Fighting for justice

Abstract

The Black Lives Matter movement is primarily about social justice, but it will help tackle environmental injustices too, says Graham Lawton

Graham's week.

What I'm reading London's Street Trees: A field guide to the urban forest by Paul Wood. Feeding my obsession with the city's wildlife

What I'm watching Season 2 of the deadpan vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows

What I'm working on Yet more covid-19 coverage

I WANTED to join the recent Black Lives Matter protests in London, but I also didn't want to be in close proximity to thousands of other people for hours on end. My fear of catching the coronavirus won out and so I demoted myself to social justice warrior (armchair division) and watched on TV.

The protests are principally a fight for social justice. But I also view them through another lens. Black Lives Matter may not look like an environmental movement, but I think deep down it is one, too. If – when – it achieves its objectives, the world will not only be more socially just, but more sustainable, as well.

The causes of social and environmental justice first crossed paths in the US in the 1970s when activists from both camps realised that they were fighting many of the same battles. Pollution and other forms of environmental degradation disproportionately affected certain sections of society: poorer people, working class people, people of colour, Native Americans and immigrants. Their neighbourhoods also lacked green space and access to nature.

It isn't hard to fathom why this link exists. It is another manifestation of the unequal distribution of wealth and power in society. Rich people can afford to buy their way out of degraded neighbourhoods, and have the political clout to resist the incursion of polluting industries.

Much has been made of the link between today's racial injustices and historical slavery. According to Elizabeth Yeampierre, co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance in Washington DC, environmental injustices also began with slavery. The rapacious exploitation of humans enabled the rapacious exploitation of the environment, and just as the legacy of slavery endures in racism, so it endures in the economic model that regards the environment as a resource to be plundered, not preserved.

Black Lives Matter may not look like an environmental movement, but I think deep down it is one, too

Since the 1970s, environmental injustices have only widened. The effects of climate change are now kicking in, and guess what: they disproportionately affect people who are unable to escape from extreme weather events. Consider how Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the poorer districts of New Orleans in 2005, and how Hurricane Maria did the same in Puerto Rico in 2017.

This disparity hasn't gone unnoticed in the communities it affects. Concern about the environment is often dismissed as a self-indulgent pursuit for wealthier (i.e. white) people. But it isn't: polling in the US regularly finds that people who are Hispanic, African American or from other minority ethnic groups are more concerned than people who are white about environmental issues.

BLM rests on the simple idea that if the people who are affected by racial injustice come together and say “no more”, the pressure to change will be irresistible. Environmental justice works in a similar way. If the people most affected by environmental degradation fight back, it becomes harder for destructive industries to make and conceal their messes in places where the wealthy and powerful elites don't go.

That is the direct line between BLM and the battle for the environment. They are one and the same. You could also bundle in the health disparities that have led to covid-19's disproportionate death toll on poor and minority ethnic communities.

BLM activist Zellie Imani acknowledged that he and his fellow protesters were taking health risks – both personal and public – by assembling in large crowds, but said that this historic cause was more important. “Going outside may kill us because of the pandemic, but going outside as a Black person in America has been killing us for over 400 years,” he told Sky News.

The pandemic has been widely flagged as a chance to build a more sustainable society. It is also an opportunity to build a fairer one, too.