Whiteness in Green Spaces

The year is 2050. Despite desperate efforts to reduce emissions enough to avoid the catastrophic warming of our planet, the Earth is set to rise 3 degrees by the start of the next century. Environmental refugees have tripled in the past decade, as the earth is getting more and more inhospitable and sea level rise has flooded a plethora of coastal areas. The air quality is sickly, always above 100 and unhealthy for sensitive groups. Mostly, communities of color in the United States experience the worst of it, which has led to a crisis of asthma and lung damage which is irreparable. Extreme weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires have become so common that it has been impossible to fix broken city infrastructures. Diseases, new and old, have spread widely throughout the world, and water is increasingly and terrifyingly scarce. People who can’t afford protections, disproportionately people of color, are subject to the worst of these tragedies.

Unfortunately, this terrifying image isn’t a far depiction from our planet’s future if climate change isn’t addressed. With 2020 being one of the hottest years on record, and the planet exceeding the temperature rise limit targeted by the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, we are on track for an unprecedented climate disaster. The United States, in particular, has already seen the beginnings of wild weather patterns, such as hurricanes, droughts, and fires that have ravaged communities and left them inhospitable. Sadly, we’ve also already observed the impacts of climate change that have predominantly and disproportionately been placed on people of color.

An influx of environmental campaigns have taken place to encourage people to buy less single-use plastic, vote for environmental advocates, and reduce production of gas vehicles to hopefully minimize climate change's impact. Environmental nonprofits have worked hard to get their message across, proving successful in many of their campaigns. However, like many institutions which have existed for a long period of time, nonprofit work, specifically in the environmental sector, is rooted in exclusion and bigotry. Within the profound whiteness of their institutions, environmental nonprofits center white voices while misrepresenting and underrepresenting BIPOC, the very communities most at risk from climate change. The current structuring of environmental issues allows for a neglect of environmental justice issues, which largely impact BIPOC at a disproportionate level, and are arguably the most dire of concerns, by environmental nonprofits. Further, the framing of environmental issues in this exclusionary context has culminated in the widespread idea that environmental issues are to be focused on only by those privileged enough to do so: white people. If continued, exclusionary environmental nonprofit practices which have negatively impacted people of color will prove detrimental to the lives of millions as we enter the worst of the climate crisis.

The exclusionary nature of environmental issues can be traced all the way back to the first environmentalists in the Americas. Despite Indigenous groups living harmoniously with the environment for hundreds of years, the bigoted founders of the environmental conservation movement Teddy Roosevelt and Madison Grant held the belief that “whites were the most capable, civilized humans, whose duty was to conquer and manage inferior peoples in the larger quest for the New World and its resources'' (''Inside Higher Ed”). It’s only fitting that the prejudiced beliefs of early environmentalists, who developed the institution of the environmental movement as we know it in America, are now embedded in the environmental field in modern times. A pertinent example of the white supremacist ideals of environmental nonprofits bleeding into modern times is the 1970s Greenpeace fight against the hunting of so-called endangered seals in Nerfoundland, Canada (“Inuit Defend Canada’s Sea Hunt”). Within the campaign, Greenpeace plastered the face of an adorable baby seal in commercials and billboards to garner the support of well meaning celebrities and animal lovers in the ban of sealskin sale, in full opposition to Canadian Inuit, the main commercial sellers of the product. Knowing full well that Inuit have never and will never hunt baby seals, Greenpeace shed a negative light on Inuit practices by releasing fake hunting footage and spreading misinformation. Eventually, Greenpeace became successful in banning the sale of sealskin products in the European Union. And where the campaign did not garner a complete ban of sealskin, the image portrayed across the world of evil humans slaughtering baby seals for fun led to a significant drop in sales, so it might as well have banned it all. Canadian Inuit, who already face high rates of poverty in which “seven in ten Inuit children go to school hungry”, depend on the sale of sealskin as their main source of income (“Inuit Defend Canada’s Seal Hunt”). Without the ability to continue their practices, Canadian Inuit have lost a valuable cultural and financial practice that has allowed them to thrive for hundreds of years. In trying to protect an animal which has never actually been endangered, Greenpeace knowingly spread misinformation at the expense of an already marginalized community. The framing of this fairly recent Greenpeace campaign strongly resembles the early environmentalist notion that white people should protect the environment from ‘uncivilized’ groups such as Indigenous peoples. More recently, animal rights organization PETA has praised well known white supremacist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio for taking meat out of prisoners’ diets, not because he cares about animal rights, but because according to him, meat is too expensive (Norton). PETA actively supporting a white supremacist who has contributed to

disproportionately putting black and brown people in prison, all in the name of animal rights, sums up the issue at hand. Holding the belief that animal rights and environmental issues exist separately from human rights issues such as racism and colonization, most environmental organizations fail to understand the intersectionality of environmental problems and therefore create greater issues for nonwhite community members in the name of mother earth.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that the environmental field in itself is overwhelmingly white. In a study conducted by Dorceta Taylor in 2014, a professor of Environmental Sociology at the University of Michigan, a “troubling lack of racial diversity in major US environmental organizations” was seen (Taylor). The study looked into the amount of BIPOC and women staff within the forty largest environmental nonprofits. According to their research, in the small number of environmental organizations that opted to participate, 88% of staff members were white and 95% of board members were white (2020 NGO). Since then, a 2020 study illustrated a slight increase in women and people of color in positions, but the majority of workers are still white (2020 NGO). The lack of representation within these organizations contributes heavily to the profound whiteness of many environmental campaigns. Without the perspectives of people who have dealt with environmental injustices to influence campaigns, environmental nonprofits continue to relay the same message to the public about the exclusivity of environmental issues. In this realm of thought, it is important to note that the hiring of a few people of color to ‘look good’ is tokenism, which is different from actually including diverse perspectives and providing everyone with the power to make an impact. Tokenism is a phenomenon that occurs when companies try to make a quick improvement to their diversity statistics without wanting the perspectives of the people they are hiring. Nonprofits shouldn’t just hire a few people of color, the environment needs to be actively inclusive, meaning everyone needs an opportunity to present ideas, lead initiatives, and create real change utilizing their own unique background and perspective.

Although environmental nonprofits are managed and staffed by a majority white people, environmental issues have historically disproportionately negatively impacted BIPOC. For example, when Hurricane Katrina hit, “a black homeowner in New Orleans was more than three times as likely to have been flooded as a white homeowner”, due to discriminatory redlining practices that landed black American homes in low-ground housing (Rilvin). In the field of environmental health, BIPOC have seen the height of detrimental health problems due to disproportionately high rates of pollution in their communities. According to a study done by AAFA in 2020, “Black individuals are about three times as likely to die from asthma than Hispanic or white individuals'' (Rilvin). Further, healthy food accessibility is a major issue in nonwhite neighborhoods due to discriminatory practices of redlining which have plagued the country. All the issues aforementioned are prominent environmental justice issues in the environmental field, but are not necessarily seen by the public as top environmental issues, due to the underrepresentation of injustices by environmental nonprofits in campaigns. Many nonprofits view environmental issues as separate from human rights issues, even though there is a major overlap of human rights issues within environmental problems the world faces today, and will face in the coming years on an even larger scale.

In order to get a clearer view on whether the public views environmental justice as a pertinent environmental issue, I conducted a survey to ask the general public of students at USC what they believe to be the most pressing environmental issue of today. This survey provides insight into the general public’s knowledge of environmental issues pertaining to what issues have been prominently displayed in the media, specifically by nonprofits. Knowing that a lot of students will answer ‘climate change’ which is a broad topic that includes environmental justice issues, I then asked specifically what climate change will impact. To link this question back to environmental campaigns, I also asked them what the topic of the most recent environmental campaign was. My results further proved the idea that environmental justice issues are not at the forefront of people’s minds when thinking about environmental issues. In answering the question of “What do you believe to be the most pressing environmental issue today?” six out of ten students answered “climate change” (Salem). The rest of the students surveyed answered various versions of animal rights, pollution, and habitat loss. Not one student thought to bring environmental justice topics into their answer. In the second question, to be more specific about issues within climate change I asked “What aspect of the world do you think will be the most impacted by climate change?” A majority of people answered with a nature-related issue, like impacts to the ocean, the extinction of animals, or harm to wildlife. One person out of ten included the idea that lower income people will face the greatest amount of negative consequences pertaining to climate change (Salem). In the third question, “What was the last environmental campaign you came into contact with fighting for/against?” a majority of people did not remember (Salem). But, within those who did, not one person remembered a campaign which focused on an environmental justice issue (Salem). The survey provides insight into the lack of focus on environmental justice in nonprofit campaigns, which carries over into how the public's perception of environmental issues as being separate from human rights issues.

In addition to the lack of environmental justice campaigns brought forth by nonprofits, the imagery of current campaigns lack intersectionality. For example, a recent World Wildlife Fund campaign depicts a human with the face of a fish. The ad states: “Stop Climate Change before it Changes You” in an attempt to humanize the experiences of animals who experience the effects of climate change (Mills). Another image is of a human hand with an animal's body drawn on it, an attempt which furthers the idea that humans are separate from nature (Mills). In campaigns, humans are almost never the subject, and in the rare case when they are, they are rarely a person of color. In addition to the lack of emphasis on environmental justice issues, this phenomenon further discourages BIPOC from viewing themselves as suitable advocates for the environment.

With climate change’s impacts increasing in prevalence and impact each year, environmental nonprofits are an extremely integral part of the fight to advocate for pressing environmental issues. Organizations have done a lot of good as spokespeople for environmental issues, effectively campaigning to ban harmful pesticides, save endangered species, and reduce pollution. However, the institution of environmentalism is based on profound whiteness, and as a result the blatant lack of BIPOC representation in positions of power, and severe lack of focus on environmental justice, people of color have suffered at the hands of the environmental movement. To counteract this inequity issue, it is essential for environmental nonprofits to spend a significant amount of time and resources to actively search for BIPOC as leaders of their movements, and practice inclusion to avoid tokenism. As the impacts of climate change become more and more evident, environmental injustices will only increase, providing an even greater need for putting environmental justice issues at the forefront of campaigns. In order to do so, BIPOC who reflect the most impacted communities need to be in positions of power within environmental nonprofits.

The year is 2050. In this version, the environment has been privy to degradation beyond repair. The same issues stemming from climate change are continuing to impact and alter people’s lives. However, in this world, environmental nonprofits have dedicated money and time to hiring BIPOC and centering them in their campaigns for environmental justice. Environmental justice is at the forefront of the minds of the public when it comes to environmental issues. Communities in the United States who were previously disproportionately impacted by climate change are getting the most attention, and campaigns have allocated significant amounts of money for the protection of marginalized peoples. Disease, drought, natural disasters, and air quality degradation are still ravaging the world, but people of color are not experiencing the worst impacts.

Works Cited

2020 NGO & Foundation Transparency Report Card - Green 2.0 .https://diversegreen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/green-2.0-2020-transparency-report-card.p df .

Ben Norton. “PETA Has Horrible Sexist, Racist Politics.” Ben Norton, 1 May 2015, https://bennorton.com/peta-has-horrible-sexist-racist-politics/ .

Gary Rivlin, et al. “White New Orleans Has Recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Black New Orleans Has Not.” Talk Poverty , 10 July 2020, https://talkpoverty.org/2016/08/29/white-new-orleans-recovered-hurricane-katrina-black-new-orl eans-not/ .

“Inside Higher Ed.” How Environmentalism in Academe Today Excludes People of Color (Opinion) , https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/06/22/how-environmentalism-academe-today-excl udes-people-color-opinion .

“Inuit Defend Canada's Seal Hunt.” CBCnews , CBC/Radio Canada, https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/inuit-defend-canadas-seal-hunt.

Mills, Morgan. “‘Stop Climate Change before It Changes You.’” Communtiy-Action-Gro ,

30 Nov. 2015, https://millsmor22.wixsite.com/communtiy-action-gro/single-post/2015/11/30/stop-climate-chan ge-before-it-changes-you.

Salem, Chloe. “WRIT Survey”. Survey.XM Qualtrics. 18 October 2021. https://usc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eLhUSZYs2XyiB7w

Taylor, Dorceta. The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations . http://orgs.law.harvard.edu/els/files/2014/02/FullReport_Green2.0_FINALReducedSize.pdf.