“We live in a strange world where we think we can buy or build our way out of a crisis that has been created by buying and building things.”—Greta Thunberg1
Death caused by the novel coronavirus is tied to climate change, as pathogens are carried to newer hosts by insects or animals, or released from the warming permafrost, to wreak havoc. The communities hardest hit, for a number of environmental causes fueled by racism, including toxic atmosphere, inadequate healthcare, and economic inequality, are communities of color across the US and the world.
The ground is shifting: the national and global is connected to the local in unprecedented ways, and activism is alive and well in grassroots organizations of New York City. Anti-racism and climate justice activism are uniting.
“I have found over and over that the proximity of death in shared calamity makes many people more urgently alive, less attached to the small things in life and more committed to the big ones, often including civil society or the common good.”– Rebecca Solnit2
In NYC, the Environmental Justice Alliance, its tag line On the Ground and at the Table, has published NYC Climate Justice Agenda 2020: A Critical Decade for Climate, Equity, and Health in April 2020, marking the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. It details an essential local strategic plan to reduce greenhouse gas and local emissions; to advance a just transition from an extractive economy toward an inclusive, regenerative economy; and to cultivate healthy and resilient communities. In clear, concrete objectives is a comprehensive action plan for policy affecting low-SES neighborhoods: reducing waste transfer emissions, rebuilding stormwater systems, blocking big-box retail centers on the waterfront in favor of retaining the industrial infrastructure to be put in service of eco manufacturing (and the better and better-paying middle-class jobs that industrial output creates). It is an indispensable resource for understanding issues—such as unconscionably high rates of asthma in public housing—and paving a way forward.
Amplifying one of the goals in NYC EJA, Transform, Don’t Trash is a lecture by Justin Wood from the New York Lawyers for Public Interest (NYPLI) on waste transfer and the system that NYC has had in place since the 1950s, given as part of the Climate Action Lab in the Center for the Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center. Municipal garbage collection is duplicated by private carters for all NYC restaurants and businesses. The resulting truck traffic burdens already-congested routes creating more damaging emissions. Add to this the abysmal rate of recycling from private carters (and, as noted in the NYC EJA report, compounded by the virtually non-existent recycling available to NYCHA residents), and there is action to be taken to reach 0 Waste to Landfill and composting goals. NYC EJA gives a shout-out to Green Feen consultants who use “Hip-Hop to teach sustainability as a lifestyle through green technology and compost education.”
The weaknesses of the NYC schools system continue to be highlighted in the crisis, as resources are scarce and access not just to the internet, but to stable housing and food security are lacking. An encouraging initiative is the one described by Saara Nafici in another Climate Action Lab Rethinking Food Justice in New York City who galvanizes youth from NYC’s 2nd largest housing project on the Value Added Red Hook Farms. Joining forces to address environmental changes by empowering youth and community engagement—while creating a source for fresh, healthy food—is a great example of the types of transformation needed.
The situation is dire. Greta Thunberg asks, “What do we do when there is no political will?” We begin on the ground, drawn together for common cause. We reverse the effects of neoliberal privatization for what Solnit calls “the lifeless thing that is profit.” Solnit writes that the times may lead us to consider universal healthcare and basic income.
Instead of standing idly by, aghast, change is being enacted locally, a model on which to build. It cannot supplant sane national policy on emissions, the fossil fuel industry, or support for renewal energy sources, but it will absolutely inform the policy debate as more people realize that climate chaos affects all aspects of our lives, unequally. It is a time when the critical fight to end racism and climate degradation are joined. We must all be at the table, together. The resource that NYC EJA provides is a welcome local focus for change.
1https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lw_qHVaJk8-QIpGv42m6bGHWo7Bg4bOG/view
