Human Rights | old site

Human Rights and Climate Justice

We know burning coal isn’t good for the planet, but it’s also terrible for people’s health, making this a human rights issue, too. Coal pollution causes diseases like asthma, mercury poisoning and cancer. The Clean Air Task Force estimated in 2010 that more than 13,000 premature deaths and 20,000 heart attacks were caused by pollution from coal-fired power plants in the United States. What's worse, the main victims of coal pollution in the US are poor communities of color, because those power plants are disproportionately located in minority, low-income areas.

For climate change, too, not everyone will be affected equally. While wealthy, industrialized parts of the world like the U.S. and Europe have burned the most fossil fuels, the worst effects of climate change are in developing countries that haven’t caused it, mainly in Africa, South America and Asia. As sea levels have risen, inhabitants of low-lying islands like the Maldives have been forced to evacuate their homes, becoming climate refugees. As crop yields decrease, people will face food shortages and lose their agricultural livelihoods. And as droughts increase in intensity, the need for clean water will force people to fight to survive.

So climate change is real, and it’s affecting people-- disproportionately-- now. But why is nothing being done about it? Because the people whom climate change is hurting most are the groups with the least political representation among decision makers. As long as we continue allowing fossil fuel companies to influence first-world leaders, minority and developing communities will continue suffering from climate change as those in power benefit from the status quo.

TL;DR

Climate change is a human rights issue, but it’s important to realize that not all humans will be affected proportionately.
Poor communities/nations of color will bear the brunt of the harm, but they didn’t even cause the problem. Wealthy, predominantly white nations are the ones burning the fossil fuels that have negatively impacted people around the globe.
By investing in the fossil fuel industry, Northwestern is complicit not only in the degradation of the earth, but also in the degradation of human lives.