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Have you heard about this? In a 59-page report titled, A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. (PDF), the left-leaning Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies tries to make the case that global warming disproportionately impacts black people.
What they ought to say is that climate changes disproportionately impact poor people of all colors, but focusing on blacks, who are more likely to be poor than whites, will generate more attention, not to mention indignation.
I grabbed the bait, and now I’m stuck on the hook. Help!
On Tuesday, liberal Congressman James Clyburn spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to kick off the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, sponsored by the Joint Center. Read all about it and watch the clip. There’s a campaign afoot to encourage blacks to join the global warming debate. And what better way to do it than compile a list of racial disparities supposedly correlated with the changing climate?
From the report (emphasis added):
“African Americans are thirteen percent of the U.S. population and on average emit nearly twenty percent less greenhouse gases than non-Hispanic whites per capita. Though far less responsible for climate change, African Americans are significantly more vulnerable to its effects than non-Hispanic whites. Health, housing, economic well-being, culture, and social stability are harmed from such manifestations of climate change as storms, floods, and climate variability. African Americans are also more vulnerable to higher energy bills, unemployment, recessions caused by global energy price shocks, and a greater economic burden from military operations designed to protect the flow of oil to the U.S.”
Military operations designed to protect the flow of oil to the U.S.? I never heard that before. I have more to say; in fact, 700 words worth. But I want to check your pulse first.
What say you?
Update (8/1): Is summer over yet? Geez! Hate it, hate it, hate it.
I implore the powers that be to stop racializing everything. Says a writer I know: “In the name of ‘climate justice’ and all that is windy, I hope we shall overcome the storm someday.”
Read the rest of Is Climate Change…Racist?, and rest easy this weekend, everybody!
