At-Risk Communities and Climate Justice

Whereas it is critical to dismantle theoretical claims about long-term anthropogenic climate change damaging everyone without discrimination that discount the realities about short-term global warming, there are a number of very real and tangible avenues that communities of color, such as that of Gulfport, Mississippi, and small developing countries, including the Maldives, can pursue to effect substantial change and curb the treacherous effects of climate change in their areas. These go beyond emphasizing to other communities and national leaders the sociocultural significance of maintaining their lands—such as by detailing the religious rites and rituals that have taken place in the waters of Turkey Creek, as Derrick Evans chooses to do in many interviews and publications, and by Mohamed Nasheed’s explanations that climate change, in the business-as-usual scenario, will wipe out his nation, leaving its residents climate refugees and speakers of a soon-to-be lost language.

Joining the Tribe: Conversation and Climate Change

We live in a world in which denial of anthropogenic climate change, a phenomenon whose existence and form has been agreed upon by nearly the entirety of the scientific community, is not at all restricted to a handful of conspiracy theorists or anti-science zealots. This denial is institutionalized, and it has been for years. Such denial manifests itself in de facto bans throughout the United States’ Office of International Climate and Clean Energy on the inclusion of phrases such as "climate change," "emissions reduction," or "Paris Agreement" in written communication, since March, 2017 (Wolff). Such informal censorship is not wholly uncommon within American spheres of government. Beginning in March, 2015, officials in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have halted use of “climate change” and “global warming,” citing directives that such controversial terminology is best avoided altogether (McCoy). However, censorship is certainly not the only institutional practice ignoring the real and contemporary ramifications of global warming: The government of North Carolina—whose populace will likely face a regional sea-level rise to the tune of 39 inches over the 21st century—since the passage into law of House Bill 819 in 2012, interdicts any usage of scientific predictions on sea-level changes in its coastal zoning policies (Harish). Legislation of this sort often yields dramatic consequences, as Don Barber makes clear: Coastal development, particularly in flood zones, can be devastating, and has been a significant cause of increased property damage over the course of the past several decades, in the wake of more frequently intense tropical storms and hurricanes. Universally and unambiguously, this willful ignorance of such a scientifically confirmed reality is deadly.