Climate Change as a Social Justice Issue

from the Climate Change Collaborative website

by John Pantalone

While they might have been preaching mainly to the choir, the message delivered by panelists at a URI climate change forum on Wednesday, March 19, was clear: Climate change isn’t just about science and warnings of impending doom. It’s immediately about social justice and quality of life, especially for folks who live in economically struggling communities.

Sponsored by the R.I. Student Climate Coalition, Fossil Free Rhode Island and the URI Multicultural Center, the forum featured representatives of activist groups and the science community. Warnings were issued, as happens every time the topic is discussed, but the panelists stressed the hardships faced by low-income urban dwellers resulting from air pollution and the aftermath of severe storms related to climate change.

Roy Carpenter's Beach, Oct. 2012; Reuters

About 60 people attended, most of them form the South County area, and one of the panelists brought climate change to them on a personal basis. James Bruckshaw, an employee of the state Department of Health, told the audience about a photo journal he has kept over the years that reveals how much beach has been lost at his summer home at Roy Carpenter’s Beach. “You see the water coming closer and closer,” he said. “When you see these photos, you ask, ‘Where did the beach go?’ We’ve lost houses and a way of life. The coastline is the heart and soul of Rhode Island.”

For urban residents, beach erosion seems far away, and they are dealing with increases in asthma and other breathing disorders, said Kendra Monzon, a member of the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island. “There are heightened risks related to climate change for people who often can’t afford to go to a hospital.”

Her concerns were supported by the co-director of the Environmental Justice League, Julian Rodriguez-Drix. “When you look at the levels of fossil fuel use and impact on communities, those most affected are in low income areas either because of mining, distribution or burning of those fuels,” he said. “Solutions, I believe, will come from those communities, but they must be holistic. That is what our objectives are at the EJL.”

The Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island engages in advocacy, education, networking, organizing, and research to build power in the state’s urban communities. They operate a number of youth leadership programs aimed at tying climate issues and social justice issues together.

Margiana Petersen-Rockney, founding coordinator of the R.I.Young Farmers Network, spoke about rural social justice and efforts to encourage fossil fuel use reductions on farms and other responsible farming practices. “Farmers are dealing with high land values, severe weather patterns, costly adaptations to changing practices and other problems,” she noted. “Rhode Island is number one in the country in direct farm to consumer sales, so any production decrease is harmful.”

She said the Young Farmers Network is working with immigrant groups in various parts of the state who have farming knowledge and traditions to encourage self-sufficiency in their communities.

The director of URI’s Coastal Institute, Judith Swift, related social justice issues she observed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina when FEMA provided trailers to people in middle class, white neighborhoods outside their homes so they could get to their houses more easily fore repairs and recovery. In low-income black neighborhoods, she said, the trailers were lined up on asphalt parking lots miles away from peoples’ homes so they could not get to their houses easily. The city, at one point, said it would take property of homeowners who did not keep their lawns mowed, which added to frustrations and fears in low income communities.

These were just a sampling of the social justice points made by the panelists, and they all agreed that Rhode Island must do much more to mitigate and prepare for the effects of climate change. Meg Kerr, a consultant to state Rep. Arthur Handy, told the crowd about the Resilient Rhode Island Act (H7904) introduced recently in the House by Handy. The primary purpose of the bill is to coordinate state agencies’ response to weather disasters and other climate change issues and to engage the community in a conversation about mitigation, coordination and planning and the science of climate change.

Swift urged the audience to go to the newly christened website, www.riclimatechange.org, to learn more.

John Pantalone is assistant professor and chair of the Department of Journalism at the University of Rhode Island's Harrington School of Communication and Media. This story was produced as part of Department of Journalism project focused on environmental and energy reporting.