At this point, every one of us has experienced the impacts of climate change, whether it was the smoke from wildfires blanketing Minnesota last summer or the oppressive heat earlier this summer. We are all vulnerable to climate change harms, but the truth is some people are more vulnerable than others. And to build the kind of Minnesota in which we all thrive, we need to address these inequities.
Low-income and Black, Indigenous and people of color in Minnesota are more vulnerable to climate change. This increased vulnerability is not the result of their personal decisions. Rather it’s the result of collective decisions made over decades that literally embed racism into the geography of where we live and the way health, opportunity, and wealth are distributed.
Extreme heat is one example of how racial inequity shows up in climate change impacts. Climate change increases the hot days everyone experiences, and heat makes many health issues like COPD or asthma worse. But the level of extreme heat and subsequent health impacts that someone experiences depends on where they live. A study of urban heat found that on the hottest days in Minneapolis, historically red-lined neighborhoods were up to 10 degrees hotter than other neighborhoods. A study of Minnesota birth records co-authored by Dr. Rachel Hardeman found that pregnant Black women experiencing a seven-day heat wave were at higher risk for preterm birth than white women. Extreme heat is just one example in which the health effects of climate change are racially unjust.
As we address climate change, we must simultaneously unweave the threads of racial injustice to find solutions. Climate expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson urges, “I need you to understand that our racial inequality crisis is intertwined with our climate crisis. If we don’t work on both, we will succeed at neither.”
As a white person, I have the responsibility to examine my white privilege and understand how it intersects with our shared path forward on climate change. My growing knowledge of my white privilege leads me to educate myself and speak out about the need for climate solutions that integrate racial and social justice. As a public health professional, I’ve researched how systemic racism makes BIPOC Minnesotans more vulnerable to climate impacts. I’ve stepped up to use this expertise to help educate others and advocate for change. As the volunteer policy director with Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate, I co-authored “Climate Justice & Public Health in Minnesota: Equitable Solutions to the Climate Crisis.”
This report goes beyond just studying the problem and recommends policy solutions to reduce inequities connected to climate change. These recommendations include listening to and working with vulnerable communities, such as those identified by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency as environmental justice areas of concern. We need to take steps to reduce the pollution burden in these communities. We also need to tackle education and income disparities, uphold Indigenous treaty rights, decarbonize all sectors of the economy in an equitable manner, build clean and accessible transit systems, and leave no urban or rural community behind on our path toward climate justice.
Environmentalist Jeremy Williams notes, “Just as white privilege is freedom from the consequences of racism, climate privilege is freedom from the consequences of climate breakdown.” How can white people recognize their climate privilege and support climate justice? First and foremost, educate yourself. Read our report. Read “The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee. Talk about these issues with your network of friends and family to normalize having challenging conversations about climate change and racial privilege.
[image_caption]Kathleen Schuler[/image_caption]
We each have a role in tackling the climate crisis in Minnesota by integrating racial justice into all climate policies and actions. I urge my fellow white Minnesotans to be allies in the fight for racial and climate justice by examining your “climate privilege” with an open mind, listening and learning, and taking action to undo the racial injustices that make some of our neighbors more vulnerable to the harms of climate change.
Kathleen Schuler, MPH, is the policy director with Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate.
Understanding the past is essential. Changing the past is impossible. We have to start from where we are on climate change. Unfortunately it has been neglected so long that it is now an urgent crisis. The biggest glaring problem in Minneapolis is the 2040 plan. The city has been sued and lost in court concerning their failure to do required environmental impact studies of the plan’s consequences. That suit is only the tip of the iceberg and only addressed ground water. What hasn’t been addressed is the plan’s claim that taking away car lanes for bike lanes will decrease greenhouse gases when the opposite is true. This practice will, in fact, INCREASE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS! I can easily explain why in detail if anyone is skeptical: jimrileymusic@gmail.com. Not one of the proponents of bike lanes has ever answered me once on this fact in the multiple times I’ve stated it in multiple public forums. In fact, many of the most adamant proponents don’t even live in Minnesota! This faction of people has been instrumental in formulating the plan behind the scenes out of sight of the public for years before the plan was thrust on us. However – the court gave in to their whining that there’s too much money at stake by stopping the plan until they are ready to appeal. This is a failure of the justice system. This was part of the plan all along – to implement it so quickly before the public realized what was going on that it would be hard to stop once it got rolling. I have much more reason to believe this fake grass-roots “movement” is a fraud and is backed by corporate developers. The 2040 plan should be stopped dead in its tracks immediately no matter what the cost because to continue it will result in massive environmental damage directly negatively affecting the fight against climate change. They will never win on appeal because it’s a house of cards built on sand. We can’t afford to wait because it’s going to cost us a lot more – and more than money – if we allow it to continue. Let’s call for an investigation of who & how this plan was put into motion going back 20 years and prosecute those responsible. Otherwise this city will be a congested, polluted, overcrowded, crime-ridden, dysfunctional slum in 20 years and it won’t matter what race or color you are – you won’t want to live here.
Prove to me that forcing motor vehicles into less space reduces greenhouse gases.
Hiding behind semantics is what all the arrogant, ignorant 2040 plan proponents in these forums do – you can’t begin to answer it because there is no defense for claiming the bike lane “movement” is helping the environment in any way. Neither is the 2040 plan. I’ve read all the studies cited by “Our Streets” and none support your claims. And where is the proof of ANY BIPOC representation among the so-called “stakeholders” consulted when formulating this plan? None. Yet it claims to help that community. Where was the representation of the hundreds of thousands of drivers in Minneapolis? Nowhere. But there was representation of the Bicycle Advisory Committee, Pedestrian Advisory Committee etc. Gee – I wonder how that factored in on setting the priorities for transportation ending up as 1. Pedestrians 2. Bikes 3. Mass Transit and 4. Motor vehicles. Where do you live Ken? Because I recently found out that 2 of the most vocal people who consistently show up in these forums about Minneapolis don’t even live in MN. If you can’t refute my statements then don’t waste your time and everyone else’s with lame academic language critiques. I’ll explain my statement: The 2040 plan includes the removal of car lanes to build protected bike lanes. Therefore less space for cars to drive in. Synapses connecting now? Looking forward to your analysis.
Well Ken, Mpls has lots of $M’s in bike infrastructure, guarded lanes etc. etc. etc. suspect for every $M spent got a 1/2 dozen or so riders on an exceptional great day, nothing in the climate challenged months, we built it, they did not come. (Different from bike paths along the river etc). Feel free to look at the last 10 years of CLIC recommendations and adaption of those plans.
Sorry, not seeing it here on the N.side. City spent $M’s redoing 26th Ave as part of the Grand Rounds, off street bike lanes the works, it would be a push if I saw 1 bike a day.
Have you met people? Human nature is based on self-interest FIRST. This stems from survival instinct. For example – I care about the environment and I’m very concerned about climate change – for real! But I need a car to carry equipment to play music gigs. I’d like to buy a new electric vehicle but can’t afford it. I ride a bike for many reasons and have for 50 years in this city with no need for protected bike lanes. I wouldn’t change my driving habits because it’s faster, safer and can carry all I need including other people. Tell me exactly how many people have changed their transportation practices because you’ve installed bike lanes and how many more you can guarantee will do so and when. How likely is it that ANYONE who has not already done so will change? If you’re going to make a statement you’d better be able to prove it. You dismiss my knowledge of physics and 30 years life experience as a professional driver with 60,000 hours behind the wheel on these very streets as nonsense yet where is your proof that any of your one-dimensional speculative projections are based on anything but wishful thinking and pop-culture junk-science? So tired of the arrogance and ignorance of the bikes-only crowd. You are destroying our city and taking our money to do it. You WILL be stopped and the longer you keep it up the worse your consequences will be. There WILL be criminal and civil action.
What’s your proof of the “absolute certainty”?!?! Anyone can make any statement they want – it doesn’t make it true. How did you reach this conclusion? When you’re taking millions of taxpayer dollars you need to have valid, legitimate evidence of outcomes! Your statement is irrelevant without proof. I simply don’t believe you and I’m accusing you straight up of lying in your statement. Do you have ANYTHING but non-answers? You sound like Trump. You have no problem groundlessly calling my true statements nonsense. I can prove everything I’ve said. And yes, it IS about more than bike lanes. None of the theoretical “philosophy” upon which every aspect of the 2040 plan is based has concrete connection to reality. The above opinion article should be right up your alley – it’s got the same amount of sense to it – NONE! THE PLAN IS A BAD JOKE and the only thing that’s not laughable about it is that it’s costing every citizen in Mpls. REAL MONEY! Plus costing every human on the planet precious time and resources that could be put toward valid methods for fighting climate change. The instigators of this plan are criminals and ignorance will be no excuse. You’ve all been exposed – it’s just a matter an official investigation of how deep the fraud goes. Destroying a city’s transportation system is not a minor infraction.
An experience point of context (last night): Driving down Penn Ave. from 26th to Glenn wood, behind a city bus, traffic must stack up or wait at the light while the bus loads and unloads the corners have all been narrowed, the traffic is idling putting carbons into the air, so take the bus you say, OK, 6 block walk to Penn, in not the most safest neighborhood in the city, catch the bus, 2 people ~$4.00 fare, get off at Penn Glen wood , 6 block walk to our destination. Walk back, another $4.00 fare, and then again a 6 block walk home in not the most safest neighborhood in the city. So for $8 and 24 blocks of walking, 12 of it in hazardous conditions, vs near (exceptionally safe) door to door service with my truck, @ ~ $3.79 gallon, ~ 20 MPG lets say $2 in gas money, even give you $2 in wear and tear, no bus waiting/timing, etc. etc. etc. Decisions decisions.
Exactly the point I’m trying to make, Dennis! That’s why people sacrifice other wants to afford a car. It’s not a luxury – it’s simply far superior to any other form of transportation available. That’s why electric cars – not bikes – are the future and anyone with a reasonable mind, life experience and a 3-dimesional life can see that. That’s how I figured out that this cannot have been legitimately instituted. Our City Council has been either corrupt or hopelessly naive and gullible to have even let this stupidity see the light of day. That’s also why I believe there has to be big money involved. So when I found out that one of the usual suspects who ALWAYS shows up in these forums touting the mantra Ken parrots (“If you design a city with transit, walk-ability and biking in mind people will drive less”) lives in Philadelphia and works as a writer for a company associated with a major corporate developer it all started to make sense. Who is benefiting? And where is the proof that people will drive less? How many people and how much less? Will it even come close to making up for the massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions caused by oppressing drivers into stopping and slowing way more often? Will it outweigh the recklessness of impeding emergency vehicles? No serious thought or analysis was put into this plan. It was simply stamped with a fake green flag and accepted at face value. My generation started the modern environmental movement loosely based on conservationism that came before it. Remember the Ecology flag? That’s why we have clean lakes, clean air, bike trails and greenery throughout our cities. The bike lane proponents are willing to sacrifice any and all of it for bike lanes at any cost (to us). It just doesn’t add up. We need to demand an investigation.
So, being a white guy “climate privilege” next door to a Hmong family on 1 side and AA on the other side, and Latino across the Street, evidently “climate privilege” is real relative to climate change? i.e they will get drought and I’ll get rain?
What a crock! There is no such thing as white privilege, just have and have nots. Poor is poor whether you are white, black or blue. As far as climate change, what percentage of the change is man made? Climate has always changed, long before man, what caused that?
“Poor is poor” explains most, though not all of of climate inequity.
Methinks that Ms. Schuler’s recollections of redlining, for one example, are not so much about white privilege as they are about the past’s white supremacy. While we now like to think that we’re down to a white privilege level, there are still valid examples of supremacy scattered throughout our society.
Hard to believe something like this is actually published. There’s just so much fallacy that it’s hard to believe anything. Climate alarmists have been predicting times of doomsday for decades, yet the dates pass and the sky has not fallen. Then add the racial tinge and it’s just unbelievable.
I suppose since most clouds are white, they are racist as well and only have the rain from them fall on those properties that belong to white people.
No scientist ever said that there would be a particular “doomsday” when the “sky fell”, that’s your obvious misunderstanding. Climate change is already occurring all over the earth, from extreme storms and floods to decades-long droughts; every glacier on earth is melting. FL just got decimated by its second Category 5 hurricane in 4 years, you do the math for what that means for the future of FL.
That’s the data, that’s the reality.
And now the climate is changing? Yet we still survive. Every gain (with pain) that the industrial west makes, the rest of the world more than cancels it out.
That was funny! But oh so true.