Special Opinion Piece: The Colors of Climate Justice
Should Economic Stimulus Be Green?
No, It Should Be Black, Brown, White, and Green
By: Uchechukwu "Emeka" Eze
It is okay to write with the benefit of hindsight. This is what history is, revisiting the past with a hope for the future.
When I started writing this piece, over twenty-five million people in the world had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and at least eight-hundred and forty-four thousand deaths had been recorded. The bitter truth is there will be many more.
Across the globe, governments have committed approximately twelve trillion dollars to combat the fallout of COVID-19. Through the steps taken by Congress and the Federal Reserve, the U.S. government has committed more than six trillion dollars, a staggering sum considering the nation’s response has been mired in political brinkmanship.
In the days leading up to the passage of what would be a two trillion dollar assistance package, President Donald Trump tweeted "Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats clog their coronavirus relief bill with leftist wishlist. Democrat bill includes: tax credits for solar and wind energy…emissions standards and carbon offset requirements for airlines…” Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, also accused Democrats of pushing for unrelated “wish-list items” such as solar energy tax credits and new emission standards for airlines. “This is the moment to debate new regulations that have nothing whatsoever to do with this crisis?”
Trump and McConnell got it wrong. In many ways we all got it wrong.
In March, Bloomberg Green published an article on the proposed COVID-19 response entitled: “Should Economic Stimulus Be Green? It’s a Matter of Timing.” In the article, the founder of an environmental think tank said “it’s not the time to be talking about climate change or demanding climate policy.” In his mind, it would have been “tone-deaf to talk about climate change now.”
That line of thinking arose because for far too long climate change has been discussed in terms of dying polar bears, fires in the Amazon, the Arctic melting, etc. (all of which are 100 percent true, horrifying, and “green”). However, the problem is that when we talk about climate change with a lens focused only on the things that are green, we miss the forest for the trees. We miss the disproportionate impact felt by people of color, and in low income communities.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the architects of the Green New Deal, explained in an interview that “most fossil fuel infrastructure in our country is sited in poor neighborhoods that are majority Black and Brown, majority people of color. Facilities aren’t in those communities for no reason. It’s because those people have less power. The most heinous examples of what burning fossil fuels do to people are sequestered in communities where people aren’t believed...”
1 Kirk Allen, Mother Jones, American Refineries Getting Ready for Dirty Tar Sands Oil, October 31, 2012.
Gunn-Wright’s words struck a chord with me. Her lived experience combating these issues were not far from where I grew up, southwest Detroit. There, residents have been suffocated into submission by the Marathon Petroleum (“Marathon”) refinery processing crude-high-sulfur tar sands. After what can only be described as poisoning the neighborhood, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality wrote up Marathon for a mere nuisance violation due to the odors released.
This problem is not exclusive to Detroit. If one is looking for examples a little closer to Denver, consider that the Suncor Energy facility discharges “forever chemicals” into waterways and creates grey-white ash that rains on schoolyards in Commerce City. Yet some politicians still believe now is not the time to be talking climate policy, some politicians think the right to breathe clean air, and drink clean water is a wish list.
2 Aaron Rutkoff, Bloomberg Green, The Time Is Now, June 9, 2020
The New York Times had to sue the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to unlock what communities of color already knew: Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at significantly higher rates. This partially stems from the combination of the local climate where industrial neighbors pollute the air and taint the water, and a predominance of service or production jobs that cannot be done remotely. Specifically, Black and Latino individuals are twice as likely to die from the coronavirus.
We are still waiting for sufficient congressional action to the pandemic, and it is critical that all next steps take into account environmental justice, which has long been underfunded. One study showed that between 2016 and 2017, twelve national foundations awarded over one billion dollars of environmental grants to non-governmental organizations. However, less than two percent of these funds were awarded to environmental justice organizations.
As Emily Pontecorvo stated writing for Mother Jones, the only thing “green” about the most recent congressional stimulus was the money. If money talks, the stock market sings in soprano. We all know President Trump knows this. Senator McConnell knows it, too. At one point during the coronavirus negotiations, McConnell threatened to use market turmoil to force the hand of Democrats, stating he would schedule a vote for 9:45 a.m. Monday, “15 minutes after the markets open, and see if there’s a change of heart.”
Tom Williams / Zuma, Mother Jones, The Only Thing Green About the COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Is the Money, March 28, 2020
In case you don’t follow the stock market, and you are curious how investing works, I’ll pass along the best piece of advice I ever received: Buy cheap, sell high. Easy right? Not quite. For something to be cheap, there has to be an impairment, and to sell high means one must have an eye on the future. To successfully invest, one has to be able to see the forest from the trees.
In its “How to Grow Green” guide, Bloomberg Green explains that in the past, deep recessions have been followed by spikes in industrial activity that churned out far more greenhouse gas than was avoided in the downturn. For instance, carbon dioxide emissions dropped 1.4% in 2009 before rising 5.1% the following year when the economy started to bounce back. It seems that what doesn’t kill you, only makes your economy stronger—but not necessarily smarter.
Cameron Hepburn, a professor of environmental economics at the University of Oxford, remarked “I’ve always thought it’s logical that, if you’re going to make an awful lot of investments, then make them in a strategic way like getting the economy sorted on climate.” As Hepburn highlights, the stimulus spending of 2009 helped the rise of cleantech companies like Tesla Inc. (the world’s second largest automaker). This is not an original idea, but it is a principle that requires constant repeating and expansion.
In 2010, Colorado blazed a new trail with the passage of the Community Solar Gardens Act (House Bill 10-1342), and its subsequent Low-Income Community Solar Demonstration Project. This investment strategy was to unlock the potential of community solar, while reducing electricity costs for low-income households . The program delivered by reducing the energy burden for over three hundred low- income households – saving 15 to 50 percent on electricity bills – in a state where 30 percent of households are considered energy burdened or energy impoverished. Additionally, the project is expected to reduce electricity costs for subscribers by more than $3 million over the lifetime of the project, making it a very green investment—as well as a model for the rest of the country.
Our local climate and actions are inextricably connected to the rest of the Earth. However, we cannot afford to focus on the Amazon and the Arctic while we ignore the pain and suffering in our own backyard. When we invest in our economy, our environment, and in our people, then we truly start to see all of Earth’s amazing colors.
Should economic stimulus be green? Yes, but it should also be Black, Brown, and White…
Darin McGregor, Rocky Mountain News, Denver Public Library Digital Collections, March 4, 2009
Since March there have been four bills to consider in the context of climate justice and economic stimulus. The Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act included seven tax credit provisions (a “green” bill in both senses of the word). The bill was passed by the House, but never taken up by the Senate. Some of its green provisions were briefly introduced in what would ultimately be passed as the CARES Act. In the spirit of compromise, Senate Democrats attempted to pair the refilling of the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserves with clean energy provisions. Eventually both initiatives were dropped, prompting Senate Democratic Leader, Chuck Schumer, to claim victory for not bailing out big oil.
The final CARES Act as adopted by Congress created various winners and losers. As a result, same powerless, Black, Brown, and low-income people keep losing, while the richer get greener.
Despite the stalemate of the House’s HEROS Act, and Senate’s HEALS Act, we can make progress. If elected, Biden’s administration will take action against polluters who put profit over people; harm our environment; and poison our communities’ air, land, and water.
Should economic stimulus be green? Yes, but it should also be Black, Brown, White, and green.