Science Is Climate Activism Inclusive Enough? - The BBC has its finger on the important issues again

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The mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah - the nine-year-old girl whose fatal asthma attack may have been linked to illegal levels of pollution - has said there is a lack of representation in climate activism.

People living in parts of London with high proportions of black, mixed or other ethnic groups are disproportionately affected by air pollution compared to those in areas with a high proportion of white people, according to research by the Mayor of London.

Yet people from BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds are often invisible in climate protest, says Rosamund Kissi-Debrah - who is due to speak at the World Health Organization on Monday.

Ms Kissi-Debrah, who lost her daughter in 2013, says black or ethnic minority people care about climate change as much as other groups.

"I focus on air pollution, obviously because of what happened to my daughter, but also because people where I live care about pollution.

"Pollution has a direct impact on their lives."

Echoing Ms Kissi-Debrah's comment is Professor Akwugo Emejulu - a sociology lecturer at the University of Warwick specialising in women of colour's activism in Europe.

She says the main reason for what she sees as their lack of representation in activism lies in some of the tactics used by action groups, such as Extinction Rebellion.

One of the strategies adopted by Extinction Rebellion during their 10-day demonstration in April was to get as many activists as possible arrested.

Prof Emejulu says some black campaigners are put off this approach because they fear violence and hostility from the police.

Samantha Moyo is the coordinator for Extinction Rebellion Together - a section within the group that provides training on diversity.

She says it took a lot of effort to overcome her fear of police when joining protest campaigns.

"I don't know what it is about being black that makes you feel scared around police," she said.

"I've always got a feeling of, 'they're going to get me - out of everyone here, they're going to come for me'."

Ms Moyo says she only felt safe from police at the latest protests because she was "holding hands with a fellow protester, who was white".

She says police could help to reduce the fear sometimes felt by people of colour if they behaved in a more approachable way.

"Something as simple as a smile. Or maybe something like a declaration from a police department, saying: 'We admit this has been a problem', that would be quite healing.

"Or even allowing or creating spaces for people who are traumatised by police to share their stories. A lot of people of colour are traumatised."

Kids of Colour - a platform for young ethnic minority people to explore identity and "challenge institutional racism" - says climate protests do not always allow for the realities they face.

School students around the world recently went on strike to demand action on climate change, but some at Kids of Colour question how inclusive the protests were.

"The school strikes have been fantastic to witness, but it is also a privilege to be able to skip school," says one representative.

"Many young people of colour feel a pressure to succeed in education because society does not work in their favour."

The Wretched of the Earth, which describes itself as "a collective of grassroots indigenous, black, brown and diaspora groups", wrote an open letter to Extinction Rebellion asking the group to rethink its tactics.

While commending Extinction Rebellion's successes, the letter said ethnic and minority voices were missing from the movement and need to be included early on, in order to effectively challenge systems upholding "racism, sexism and classism".

Referencing Miss Thunberg's "house on fire" analogy, the group said: "Our communities have been on fire for a long time and these flames are fanned by our exclusion and silencing."

So how can pressure groups draw everyone in?

People from BAME backgrounds need to be taken into consideration from the very start, says Prof Emejulu.

"It's not about organising in your own terms and then trying to draw people in. You have to be embedded in the communities with the people that are affected by this.

"It's also about democracy - if democracy isn't reflected in your activism then that's a problem."

Ms Moyo says Extinction Rebellion is working on taking action to ensure that people of colour are not being left out.

"I'm excited about what we're doing," she says, "because we'll be raising awareness and providing training around racism, colonialism, systemic trauma and other important issues."

Other campaign groups are also addressing the matter.

Greens of Colour is part of the Green Party, aiming to represent BAME members. And Friends of the Earth (FoE) has also acknowledged there is a problem with diversity in climate debates.

In particular, says an FoE spokeswoman, groups need to be better at recruitment and "bringing people in that the sector hasn't done very much to interest".

FoE now gives potential supporters a variety of ways to join and tries to make sure they see their experiences reflected in campaigns.

The spokeswoman adds: "But we own that we have a long way to go."
 
This really is peak Beeboid.

Also, if you want to fix the environment, time to go nuclear. But the greenies won't have it because they don't understand physics and that you are absorbing more ionising radiation from eating a banana than from any amount of high- or medium- level nuclear waste.

Nah its that if you go nuclear you cant use innefective solar etc as a way to stamp upon meat consuption and other stuff, they want to be morality police so they are purposefully chosing innefective solution.
 
Hasn't the last 5 - 8 years shown what a disaster intersectionality is?

From Occupy Wall Street to the LGBTQXYZWTF (and still growing like pi) movement, when you try to grow your movement by tacking on bits that only have a 3% overlap with the original goals of the core, you don't build a stronger movement, you build a more fractious movement that spends more time fighting with itself than pursing it's mission, which has become so watered-down it can't make policy (AOC's New Green Deal, anyone?) and the lack of success inevitably leads to a desire to either militantly FORCE things to happen or, militantly witch-hunt the traitors in their midst who "aren't REAL allies" as you can certainly make yourself FEEL like something is progressing if you can hound out a few mid-level members for wrongthink Tweets.
Try the last 30-40 years. Intersectionality has dominated the social sciences and humanities since the 1980s. We really need a replacement paradigm because feminists are never going to admit that this way of thinking goes nowhere.
 
This really is peak Beeboid.

Also, if you want to fix the environment, time to go nuclear. But the greenies won't have it because they don't understand physics and that you are absorbing more ionising radiation from eating a banana than from any amount of high- or medium- level nuclear waste.
I heard a BOC song about Godzilla once and I am pretty confident that nuclear power is bad.
Try the last 30-40 years. Intersectionality has dominated the social sciences and humanities since the 1980s. We really need a replacement paradigm because feminists are never going to admit that this way of thinking goes nowhere.
Nowhere?! Ha, progress is being made though I would imagine many here would not like what is being accomplished.
 
Nah its that if you go nuclear you cant use innefective solar etc as a way to stamp upon meat consuption and other stuff, they want to be morality police so they are purposefully chosing innefective solution.
And stamping out manufacturing, industry, trade, agriculture, and consumption in general. The end of the middle-class.
There idealized world is one of collective peasant subsistence farmers and their climate "solutions" reflect that.
 
They can try, But all they are doing is setting up situation where people of eastern europe might actually welcome Russia as liberator. You realize just how big of fuckup they might actually i hope. They might manage to make imposible seem possible.
 
How do you think Sargon of Akkad feels knowing that these are the people who thoroughly humiliated him on a national scale? It's the intellectual equivalent of losing an mma fight against Bob Sapp, only to later hear that he got obliterated in a bout against CM Punk.
 
Try the last 30-40 years. Intersectionality has dominated the social sciences and humanities since the 1980s. We really need a replacement paradigm because feminists are never going to admit that this way of thinking goes nowhere.
That's like wanting a more effective form of government. For instance, the US government's greatest attribute is that it is a bloated, slow moving, and largely impotent bureaucracy. Have you seen what happens those idiots do when they manage to do something about an issue? A left unable to turn my frogs gay because they're too busy fighting themselves is an excellent scenario.
 
look, i know this ship is sinking but before you plug the holes to save us all
can you at least consult our counsel of black trans women?

Sure, It is agree then, Shove black women into the holes. They are fat anyway, it will work out.
 
Solution: Turn feminists into biofuel to reduce dependence on fossil fuel

you realize how much chemicals those retards inject ? its fuel, but its not ecological, just the sheer emissions from the polution attempting to flee the disgusting enviroment of feministic bodies is going to put that into negatives CO2 wise.
 
Wait a minute now. As far as I understand, "Air pollution" is stuff like smog, that makes the air actually bad to breathe.
Climate change is focused on CO2, which isn't part of said air pollution. One is a real problem for health and the other theoretically causes higher global average temperatures.
They're being sneaky.
 
This really is peak Beeboid.

Also, if you want to fix the environment, time to go nuclear. But the greenies won't have it because they don't understand physics and that you are absorbing more ionising radiation from eating a banana than from any amount of high- or medium- level nuclear waste.

Rant inc cause it's a major pet peeve.

Unfortunately, I think it's worse than that. Among the rank and file "green" sorts of people, it's true that they just don't understand. But most movements have reasonably smart people at the head with the funding and the education to set the talking points and agenda based on some kind of analysis of the issue and predictions about what is gonna fix it. With climate change those people are clearly intellectually and morally bankrupt, and it is a tragedy.

They absolutely are not interested in real solutions. Climate change is a tool to them, nothing more. It serves many useful ends, in terms of motivating political support and donations, and as a moral cudgel to beat others with and be (feel) righteous. You see their fundamental lack of seriousness in such cases as the stupid shopping bag bans or paper straw nonsense. These are ways to publicly (albeit very softly) flagellate yourself with tedious bullshit and signal your woke-ness and righteousness for suffering through these first-world inconveniences, but they are not things which are realistically going to solve anything in the long run.

Similarly, with energy the lack of support for nuclear among the political and activist leadership gives away the game. They are happy to endlessly repeat "wind-and-solar-wind-and-solar", but shut down completely when you point out it will always need a fossil fuel backup and there is no realistic technology on the horizon to get massive scale, cheap energy storage to get around this. Pushing doomsday out a little ways is nice, but ultimately doesn't solve the problem: which is that we need to STOP using fossil fuels.

Additionally you get the lack of concern over solutions for the 3rd and 2nd world where the bulk of the issue really lies: these same people will argue that the 2nd/3rd world needs to come to the 1st world and have a 1st world carbon footprint, or they will suggest it's crazy to try unwind the movement of industry to countries with no environmental regulation. These are the same people huffing and puffing about Trump's trade war "the jobs won't come back!" or "it'll just be automated!", when they should be ecstatic and using the opportunity to whisper in his ear about carbon or pollution tariffs.

So most of our elites and "thought-leaders" are complete frauds. However one ray of hope is that there are good actors: Musk and Gates are examples of people actually trying to solve the problem and they deserve support for it, IMO. Ok rant done.
 
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