Are we delaying action on climate change because we are racist?
Asked by
airowDee (
1791
)
December 14th, 2009
Maybe I phrased the problem wrong, it might not be directly about racism, but the racism i am referring to is “structual racism”, it seems the regions most vulnerable to climate change is Africa and the Artic; the people living in those regions are not the regular consumer , voter, car driver, and money makers. If climate change actually directly affects north Americans , would we care more?
After all, Africa has been dying for how long already? since we were born?
PS: I mean, people building a freaking wall between Mexico and the U.S to prevent illegals from coming, and maybe we should just admit that climate change will produce a bunch of non white climate refugees and there is no economic or political incentive to help them.
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13 Answers
No. Action is delayed and change is opposed because of money.
You know, green people.
It directly affects everyone and some people care greatly while other people claim government conspiracy and ignore it. Which is a bit silly really…
I’m not sure where you got the racism bit from..
Corporate influence, not racism. Always assume greed before bad intentions.
Good call @kevbo
I don’t think we actually hate people based on skin color, it is about money. But it is also about supporting a structural that produces racist, anti-women (hello, abortion, contraceptive = population control) result. Obviously, many north americans are suffering, white and non white alike, and our leaders don’t care, so why would they care about africans with no voting rights , and live far away? they are dying anyways, what is a few millions more due to climate change?
@anon
climate change affects everyone, but not equally. If you are stuck with Katrina, and you have money, you can get the fuck out. case in point.
Climate change will affect the whole planet, and very much the US.
The US has been the largest polluter for decades, and is still so by capita. Runner up is Europe. If the west don’t take the responsibility, if we don’t lead, there isn’t going to be a change. China has 1.4 billions people. We can’t just tell them they can’t rise their living standards they way we did. We have to help the developing world to pull the brake, as we are cutting back.
Isn`t the whole reason `we` ( i am very very poor) can have this current standard of living precisely because it is at the expense of many who live on a dollar or two a day. The only reason China will pull ahead is because the U.S is powerless to stop it, not due to her own goodwill or sense of fair play.
No, I don’t think that we are delaying action on climate control for the reasons you pose. I think the majority of American don’t even think about the idea that climate change might be worse for Africa than for us. Generally I think of the majority of Americans to be fairly egocentric and unaware of the world. Right now most average people against taking actions for climate change buy into businesses being closed down in America if they are forced to conform to new regulations and that it is a liberal conspiracy of some sort. The right has effectively made many of their followers actually fearful of doing something about climate change, or that it is somehow akin to be anti-American. Just to be balanced the left has done some fear producing things also in regards to the planet emploding from climate change.
I think most of the Island nations are in serious trouble right now because of the small rise in sea levels they are already experiencing. Racist, I don’t think so. Maybe just coincidental. Seems to me it just boils down to greed. The Corporations that control the global economy just haven’t figured out a way to make it profitable yet. They need to start thinking outside the box.
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