To stop harming the most vulnerable, we need environmental justice
Greetings fellow Conformists,
We’re heading into our first holiday weekend of the pandemic. I hope you find a safe way to have fun and usher in the summer, and honor those who gave their lives for our liberties in service to the military.
Liberty has become the rallying cry of those who wish to end the lockdowns and return to “normal” immediately, despite a continuing shortage of PPE (for health workers, let alone factory workers), insufficient testing, and no treatment or vaccine in sight.
Yet they are putting their own desire for “liberty” to infringe upon the rights of others - ultimately, the right to life, heralded in our Declaration of Independence.
Because when they demand that all businesses open to serve them*, when they refuse to wear protective facemasks to help protect others from asymptomatic spread of disease, they are saying that their rights are more important. That liberty is less important for the immuno-compromised, the chronically ill, the elderly, and anyone who lives with those people.
For essential workers.
For the poor.
And for Black and Latino people.
*I separate this argument from those who want to reopen their own small businesses. The way the government has treated small businesses compared to large businesses throughout this challenge has been depressingly unfair. But back to normal isn’t the solution here either.
Recommended Reading:
- The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying by Adam Serwer in The Atlantic
Problem: the burdens of our system fall heaviest on people of color
Black and Latino people are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. They are dying at higher numbers and getting sick at higher numbers. They are more likely to work in jobs that have been considered essential, so they cannot choose to stay home unless they quit their job. They are more likely to suffer from diseases that make the coronavirus worse, like obesity and asthma - diseases caused in part by our society’s choices.
As a society, we’ve been quietly making this same choice - to put the rights and health of the vulnerable below profit and privilege - for many years.
Every time we accept that fracking is necessary to keep oil cheap and support domestic oil supply, we’re agreeing that clean water supplies in rural communities are less important. Poor communities and indigenous people are among the most impacted by fracking.
When we say that better pollution standards are too burdensome to companies, we shift the burden to those affected by air pollution and toxins. Breathing polluted air harms every part of the body and makes people die early. Race is the top indicator for the placement of toxin-producing facilities in the US.
When we decide it’s too much to ask farmers to warn those working upwind before spraying pesticides, we’re putting the health and safety of farm workers below ease and flexibility for farm owners. Many farm workers are Latino.
Environmental justice must be the foundation of our future
Environmental justice underpins a fair, safe future for all because environmental pollutants have direct health outcomes.
Poor nutrition and obesity can be avoided in part through access to healthy food. Many people in cities live in a food desert, where there simply is no access to purchase healthy, fresh food. Unhealthy food is also cheaper than fresh, whole foods, which also usually require preparation.
Air pollution is concentrated in cities, urban areas, and industrial zones where there is processing, manufacturing, and vehicle traffic. Gas-powered vehicles, especially diesel, contribute to particulate pollution that worsens asthma.
Clean water should be considered a basic human right, yet it took years to resolve the lead-tainted water in Flint Michigan. Communities near fracking operations experience pollution tainting their aquifers.
Air and water are basic necessities that a few big players can disproportionately affect, yet are impossible for individuals to clean for themselves. When we allow corporations to pollute our air and water so they can have higher profits for their shareholders, we are externalizing the cost of the harm that pollution does to people. And worst of all, those who bear that cost and health burden are least able to afford it.
Likewise, the impacts of climate change will disproportionately fall on the poor and people of color.
I’m experiencing the pandemic as a white, upper class suburbanite who can work remotely and whose job is relatively secure - in short, with no physical hardship or risk. I do not know what it is like to experience this in a factory job without PPE (like meat-packing workers) or having been laid off and threatened with the implosion of my entire industry (like restaurant workers). But I can do my best to not make their situations worse - and I can try to make them better.
Without environmental justice, we will continue to shift the burdens of our system to the poor and people of color. We must take action to protect the most vulnerable of our society now that we see the risk that they bear to support us all.
Very few things are impossible to change - we just have to have the political will to act and put our money where our mouth is. Changing the status quo, pushing back against the things we’ve accepted for so long, will be hard. But it will be worth it to give all Americans access to air and water that won’t make them sick.
Solutions:
Support systemic and infrastructure changes for a healthier environment
- Coal plants are extreme particulate polluters. Support switching from coal to clean energy options like wind, solar, and hydro. If you can afford it, see if your power provider has a green energy option.
- Support better air and water quality standards, and demand enforcement of environmental regulations
- Support higher standards for energy efficiency, and make your own living space more energy efficient if you can
- Support regulations designed to protect workers from chemical exposure
Advocate locally to protect the vulnerable in your community
- Get involved in “boring” local decisions like where to put “the dump.” Look who is missing from the conversation and make sure that they don’t get shit on because they’re not present.
- Don’t be a NIMBY. If you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, no one wants it in their backyard. Instead, advocate for whatever it is - an industrial factory, an airport expansion, a trash facility - to be built in a way that minimizes impacts to the community where it is and adjacent communities.
- Join a “welcoming city” group in your community to make your neighborhood more inclusive
Learn, Learn, Learn
- Listen to those who are experiencing the worst of it - follow social media accounts run by people whose lives are different from yours, with the intention of learning (but don’t expect them to do the work for you)
- Work on your own prejudices by reading things like How to Be an Antiracist
- Learn about being an ally for those who are less privileged than you
- Learn about the people in your own community - who lives in your city? Demographics can be a starting point.
Use Your Purchasing Power
- Support businesses owned by Black people and other people of color
- Choose Fair Trade products and look for accreditation for international factories, like WRAP certification for clothes manufacturing
- Boycott companies that mistreat their workers and union-bust. Support workers on strike.
Thank you for your attention, and all you do to help make the world better for all.
Yours in Conformity,
Drake Starling
Director, Bureau of Conformity