The people who caused the climate crisis arent the ones who will solve it Angela Mahecha Adrar

Transcriber:

We don’t just have a climate crisis,

we have a climate leadership crisis.

We’ve acted as though
an environmental crisis

created by corporate and government elites

can now somehow be solved

by these same corporate
and government elites.

While the people on the front lines,
the people most impacted

by wildfires, pollution,
rising sea levels,

have no other role but to suffer.

Centering the leadership
of these communities

and leading us out of this crisis

isn’t only the just thing to do.

It is the most important thing
that we can do

to actually solve this crisis.

Because people, when they can’t
take anymore, they rise up,

and they lead us to a better future.

Desperate times lead
to creative and just solutions

by those most impacted.

I know that from experience,

because like so many other
low-income families

searching for livelihoods,

when my mother, brother and I
emigrated from Colombia,

we made our homes alongside landfills,

incinerators, oil refineries, power plants
and waste-treatment plants.

In neighborhoods that serve
as the sacrifice zones

to fuel the economy of this nation
and, oftentimes, the world.

In the ’70s, in Southwest Detroit,

we lived in the shadow
of the Marathon oil refinery.

And in the ’80s, in Queens, New York,

we played handball
in vacant contaminated lots,

unknowingly breathing in dangerously high
levels of sulfur dioxide

from power plants nearby.

In the US, if you’re poor,

and you’re Indigenous,
Black, Middle Eastern,

Pacific Islander, Asian or Latinx,

you more often than not live, play, pray
and work in a sacrifice zone.

I’m saying this because I’ve been
assaulted by pollution violence

my whole life.

And although I’ve been on the front lines
as a climate justice leader for 20 years,

I’ve been envisioning solutions
to the environmental crisis

since I was a kid …

dreaming up a better world.

For people like me,
people in sacrifice zones

that are also leading a just transition

away from the subtractive model
of development

to one that feels just for all of us,

in the name of climate justice.

So what is climate justice?

It’s simple.

If …

climate change was created
by economic and racial injustice,

then effective solutions
to the climate crisis

have to include
economic and racial justice.

Climate justice centers
the struggle and the solutions

of those on the front lines of the crisis,

communities who have been
underresourced and plagued

by everything from police violence,
racism, struggling schools

and so much more.

These same communities

have been, historically
and disproportionately,

exposed and subjected to pollution
and contamination from industry.

These are the workers who are essential,

but are treated as expendable
by big corporations

and this wildly unjust
economic system in which we live.

Frontline communities aren’t the people

whose homes on the beach
are threatened by erosion.

They’re communities and families
whose homes are already underwater.

Children who already
can’t breathe from asthma,

and neighbors who are already
drinking polluted water

and poisoned water.

In the midst of a global pandemic,

multiple uprisings
for racial justice and democracy

and record wildfires,
droughts and storms –

it’s time we finally realized we can’t fix
injustice with more injustice.

I’ll go so far as to say
that frontline communities

are the only ones
that can get us out of this crisis.

And in fact, they already are.

And there’s so many great examples,
but to give just one …

In Washington State,
a rural farming community

created a local, scalable community farm.

It produces healthy, affordable food,

it renews land ravaged by pesticides

and it respects and protects workers.

“Tierra y Libertad” was created
when four farm workers came together

to start a berry-growing cooperative,

owned and managed by themselves.

They pay workers 15 dollars an hour,

otherwise unheard of
in a historically exploitative industry.

They take regular breaks

and they eat free communal meals.

“Tierra y Libertad”
also has a capital plan for expansion

that includes energy-efficient
worker housing

and a large community space.

If you think this is a small step,

that a berry cooperative
is small potatoes,

in the US alone,

berries are a multibillion dollar market.

Now that’s a lot of change,
in every sense.

And while the “Tierra y Libertad” story

has all the signs of a scalable investment
in community asset building,

it can resolve a number of issues,

from the need to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions

and discrimination

to the right to a liveable wage.

The truth is that “Tierra y Libertad”
is barely hanging on …

like so many other environmental
frontline solutions

that are healing and transforming
communities today …

but are overlooked and underresourced

by foundations, banks
and other sources of support.

Overlooked by us and many.

Meanwhile, the fight
against climate change

is increasingly positioned
as a big business opportunity

for big business.

But corporate greed and expediency

is what got us
into the crisis to begin with …

squeezing out as much profit
from our natural resources,

whatever the cost
to people and the planet.

Incorporating Band-Aid fixes
that rely on markets and technology

to heal what wasn’t broken

until markets and technology broke them.

Take cap and trade,

which doesn’t stop pollution,

but simply gives the right to pollute
to the highest bidder.

When enacted statewide in California,

oil and gas emissions, they went up,

and frontline communities,

they continue to bear
this disproportionate health impact,

while greenhouse gases and coal pollutants
continue to rise under cap and trade.

Or take stratospheric aerosol injections

that would shoot sulfur dioxide
up into the stratosphere

to try to block out solar radiation
from reaching the earth.

Nothing about polluting the air
with sulfur dioxide

was innovative in the ’80s,
and it isn’t innovative now.

These kinds of interventions

can have planetary consequences
in different parts of the world.

Dangerous ideas that are backed
by the same fossil fuel industry …

They don’t address root causes
of the climate crisis,

and they don’t reduce emissions
at the rate that we need now either.

Let me be clear,

making money off of the climate crisis …

That isn’t innovative.

It’s not new

and it’s not going to lead
to the kind of effective solutions

we need to solve this crisis.

And I’m not talking
from a moral perspective,

I’m talking from an on-the-ground,
practical perspective.

Because this crisis, climate change,

was created by centuries …

of exploitation and greed and injustice.

And if solutions are not addressing
and meeting the needs

of those most impacted
by the climate crisis itself,

then frankly,
they’re just false solutions.

The future that we want,
the future that we need,

has to be led by frontline communities,

here in the US and all across the world.

And it has to happen now.

In the Climate Justice Alliance,

where I organize with thousands
of other frontline leaders,

we’re uniting …

for a transition.

But not just any transition –
a just transition,

away from a dig, burn, dump economy

to one that is just
and clean for everyone.

Reinvesting in local,
place-based solutions

that are led by the very communities
with the very most at stake.

Solutions that more often than not
will lead to benefits for all of us.

And not just to line
the pockets of just a few.

Because solutions like “Tierra y Libertad”

are being implemented
all across the globe.

Earth-Bound, for example –

a Black-owned regenerative
building cooperative.

They travel in brigades

to restore the depressed farmers
to sustainability.

Indigenous communities from Pine Ridge

to the Four Corners of the Navajo Nation,

they’re building
regenerative energy enterprises

to power their territories.

Now that’s a regenerative economy.

The wind power alone,
from those tribal lands,

can satisfy 32 percent
of the US demand for energy.

In Puerto Rico,

mutual support networks
that gather together,

powered by youth, by teachers, by workers,
by organizers and farmers,

were able to renew hope

and adjust recovery

with more efficiency
and with greater compassion than FEMA

after those islands' climate disasters.

And in Miami, where I live now, residents
in the historically Black Liberty City,

they came together
and started a land trust

to protect their community
from gentrification

due to rising sea levels
and flooding in other parts of the city.

In Portland, Oregon,

communities came together

and passed a corporate Clean Energy Tax.

This tax will fund
tens of millions of dollars

into green jobs and healthy homes.

I’m saying these are just a handful
of the innovative, creative solutions

that are healing and transforming
communities right now, today.

These are desperate times,

and desperate times can lead

to beautiful strategic
and innovative solutions.

Can, but not necessarily will.

It depends on whether we continue
to grasp at the same models

that got us into this situation
to begin with,

and can only make it worse.

Or if we really just wake up.

Disrupt the status quo
and pay real attention,

real, respectful attention
to these leaders,

who are on the ground,

implementing and creating solutions

that are leading us
out of the climate crisis right now,

day by day.

There’s no time to waste.

Thank you.