Environmental protection as a result of climate change is one of the hottest issues in politics right now and will be a cornerstone issue for 2020 Democratic candidates. Environmental protection is a crucially important issue, but an issue you’ll rarely hear come up, if at all, is environmental justice.
Environmental justice revolves around the environmental and social impacts pollution has on the people living in the communities being polluted rather than just the natural environment itself. The lines can be blurred because much of the climate change talk revolves around the impacts it will have on us, but it rarely addresses how power plants, coal mines or corporate farms have been harming poor people in nearby communities for decades. This should be a hot-button issue. Sadly, it’s not.
Climate change is an imperative issue, but much of the talk around it only looks at big picture issues and at times can come across as classist and even racist, unsurprisingly. There are a laundry list of groups and politicians fighting to protect our national parks; sadly, very few are fighting to protect poor rural farmers being poisoned by pesticides or urban kids breathing in fumes toxic fumes from landfills.
Cory Booker, 2020 candidate, actually addressed a horrific example of this injustice earlier this month. Booker appeared on an episode of Pod Save America and explained the situation in Duplin County, North Carolina, a town adjacent to a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO). He explained how citizens of the town not only work in a position at the CAFO, which he describes as being “one step short of sharecroppers”, but he goes into detail about how the town is doused in pig feces causing higher rates of cancer and respiratory diseases.
It goes even further than major corporations abusing the environments and those who reside in them. A recent study concluded that while whites put more pollutants into the environment, those pollutants are more commonly inhaled by blacks and Hispanics.
Donald Trump Jr. responded to this in a ludicrous tweet that equated the study to scientists claiming the air is racist. If that doesn’t illustrate the fact many in power have no idea what they’re talking about, or simply don't care when it comes to environmental injustice, nothing will.
Unfortunately, this issue is not confined to climate change denying Republicans. It’s easy to see how politicians who are more aligned with flat-earthers than actual scientists on climate issues would disregard something as socially complex as environmental injustice. What's truly troubling is that environmental justice plays second fiddle, if at all, to broader climate change issues in many environmental activist organizations.
If you have been tuned into politics at all the past few months, you’ve probably heard lots of talk about reducing emissions from fossil fuels, but what you won’t likely hear is how fossil fuel use is impacting poorer Americans right now or how it has been causing disease and disparity for decades. You won’t hear much testimony about how generations of citizens in rural Midwestern towns have dealt with a litany of problems caused by coal fueled power plants pumping toxins into their air or how poor communities in Los Angeles still deal with smog while those living in the hills have the luxury of breathing fresh air.
This is isn’t a hypothetical situation or projection about what pollution may cause, it's what it has caused for years and nothing has been done to remedy it.
Noah Wright is an undecided sophomore studying at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Noah? Tweet him @NoahCampaign.
