Racism and Pollution/Climate Change

by Josiah Mount, Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Climate Reality Training

Atlanta, Georgia

Monday, March 11 - Sunday, March 17th, 2019

There is a lot to unpack from my visit to the Civil Rights Museum, I can’t recall everything I heard, saw, and felt. It was an intense and somber experience. It shows us how, just recently, our world was in turmoil, and how racism has morphed, gone into the shadows, not erased but in hiding, it tends to have a more insidious nature. Although depending on where you live, it runs around in the open, alive and well, it may even be expected.

Those who lived through those times still feel its burden, and the museum is a way for us to empathize with and share that burden through that experience. Though I did not have to feel the bite from a policeman’s dog, be tear gassed, have the crack of gunfire ringing through my ears, feel the explosion from dynamite ripping through my church, feel the sting of someone’s punch during a sit-in, or smell my flesh burning due to a thrown molotov cocktail, you were left with that knowledge that this happened/happens in America. It is not a problem for some other far away country, it happened here, it wasn’t long ago, and we are still feeling its effects. And the knowledge that it could happen anywhere to our brothers and sisters, our family, is horrifying.

Besides the mind-numbing horror, there was also a dive into the political figures who perpetuated racist policies throughout history, and during these times worked to keep inequality legal. In general, equality in many aspects of life in America was illegal: voting, buying/renting land, eating at a restaurant, taking out a loan for a home or car, getting an education, receiving public services, seeking treatment at a hospital (and today there are still many issues that have roots to our past). From that one fact alone we can derive many other facts and logical explanations for why the poor stay poor and why the poor by percent are disproportionately people of color. It is simple logic that if you can’t get a good education, to get the better job, or take out a loan to get a house in a better neighborhood, to get to the better schools, to get to the better job, that you are stuck geographically and economically. And even after these laws are abolished, you still don’t have any money, and the school system is still in an impoverished area due to past racist policies, so you still can’t get a good education to get to that better job. You can’t simply move to a better area, because mobility is incredibly expensive and sometimes prohibited. You can’t simply save money, because the cost of living is increasing and the minimum wage and salaries, in general, are not. As Coretta Scott King once said “ I must remind you that starving a child is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical needs is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.”

And how is racism related to climate change and pollution in general? These are all interconnected issues. Where do we place noisy gas compressor stations? Where do we put highways? Do we demolish the homes of the well-connected and powerful or do we run them through the neighborhoods of those we think are powerless? Who will be most affected by climate change? Who doesn’t have the means to pick up and move easily and safely after weather catastrophes like flood, drought, fire, and storms? Who will be more likely to receive aid from FEMA? The migrant caravan that we lost our collective minds over recently, what were they ultimately fleeing? Drought due to climate change. Almost 41 million Americans live in flood zones, whether it is at the beach, along a river, or in a low lying area, we know mathematically who will be hit the hardest.

This is an incomplete picture of all the connections, a sampling of just some of racism’s ill effects and how it relates to climate change. It is fitting then that a conference on climate change was held at the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement in America. The climate conference itself touched on these topics but maybe that could be a later blog post, there is too much to put here.