostages in unsafe conditions without protective
equipment; the immigrant workers toiling in the meat processing
plants; the store clerks, sanitation workers, bus drivers, delivery
gig folks and others who cannot work remotely are in harm’s
way. Following the cues of their white nationalist former leader in
the White House, reactionary state governors would throw Black and
brown communities to the wolves - or to the “rona” - and
get people back to work to save their economies for capitalism.
We
are not in this together. According to a report from Oxfam,
the pandemic will push over half a billion people into poverty
worldwide, in a global economy where the wealthiest 1% control more
economic resources than the bottom 4.6 billion people. The Oxfam
report follows an equally disturbing warning from the UN that climate
change will usher in an era of “climate
apartheid”
that could throw 120 million more people into poverty by 2030.
“Perversely,
while people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global
emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the
least capacity to protect themselves,” said Philip Alston, UN
special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. “We
risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario where the wealthy pay
to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the
world is left to suffer.”
Climate
change threatens economic disaster with widespread hunger and
displacement, but also human rights catastrophe and a threat to
democracy and civil and political rights. From the Amazon to the
Congo, and from the Solomon
Islands
to the Gullah
Geechee Sea Islands,
people are vulnerable.
In
the U.S., political leadership has demonstrated its willingness to
sacrifice thousands of Black and brown victims of climate change,
including the nearly 2,000 who died in New Orleans when the levees
broke from Hurricane Katrina, and the 3,000 Puerto Ricans who
perished from Hurricane Maria and received little more than rolls
of paper
towels
hurled from President Donald Trump for their troubles. Further, the
climate refugees from the Global South face criminalization and
prison camps when they reach the U.S. border, as their children are
kidnaped, caged, and exposed to pandemics.
Society
must prepare and develop post-pandemic recovery programs that reduce
the impacts of climate change. Post-COVID-19 reconstruction packages
could deliver climate-friendly
stimulus policy
in a one-two punch.
Just
as the death and dislocation brought on by the coronavirus scream for
economic and racial justice and an overhaul of our systems and
institutions, so too does climate change call for a comprehensive
Green
New Deal
that prioritizes vulnerable communities and connects the dots among
economic, environmental, and social stability. The goals of the Green
New Deal are “(1) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs in
the United States; (2) to provide unprecedented levels of prosperity
and economic security for all people of the United States; and (3) to
counteract systemic injustices,” while centering the rights and
protections of “frontline and vulnerable communities.”
Nothing
less than a justice-oriented, holistic approach to climate change and
COVID-19 is warranted, lest we find ourselves living under a “new
normal” with all the familiar forms of oppression amplified.
This commentary was originally published
by PrismReports.org
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