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That quote in no way says that racism is a “root cause” of climate change. It should be obvious that the impacts of climate change impact different races diffe
by irq11 7y ago
That quote in no way says that racism is a “root cause” of climate change.
It should be obvious that the impacts of climate change impact different races differently, but also, there are actually pretty good arguments to be made that racism makes climate change worse (e.g. segregation of poor minorities leads them to do desperate things to survive...like burn down rainforest). The quote isn’t irrational.
- ravar 7y ago" If we don’t, racism will continue to exacerbate climate change"
- irq11 7y ago“exacerbate” does not mean “is a root cause”.
- ravar 7y agoI interpret root cause to mean a causal variable that is not dependent on other examined causal variables. If racism can exacerbate something, it is playing a causal role. Since the racism does not depend on other mentioned variables, (racism is not a product of co2 emissions) it would then have to be a root cause given the context.
- irq11 7y agono matter how much you torture your logic to redefine “root cause” as “cause”, your interpretation is wrong.
- hartator 7y ago> climate change impact different races differently Not it doesn’t. The climate doesn’t care if your black or white. And assuming some countries are one uniform kind of people is so wrong on so many levels.
- irq11 7y agoFacts disagree with your theories: non-white people disproportionately live in parts of the world that are prone to droughts, flooding, famine, etc.
- Udik 7y agoMy country was also, for many centuries (and before climate change), prone to droughts, flooding, and famine. It's not that its climate became better, it's that during the centuries we deviated entire rivers, built ten metres-high embankments around them, built dams and irrigation canals. We drained marshy areas to fight malaria and to allow for new cultivations, and we cultivate industrially, with machines and fertilizers. We also keep maps of the hydro-geological risk to either prevent people from settling in risky areas or to manage the risk of existing settlements. (We also have a problem with rare but catastrophic earthquakes, that are especially hard on towns and villages that are almost a thousand years old. We try to reinforce existing buildings and build quake-resistant ones when an earthquake happens.) One of the problems I see with the current worldview is that many of these interventions are now so far away in time, and ongoing monitoring is so specialized, that most people simply forgot that they exist and ensure our current prosperity. But in fact we're simply profiting from the lessons of centuries of disasters and of careful engineering.