Climate Refugees (https://www.climate-refugees.org) and The Institute For The Study Of Human Rights At Columbia University Bring Together Experts In Environmental Racism, Indigenous Rights, Climate Science And Racial Justice To Discuss The Two Big Issues Of Our Time: Race And Climate Change.
The climate crisis disproportionately impacts marginalized populations, many of whom may be displaced or forced to migrate, because of years of unequal access to opportunities and gaps in human rights. The COVID-19 pandemic, George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing protests for racial justice – coming on the heels of one another – equally demonstrate the impacts of two very different crises that have disproportionate impacts on Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) because of systemic unequal access to opportunities, a link Climate Refugees made in an Op-Ed on race and asylum. Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights’ report on Climate Change and Poverty, revealed developing countries will bear 75 percent of the financial costs and losses associated with the climate crisis, despite contributing only 10 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, creating a situation in which those in extreme poverty now also live in extreme weather. The report warned of increasing divisions as well, the risk of a ‘climate apartheid’, where the wealthy escape the negative impacts of climate change, leaving impacts to be borne by disproportionate groups ostracized by divisions, including race. In the U.S., people of color are far more likely to live near pollutants, Black communities face higher risks from air pollution, and Black mothers are most affected by pregnancy risks associated with climate change, linking race, even more than poverty, to environmental pollutants, something long stated by environmental justice and indigenous rights activists.
Panelists:
-Dr. Ingrid Waldron, Sociologist and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health at Dalhousie University, Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project (The ENRICH Project), and the Flagship Project Co-Lead of Improving the Health of People of African Descent at Dalhousie’s Healthy Populations Institute.
-Professor Carlton Waterhouse, international expert on environmental law and environmental justice, as well as reparations and redress for historic injustices.
-Dr. Lucky Tran, is a science communicator based at Columbia University, where he is the Director of Communication and Media Relations at the Irving Medical Center.
Moderated by: Amali Tower, Climate Refugees
For Zoom login information, please register here: http://bit.ly/climatechange_race
Bios:
Dr. Ingrid Waldron is a sociologist and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health at Dalhousie University, Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project (The ENRICH Project), and the Flagship Project Co-Lead of Improving the Health of People of African Descent at Dalhousie’s Healthy Populations Institute. She is the author and co-producer, respectively, of the book and documentary "There's Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities”, directed by Ellen Page and Ian Daniel. Dr. Waldron received a BA in Psychology from McGill University, an MA in Intercultural Education: Race, Ethnicity & Culture from the Institute of Education at the University of London, and a Ph.D. in Sociology & Equity Studies in Education from the University of Toronto. She was also a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research at the University of Toronto focused on the impacts of discrimination on the mental health of Black women in Toronto, their conceptualizations of mental illness and help-seeking, and racism within psychiatric discourse and practice.
Online
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