„Connecting the Dots: A Framework for Understanding the Link Between Structural Inequities, Environmental Racism & Climate Inequities in Indigenous & Black Communities“
Dienstag, 20.04.2021, 18:00, auf Englisch und Deutsch
Die Aufzeichnung in deutscher Sprache steht aufgrund eines technischen Fehlers leider nicht zur Verfügung.
Indigenous, Black, and other racialized and marginalized communities in the global north and south are disproportionately vulnerable to the climate crisis because they are more likely to be exposed to pollution and contamination from nearby industry and reside in places where they are also more likely to be impacted by rising sea levels, disappearing shorelines, frequent and heavy rainfall, raging storms and floods, intense heat waves, increasing wildfire, poor air quality, higher rates of climate-related diseases, and other effects of climate change that hit them first and worst. In addition, Indigenous, Black, and other racialized and marginalized communities are at greater risk for climate disasters because they are more likely to experience long-standing structural inequities that make it more difficult for them to escape, survive, and recover from these disasters.
These long-standing structural inequities include racist policies and practices, such as residential segregation, unequal educational opportunities, limited opportunities for economic advancement, low-income and poverty and fragile public infrastructures, such as poor-quality housing. These factors have increased the vulnerability of Black and Indigenous people to the climate crisis and other global crises. Therefore, the fights against climate change, environmental racism, and racial injustice are considerably intertwined and must be addressed together.
In this presentation Dr. Waldron offers an analysis of how the climate change narrative and movement can make space for a deeper engagement with a climate justice lens – one that considers how multiple social, economic, and political factors intersect to disproportionately expose certain communities to climate devastation.
Dr. Ingrid Waldron is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health at Dalhousie University, the Team Co-Lead of the Improving the Health of People of African Descent Flagship at the Healthy Populations Institute at Dalhousie, founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project (The ENRICH Project), and the co-founder of the national Anti-Environmental Racism Coalition.
Dr. Waldron’s research, teaching, and community leadership and advocacy work are examining the health and mental health impacts of structural racism and other forms of discrimination in Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and refugee communities. Her research interests include mental illness and help-seeking in Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities, including Black women’s experiences with mental illness and help-seeking; the impact of COVID-19 in Black communities; intimate partner violence experienced by racially and culturally diverse older women; the impacts of climate change in Black communities; and environmental racism in Black and Indigenous communities.
The ENRICH Project was launched in 2012 to investigate and document the socio-economic, political, and health effects of environmental racism in African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia, Canada. The ENRICH Project formed the basis to Dr. Waldron’s first book There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities, which was turned into a 2020 Netflix documentary of the same name and was co-produced by Waldron, actor Elliot Page, Ian Daniel, and Julia Sanderson. Dr. Waldron recently co-founded the Anti-Environmental Racism Coalition, which has brought together organizations in the environmental and climate change sector to collaborate on projects and share expertise and resources to address environmental racism in Indigenous, Black, and other racialized communities across Canada. On March 24, 2021, the private members’ bill A National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism (Bill C-230), which is based on Dr. Waldron’s research and which she developed with MP Lenore Zann, was approved at second reading.
