“Poverty, peace, justice, and climate change are inexorably linked. There can be no hope for justice, no hope for an end to poverty, and no hope for peace if we continue on our present path. We must confront inequality while weaning ourselves from the very fossil fuels that built our economic wealth. We must work to build peace while reducing air pollution. This new path for us leads to God’s plan for a new creation.

To walk this path, we must first accept that climate change is a moral, spiritual, and human issue, and not a political debate. We must confess our role in the problem and be willing to reflect, pray, and have loving conversations about these complex challenges. We must seek and support solutions that restore dignity to the underprivileged, promote peace, and protect God’s earth.” Creation Care. 2018 Church of the Brethren Statement

So far in our exploration of economic justice and economic peacemaking in this pandemic, we have looked at simple living in a time of consumerism and racial justice as it relates to economic justice. In this third blog, former BVSer and OPP associate Susu Lassa dives into the interconnectedness of creation care, racial justice, and economic justice.

By Susu Lassa

Economic justice is not attainable without climate justice. Patterns of institutionalized environmental racism within the U.S. has shown us the ways in which communities doing the least to contribute to the rise in greenhouse gases bear the brunt of climate fall out on their bodies and on their livelihoods. University of Michigan Sustainability highlights that more than 50% of people living within two miles of toxic waste facilities are people of color. Degradation of the land from toxins leads to lower land value, which hinders upward mobility and the ability to build wealth for members of those communities. In the face of natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, both domestically and internationally, black and brown communities and countries are disproportionately impacted, remaining most vulnerable physically, financially, and mentally. From Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, where the majority black population impacted were permanently displaced, to the flooding taking place in countries such as Pakistan, Uganda, and Kenya, black and brown bodies remain at risk, their bodies and livelihood bearing the brunt of a climate crises that they contribute least to.

A brief interrogation of capitalism can highlight the interconnected nature of various forms of oppression, namely the intersection between climate justice, economic justice, and racial justice. The nature of accruing wealth in a capitalist economy privileges profit -even profit gained via exploitation of land, people, etc.- over the wellbeing of communities affected by the ramifications of this economic system. Wealthy corporations often invade communities for natural resources or cheap labor, grabbing what they can at the expense of these communities. With little to no accountability for corporations existing within a capitalist political economy, these plundered communities are left doubly vulnerable: first susceptible to plundering by wealthy corporations and nations, and then left to bare the fallout from the poisoning of the land, air, and/or water around them, which impacts their bodies, health, and livelihood.

The intersection between environmental racism and healthcare has been magnified in the wake of the COVID-19 crises, as have various other injustices in existence before the pandemic. Black and brown communities remain hardest hit by the pandemic, both contracting and dying from the virus disproportionately. Reasons include enduring disparities in wealth and income that see black and brown bodies overrepresented on the frontlines as “essential” workers, and residential segregation, which sees the concentration of people of color in disempowered neighborhoods with low property values, freeways, and shipping centers. The effects of residential segregation on air pollution with regard to toxins such as PM _2.5 , a known carcinogen emitted from car engines and power plants, put folks in these communities at a higher chance of impaired heart and lung function, leaving them susceptible and highly vulnerable to COVID-19. Climate justice is economic justice, and economic justice is racial justice. The sooner we re-orient our understanding of the different structures of oppression as interconnected, the sooner we can address the environmental harms that have for decades disproportionately harmed brown and black bodies in the U.S. and all over the world.