On Climate Justice

I will discuss herein my beliefs about climate justice without thoroughly justifying them. I will justify them in future posts.

Justice is a synchronic condition that society either meets or doesn’t at a given moment in time. That is to say: either society synchronizes in the correct way or it is not a just society. The correct way is simply the society’s being the way it ought to be. The definition of a just society, then, is a society that is the way it ought to be. That sounds vague but it shows us a surprising lot about what a just society would be like and what we ought to do about it–I’ll illustrate through one of the issues close to my heart, climate justice.

Many job applications or interviewers ask me what climate justice means to me. With the concept of justice outlined above floating around my head, I see that climate justice is simply part of a greater societal justice. That does not mean that we can treat climate justice as an obscure part of our approach the issue of climate, however. Quite the contrary: if justice has the features I’ve suggested, then justice is the forefront of climate action, not an obscure part of it.

If we find equality of opportunity part of the just society, then if we address climate change, contamination, biodiversity, and so forth, without equalizing the climate playing field, improving the climate conditions for all Americans and world citizens according to whom is most affected by them, then we are not addressing the issue of climate at all; what we are doing is using climate change to the advantage of some classes of people and rationalizing it with hand waving towards the sky.

To be clear: climate justice is a (necessary) part of societal justice and climate action is part of climate justice. But climate justice is not part of climate action; when we are behaving as if it is, we are behaving unjustly and I would say maliciously.

The just society is one in which equality of opportunity reigns. For simplicity, we may think of equality of opportunity as economic equality and equal enjoyment of civil rights (but not, necessarily, equal amounts of money or financial security in all bank accounts, etc.) Climate change and contamination exacerbate economic inequality and preclude certain civil rights of BIPOC at disproportionately high rates–e.g., the right to potable water in Detroit, MI or Granville, NC, or clean air in Brooklyn, NY. One’s political activism might simply ignore that and advantage various aspects of the climate issue–change, calamity, contamination–towards the economic benefit and civil rights of certain classes of people; climate justice, however, requires addressing the climate ills of all classes of people, insofar as addressing those ills should cause increases in justice or equality of opportunity. And to reiterate, if you’re not doing that, you’re not even addressing the climate, you’re addressing some folks’ wants and needs at the expense of those of others, which is why I call it “political activism,” not “climate activism.”

For instance, if we advocate for a carbon fee and dividend to be distributed absolutely equally among all citizens, e.g., $1,000 to all citizens, then we are ignoring the possibility that not all citizens are affected equally by carbon pollution. Thus, we would be compensating people for a harm they don’t experience, which compensation they could use to their advantage and further the carbon harm disparity. Furthermore, if we did that without addressing the impotable water crisis, we would again be addressing the ills of some classes of people at the expense of others. Impotable water disproportionately affects BIPOC, so to address only carbon pollution without water contamination would be to advantage only some classes of people at the expense of BIPOC. Having lived in areas of the world without potable water, I cannot emphasize enough the inefficiency involved in having to purify or treat (there is a difference) your own water, or buy bottled water, vs. having the city or state contract professionals to do it for everybody all in one go. Doing it yourself changes your whole routine, is expensive, and, furthermore, is less reliable than when professionals do it, so you are more likely to get sick. It doesn’t matter how rich you are; procuring your own potable water is laborious and can only be described as a handicap in a society where others don’t have to do it. Subject some folk to that while addressing other climate ills and you aren’t addressing climate but the wants and needs of particular classes of people.

Now, of course, I think there’s a lot more to be said about each topic I’ve mentioned here. Justice, climate, fee and dividend, water contamination, etc. But if I have to briefly defend my view on climate justice, I’ll say that the whole topic is much more simple if you look at it from a justice perspective, not a climate one. Climate justice is part of the project of societal justice and climate action is part of climate justice but not vice versa. Climate justice should be the one and only goal of those of us concerned with the issue of climate. If you don’t conceive of it that way, you are, even if implicitly, thinking about the issue of climate so that it might benefit some at the expense of others. If you don’t approach climate action insofar as it might cause gains in equality of opportunity and justice more broadly, you are approaching it so that it might benefit some at the expense of others–and I would say you aren’t even addressing the climate but playing class warfare. Even if the climate emergency will only leave society as a whole worse off than it was before, and only cause harm, we will certainly be committing a gross injustice if we allow that harm to affect certain classes of people disproportionately.