Why ‘Climate Justice’ Isn’t Resonating in Communities Most at Risk
For years, activists have framed climate change as a civil rights issue. New research suggests many Americans — including those in Black and low-income communities — may understand the dangers of climate change better than the phrase "climate justice" used to describe them. The post Why ‘Climate Justice’ Isn’t Resonating in Communities Most at Risk appeared first on Word In Black.
Black News 
Climate activists have spent years arguing that climate change is also a civil rights issue.
But a new study suggests one of the movement’s most popular phrases — “climate justice” — may not be connecting with many of the people it is meant to reach, including residents of Black and low-income communities that face some of the greatest environmental risks.
The findings raise a challenge for advocates: if communities understand the dangers of climate change but not the language used to describe them, the movement may need a different way to make its case.
Just 36% of respondents were familiar or very familiar with the term “climate justice,” while two-thirds were not, according to the paper, recently published in the journal PLOS Climate. The results illustrate that the lack of familiarity with climate justice is not just an academic concern.
“Of course, our findings should not be interpreted as a lack of interest in ‘climate justice’ in Los Angeles County and its low-income communities,” the authors of the study wrote.
“People living on low incomes do tend to be more aware that climate change disproportionately affects their communities and are more supportive of climate policies, provided they are combined with economic policies such as affordable housing and raising the minimum wage,” according to the study. “Responses to the term ‘climate justice’ may therefore have been more positive among low-income respondents if it had been accompanied by a more detailed elaboration.”
The findings matter because Black Americans disproportionately experience many of climate change’s consequences.
Multiple studies have shown Black communities are more likely to experience extreme heat, flooding, air pollution, and other environmental hazards as a result of a warming planet. At the same time, those communities often have fewer resources to recover from disasters.
Climate justice emerged as a framework to explain those disparities, but the new research suggests the terminology itself may not be resonating with the people most affected.
The paper examined how people in Los Angeles responded to the term climate justice and related terms: climate change, global warming, climate crisis, and climate emergency.
The researchers picked Los Angeles, which includes a number of historically Black communities, because it’s “an area that might be expected to respond well to the term ‘climate justice’ due to its exposure to climate-related hazards, strong pro-environmental attitudes, and substantial income inequality.”
The survey results prove otherwise, even when accounting for income. Among the survey’s two cohorts — those who earn more than $60,000 annually and those who earn less — there was no significant difference in understanding of climate justice.
Respondents were also asked follow-up questions to gauge how the term might prompt them to respond, as well as to get a sense of specific micro- and macro-level actions that might be taken to alleviate the problem.
Concern, urgency, policy support, and willingness to decrease red meat consumption were all lowest among those surveyed about climate justice compared to the other, more familiar terms related to climate change.
Whether or not it’s worth the time and effort to make climate justice a more widely familiar and well-understood term is an open question. However, the authors of the study instead see that there are already good options at hand.
“Using familiar language like ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ will elicit more public concern and willingness to act,” they wrote.
The post Why ‘Climate Justice’ Isn’t Resonating in Communities Most at Risk appeared first on Word In Black.
