The best article I found this week was written back in April, and appeared in Essence. It’s entitled “A Green-Red New Deal Can Save Black Lives In A Post-COVID-19 World” and it’s by J. Ama Mantey.
It’s well worth reading all the way through, but here are some highlights:
…it is vital that we consider how climate change will make infectious disease outbreaks more common and harder to fight.
“We already know that African Americans are more likely to die from asthma and heart disease, which are exacerbated by warmer air temperatures,” [Adrienne Hollis, Ph.D., a Senior Climate Justice and Health Scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists] tells ESSENCE. “And, the [Center for Disease Control] has identified that people, who have serious heart conditions, chronic lung disease or moderate-to-severe asthma, as high risk populations for [COVID-19]. So, we can see that the same groups of people at risk from COVID-19 are also at risk from the adverse health effects of climate change.”
Some ancient viruses, once trapped in glaciers and permafrost, may likely be “awoken” as the ice melts near the Arctic and Antarctica due to climate change. Rising global temperatures and humidity have also shifted the life cycles and locations of disease-carrying insects, like mosquitoes and fleas, and may even encourage the natural selection of viruses, bacteria, and fungi that adapt to thrive in warmer climates and more readily infect humans.
Indigenous people and communities, under the banner of the Red Nation, released the “Red Deal” late last year, which re-centers First Nations—and their knowledge—in the fight against climate change and explicitly calls for the end of fossil fuel consumption. Viewed as a supplement to the Green New Deal, their plan demands for the United States to move past reformism and political theater, and, through community organizing, mass mobilization and bold policy, finally rein in the main industries driving climate change.
And that’s only part of it. As I said, WELL worth reading all the way through. Unfortunately, nothing has changed for the better since it was written.
A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about a displaced person or animal. Do not write about the fly on Mike Pence’s head. I mean it. Don’t. Just don’t. Did you hear me? Yes, I’m talking to you.
MA
