Discuss: Global Warming Is Colorblind

What would a marketing scheme designed to “reach out” to the untapped constituency look like?

Enviro-friendly 22” rims/spinners?

LEED certified trailer homes?

Carbon offsets sold at Wal-Mart?

School uniforms made from hemp?

Amoz,

Now that may be sarcasm but it comes across as downright bigotry, there are lots of good models for out reach and education around environmental issues to ‘the untapped constituency,’ most of them involve issues of local concern, often urban air quality etc. but also rural livability issues. Environmental degradation affects the marginalized and disadvantaged disproportionally, in America and gloabally. There are lots of opportunities, the work that Van Jones in doing in Oakland for example around ‘green collar’ jobs, the school gardens movement, participatory action research with inner city youth around mapping environmental degredation in their neighborhoods, a lot of good work has been featured in these very pages.

I do want to point out that the author’s commentary is very nature-center focused. The opportunities for direct engagement for all of us, go well beyond getting out on the trail.

travis

Quote from Van Jones in Grist Magazine:

“We need to send hundreds of millions of dollars down to our public high schools, vocational colleges, and community colleges to begin training people in the green-collar work of the future—things like solar-panel installation, retrofitting buildings that are leaking energy, wastewater reclamation, organic food, materials reuse and recycling.

All the big ideas for getting us onto a lower carbon trajectory involve a lot of people doing a lot of work, and that’s been missing from the conversation. This is a great time to go to the next step and ask, well, who’s going to do the work? Who’s going to invest in the new technologies? What are ways to get communities wealth, improved health, and expanded job opportunities out of this improved transition?”

That sounds like a perfect model to perpetuate the traditional lopsided corporate American model:  Affluent people (investors) exploiting the minority (workers).

I’m afraid you’ve switched the argument, Amoz. If we want to talk about how to subvert the capilist system, which can be considered the ultimate cause of our environmental crisis, we are talking about mostly a different thing than outreach to traditional underrepresented groups. We cannot optimize for all three E’s (ecology, equity, economics) at the same time, it is mathematically impossible.

travis

Interesting concept.  How do you turn ecology, equity, and economics into a mathematical equation? 

Isn’t is all really economics - people making choices based on incentives?

I think one of the most “pressing” issues over which we can engage lower-income people in environmental action is FOOD. 

Everyone eats, and the ongoing nutritional and ecological evils of industrial agribusiness are increasingly coming to the attention of people everywhere. I regret that “green” and “organic” are entering the mainstream as something trendy rather than just common sense, but at least it’s on people’s minds.

It is up to us to confront people with the facts and the alternatives they have.  And despite what Whole Foods may lead us to believe, local, healthful food is no longer only for the rich. That local farmers have established farmer’s markets and CSAs in Smoketown and Portland is an encouraging testament to this movement (in Louisville, at least). 

We need to get young people of all races and classes out to these farms, or establish community garden plots in vacant lots. Kids need to get their hands in the dirt, squash potato beetles, watch their plants grow, and eat the food they harvest. They will re-establish a connection to the land that has been severed by the supermarket and the suburb, and they will care about environmental issues without being “marketed to” with glossy newsletters and scare tactics.

Certainly the issue of race in environmentalism is more complex than Ms Oladipo’s brief essay had space to explore. But she has done well to bring our attention to the problem. I’m very excited to be getting involved here in Louisville, and I’m glad to know people like her are already working on it.

I know exactly what you mean… as an environmental activist and yoga instructor I almost never run into other women (or men) of colour when I travel to the States for courses or events. The sad thing is that on my home island in the Caribbean, there is also the perception that conservation is a ‘white people thing’ which is further exacerbated by the whole eco-tourism push and the language of well meaning expatriates who are constantly harping on how they do things in their country so homegrown efforts can sometimes be undermined by accusations of pandering to foreign ideals. I agree that the focus of e-ngos and e-media is partly to blame but I also feel that the inherited post-colonial disconnect from the land must be acknowledged and that until that is really, consistently addressed concerns about the environment will unfortunately continue to be seen by our own people as a luxury of the privileged few. This ‘disconnect’ may be best addressed from ‘within the ranks’ and this can be as simple as organizing nature talks or walks for a church group or as complex as creating a scholarship fund for children of colour to participate in some of the many internship and eco/sea camp type opportunities now available in the US. As a child I was privileged to be offered this chance to spend one summer at a camp in the US, which was by far the whitest experience of my childhood. However, this brief experience, more than any other single event, still transformed both the way I viewed my role in the natural world and the way I articulated the role of the natural world in my life. Summer camp type initiatives here, while still in their infancy, are very encouraging as forums for encouraging (and hopefully eventually recruiting) new, fresh, earth aware minds from all strata of our society. I feel very lucky that my own children may one day be able to have this kind of experience in their own country and wish that more minority children in the US could have a chance to participate in the truly mind boggling array of intensive and residential youth focussed eco-activities that exist in there own country.

Well, well said. Nazi Germany had an impressive enviromental movement in its “ouvre class” attitude. Not until human beings recognize the one species they are, take care of the herd, grow strong as individuals…will we live amongst other species in the wonderful evolution of Life…the true Gift.