The Inside Perspective: Why Black People Don’t Care About Climate Change
The climate crisis began in the 20th century when global warming was discovered. Ice ages and other natural changes in paleoclimate were first suspected, and the greenhouse effect was identified. In the late 19th century, scientists argued that human emissions of greenhouse gases could change the climate. All of this information was, in fact, true. So what did they do about it? They researched and tried to take action, with some success and a lot of failures. This crisis was affecting our planet and unfortunately, it took a toll on the Black community.
Beginning in the mid 1900’s activists started to build wealth out of the climate crisis, through salaried positions and grant funds. They came into the Black communities; informed them of the problems and their proposed solutions. The ideas included asking agencies for money to help these Black communities. The money was said to go towards affordable housing, and climate sustainability. All promising ideas but, unfortunately, once they got the money, they would abandon those same communities and invest in their own communities. This became an unfortunate pattern over the course of years.
Look at the example of Hurricane Katrina, which is by far one of the most devastating climate disasters on U.S. soil. Back then, the Red Cross raised about $1.1 billion — its record so far for a single disaster (article written in 2005) — but the organization was assailed when donors belatedly learned that $200 million of their gifts were being earmarked to prepare for future crises rather than to help victims. Some black activists have contended that the Red Cross response, notably in the first few days after Katrina, provided better services in mostly white areas than mostly black areas. “For the first 72 hours, they did not do an equitable job of responding to all communities,” said Joe Leonard of the Washington-based Black Leadership Forum. -NBC News Concluded. This and other unfortunate experiences are what has caused the Black community to lose complete trust and faith in those who would come into the community promising to help.
Now that you have a little history, let’s fast forward to present time.
I'm a Black woman working in a predominately white field. The field of climate action. I’m the only black person at my office and at the majority of our meetings. At events, I might count a handful of us.
How does that make me feel? At first, it was a bit uncomfortable. But, as always I get in where I fit in, and as a Black woman, I have to always make sure I stand out. I represent the people. Us. Our culture, our history and our future. What people, you might ask? The Black community. The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Xennials, Millennials, iGen, and Gen Alpha.
When I came to work for C3, my Executive Director had a vision. She knew and understood that the minority communities were the ones mainly affected by the climate crisis. She is working to build an organization that will help bring down the local greenhouse gas emissions by 45% within 10 years. She wants to improve affordable housing for the low income communities because it is a proven fact that low income families pay more for heating and cooling than anyone else. Sometimes being more than what they pay in rent.
She has identified the problem, but no one from the Black community wants to listen. It breaks my heart that we as a community, are not taking the issue at hand more seriously. With me being a part of the Black community and a parent who’s raising children up in a world that happens to be on fire; I decided to turn to family, friends and community peers to see why they aren’t taking action and why they don’t want to hear what anyone has to say.
Because this issue is so important to me, I decided to utilize my resources to get to the bottom of why I was almost always the only Black person in the room. So, I took to social media and took advantage of other social opportunities to engage in conversation on climate with some of my peers in the Black community. I simply asked three questions.
As an African American what are your thoughts on climate change and climate action?
Do you care to make the changes to save your planet? Why or why not?
Why do you think that we as a people are not as involved in the climate crisis as we should be?
When I opened up this topic of discussion, I opened it up to all of my black peers, and I’ve learned that it's not just the low income Black people who aren’t interested. It’s Black people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. From this discussion, here are some answers that were most popular:
“They don’t care about us.”
“They only want money.”
“They just want to look good for helping poor people.”
“It’s not that serious.’
“If it was that bad, why hasn’t the Government created laws?”
“In school I was told to recycle, but I don’t think anyone paid attention.”
“They aren’t targeting the right crowd.”
“White people lie.”
“What are they doing for you?”
“I’m not thinking about the climate.”
“The issue is the white man’s fault.”
This discussion prompted me to take a closer look at the climate movement. The reality is that minorities are not in the position to face the climate crisis and here is why. This community faces life and death issues every day. Survival is a present issue not a future challenge. Some minority parents are working two to three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads in those same communities that are promised help, but never receive it. I’ve learned that when you’re trying to survive today, you’re not thinking about tomorrow because getting through today is a real life goal for some. When you are paying more in utilities than rent due to substandard housing, all of your coins count. The cost of substandard housing plays a major part in affording reliable transportation, building credit, affording higher education, and even feeding your family.
I then took an even closer look at what is actually being done about the disparity in the climate movement. I’ve learned that local cities, governments, and activists are doing little to improve public housing. They are not substantially and sustainably upgrading the low income housing communities. They are not enforcing the need of affordable housing within an area based on that area's specific payscale. They are not addressing the seriousness of the climate crisis in practice, just as much as the Black community. Because if they were, more would have been done. I’m 33 years old, and I’m still hearing the same unfulfilled promises being made in my community, in my region, in my state, in my country.
So what is it that could be done to improve these unfortunate circumstances? There is a lot of work that needs to be done, but I’ll start with a top five:
Affordable housing (sooner rather than later).
Regulation and laws put in place to protect homeowners and tenants from paying high heating and cooling cost. This includes low income housing communities.
More inclusive programs, workshops, training, funding and grant opportunities around sustainability built for minorities and by minorities, that are being tracked.
Accountability.
Parity in organizations that are executing climate action goals when it comes to community engagement.
To my Black community, I need y'all to hear me and hear me loud and clear.
This crisis is bigger than us. It is bigger than pride. I stand for my people. I hear you. I will not stop fighting for equity in the Black community, and it starts with climate. We can’t protect ourselves, if we don’t protect our planet. Change starts at home. In our community. In our schools. But the Black community needs parity in order to take action. There are already quite a few Black leaders that have taken on the climate crisis. I encourage everyone to look into them and follow their lead.
The climate crisis is real and personally, as a mother, it’s an important topic of discussion that needs to be had with our local city and county governments, as well as with activists. Stand up for yourself. Stand up for your community. Stand up for our children. Most importantly, stand up for our climate.
—Erica Gaines