Climate Justice

Some people, say those who live in Aberystwyth, shake their fists at the weather and cry out for justice, climate justice. It's not fair that the climate should attack them on a daily basis with unending rain while a privileged elite live under the sunny skies of Texas. 

Fair? Hardly and if you doubt me, try taking a summer vacation in Borth without an umbrella and a fleece. But seriously, climate justice is about more than sharing the Texan sun with our weather oppressed Welsh friends, it's about "working at the intersections of environmental degradation and the racial, social, and economic inequities it perpetuates."

You see, anthropocentric global warming creates a greenhouse effect in the earth's atmosphere, causing the climate to change because of CO2 emissions. This makes the weather hot, which melts the ice caps and causes drought and catastrophic flooding. And it makes the weather cold, because the sun's heat is blocked by carbon dioxide, bringing on a new ice age. Polar bears are tragically driven schizophrenic by this injustice.

Poor people of color are also harmed by the inequity, as their huts flood and then become frozen blocks of ice. On the other hand, privileged whites, living in mining compounds on the high ground of the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, for example, are spared. 

Such is the perpetuation of economic, social and racial injustice, brought on by the Weather. You can take a course on it at the fabled school of higher learning we call "Cornell."

All this passed through my mind as I drove through the asset stripped streets of this rural Texan haven, while the rain crashed down with southern fury and wildfires raged through the pines of Arizona. What had gone wrong, had we somehow failed to pay our Climate Tax?

Smart people are investing in boats, skis and fireproof bunkers.

Your Pal,

LSP