Blog #215: Climate Crisis

Tonight I joined some other students and watched part of the CNN Climate Crisis Town Hall for Democratic Presidential Candidates. Since it was town hall style, each candidate had individual time to answer questions from audience members and CNN correspondents.

The event lasted probably six hours or more top to bottom, but we only watched a few candidates together— Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg (see below).

I'll spare everyone on my thoughts about the candidates themselves, but there are two things I wish I had seen addressed tonight.

1. Environmental justice- this was touched on at times, but at least in what I watched, it was never elaborated on as much as I would have hoped for. This climate crisis that we're experiencing disproportionately affects certain groups (ahem... racial/ethnic minorities and members of lower socioeconomic status), and this is no accident. Throughout history, evidence shows that those in positions of power have explicitly and intentionally placed a higher environmental burden on these groups.

2. The intersection of immigration and environmentalism- one audience member posed the question as to whether or not a candidate (I can't remember who exactly) would support women's education as a part of addressing climate change, the thinking being that higher educated women consistently have lower birthrates, and population growth is one of the main drivers of climate change. This is true, and the empowerment of women has shown to be effective. Still, there is a different issue which must be addressed other than pure population growth, and that is where the population is growing, and in what way.

What I'm talking about is immigration. Although the birthrate in the United States is relatively very low, our population is still growing because of immigration. This isn't inherently a problem, but the problem is that these immigrants then adopt an American way of life, which is a lifestyle which sucks up an insane and detrimental amount of resources. This population growth has worse effects for the environment than in a place like rural India, where although families may end up with a much higher number of children, those children don't consume nearly as many resources. If candidates were addressing this issue realistically, they would have to recognize they must either 1) curb immigration in the name of environmentalism, or 2) somehow drastically alter the average American lifestyle to consume less than half of the resources people currently do (which is a daunting task, to say the least).

Truth be told, this predicament makes me really uncomfortable. Immigration reform is something I'm incredibly passionate about, and I think one of the most beautiful aspects of the United States is that we accept people from all over the world who want to come here and make a better life for themselves. Yet, truth be told, this "better life" is detrimental for the environment. To make the issue even more complex, we must account for people who are being displaced because of climate change. Immigration and climate change are two issues which are much more closely intertwined than most people believe, or probably want to think about.

In my entire college career studying ethics, political science, philosophy, etc., this is one of the most difficult questions I've come across, probably because immigration and climate change are two of the issues I care the most about. I guess that's the type of question I should be asking these candidates... if only I could have been there tonight.

**The knowledge I have on this issue is from the environmental ethics class I took last semester and the discussions we had together. If anyone is interested in the exact resources I read and used for those discussions, I can do my best to dig them up for you and share them.