Week 2: Feminist Climate Justice (Tess Riley)

This week's readings largely focused on Just Transition strategies led by women and People of Color, especially Black people who suffer some of the largest impacts of climate change even though they are minimally responsible for the cause particularly in African countries such as Honduras, Haiti, and Nigeria.  Local grassroots organizations rely on creative solutions to tackle the effects of climate change while promoting racial justice.  

In "From Banks and Tanks to Cooperation and Caring: A Strategic Framework for a Just Transition" (2017), the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project aims to promote just transition, a framework for a fair shift to an economy that is ecologically sustainable, equitable and just for all.  These strategies, created by labor unions and environmental groups seeking to phase out industries that harm people and the planet, aim to address an extractive economy in which finite resources are being extracted faster than their capacity to regenerate. One of the most emotional findings for me in this reading was the fact that through the exploitation of labor, especially the labor of people in the Global South and People of Color, human work is becoming non-renewable as a resource, much like how forests being cleared renders the trees no longer renewable.  Another devastating but unsurprising fact presented in the reading was the reality that the American industrial empire was entirely fueled and made possible by the mass enslavement of African peoples.  White supremacy in our extractive economy still today justifies unjust roles in the economy based on imperialism, militarism, and hetero-patriarchy among other factors that keep power contained amongst the elite. 

"Just transition: Integrating climate, energy, and environmental justice" (2018) discusses the way in which climate, energy, and environmental justice scholarship can come together to fill gaps in research and create a more interdisciplinary approach.  Just transition is required for us to move to a post-carbon society, a society which would require energy efficiency to survive.  One concerning point in this reading was the fact that increasing global temperatures will certainly cause more disputes over land boundaries and natural resources, especially in the Global South.  The issues faced in these areas as a result of disproportionate climate change impacts represent the concept of a double inequality.  A double inequality is when the distribution of risk and responsibility are inversed, so nations like the U.S. cause most of the damage but feel less of the consequences.  While this double inequality is apparent across the globe, domestically it is evident that harmful infrastructures are more common in areas of social deprivation and ethnic diversity, further evidence of the racial injustice embedded in climate justice issues.  

"Black lives and climate justice: courage and power in defending communities and Mother Earth" (2017) described the leadership of Black communities and movements in their struggle for climate justice.  To learn that the origins of environmental justice are rooted in efforts by communities of color to come together to address disproportionate impacts of environmental contamination was something new to me but also very inspiring.  This reading presents the sad reality that climate change impacts have been ignored and disregarded for so long due to racism since the effects are more prominent in non-white communities.  As a nation with the greatest responsibility for climate change, the U.S. hinders itself from making any real change because it promotes white supremacy and climate denial on a national government level, especially in the current administration.  Africa has felt a disproportionate impact of global temperature rises, leading to impacts on food production and access to clean water.  The initiatives and creative solutions implemented by the communities in Nigeria, Haiti and Honduras show that mainstream efforts are not always effective in reaching the areas that need the most help and can even contribute to climate change with their false solutions.  Movements in the U.S. and abroad demonstrate a connection between climate justice and racial justice and prove that one cannot be fully realized without the other.  

"Ecofeminism and climate change" (2015) explains how women's issues such as habitats, environmental health and livelihoods, as well as LGBTQ issues such as bullying, hate crimes, and social equality are marginalized and disregarded due to the masculinist tendency in climate change debates to focus on techno-scientific solutions rather than ideology or economy based transformations.  It requires a queer, ecological, feminist approach, known as the intersectional lens of ecofeminism, to fight antifeminist responses to climate change and climate justice.  It is troubling to me that such a small demographic of humans, namely white, cis-het, wealthy men, are defining the conversation and response around climate change when they feel the least impact of it and have done the most to cause it by investing in extractive economic practices for their own financial and social gain.  

Bibliography:

From Banks and Tanks to Cooperation and Caring: A Strategic Framework for a Just Transition. (2017). Ecology Project Zine.

Gaard, G. (2015). Ecofeminism and climate change.

McCauley, D. and Heffron, R. (2018). Just transition: Integrating climate, energy and environmental justice. Energy Policy, 119, pp.1-7.

Mersha, S. (2017). Black lives and climate justice: courage and power in defending communities and Mother Earth. Third World Quarterly, 39(7), pp.1421-1434.