The Marginalization of Climate Change

When observed through an intersectional lens, the marginalizations of the effects of

climate change become very apparent. Through the loss of income, loss of shelter, and sheer lack

of contributions from the rich, global warming and greenhouse gas emissions will

disproportionately affect povertous populations more than any other.

More than 1.3 billion people live on agricultural land that will continue to deteriorate due

to climate without intervention (Mercy Corps, 2020). These peoples’ incomes are based largely

on agriculture that would find itself sparse in the midst of global warming. With rising sea levels

and sporadic weather patterns comes lack of business in the food industry, which puts millions, if

not billions, at a financial risk. Climate change, if allowed to continue, will cost innocent people

their livelihoods.

Displacement is also a very real possibility for people who live in coastal areas. Rising

ocean levels, while affecting farmland, will also sink whole communities into the water (Mercy

Corps, 2020). It’s easy to think of a dozen coastal states, provinces and countries right off the top

of your head — there’s Florida, Newfoundland, California, Japan, Malaysia, the United

Kingdom, etcetera, etcetera. In this sense, climate change doesn’t discriminate. But not

everybody will find relocation so easy. People of the lower class who can barely afford the house

they live in will eventually lose it to flooding waters. And what are they supposed to do? Money

is power. The people who have that power will carry on, and, again, those who don’t have the

means to help themselves against cruelties of nature will be left to hopelessly fend off the debt.

Then there’s the blame and the guilt. It’s all being pushed on the poorest of us all when,

in actuality, income is very strongly linked to CO2 emissions (Ritchie & Roser, 2017) (Kaijser &
Kronsell, 2011). The 400 richest Americans are worth a total of 2.96 trillion dollars (Kroll &

Dolan, 2019), which is about 8% of all of the money in the world (Kumar, 2020), about 269

times more than what it would take to end world hunger for a year (Laborde, Bizikova,

Lallemant, & Smaller, 2017), and nearly double the American student loan debt (Friedman,

2020). Out of everyone, billionaires are the people who could be making real change. You can’t

expect people who can barely support themselves in a capitalist society to make all of the

donations to all of the environmental organizations, or make the costly changes in lifestyle.

Numbers into the billions are impossible for the human brain to comprehend, never mind the

trillions. So, why are we letting individual people own that much money? And why aren’t they

helping us? Donald J. Trump is worth about 2.1 billion dollars USD (Forbes, 2020). He’s also

one of the most listened-to climate change deniers. The people who have the power to do

something are sitting on their asses, and the lower and middle class are expected to compensate.

The scales are tipped in the rich man’s favour.

Ultimately, climate change will disproportionately affect the lower class, through the loss

of income and loss of shelter, and the billionaires who can afford to help will be long dead by the

time climate change is progressed enough to reach the higher class. Without their help, the

average person will have to work twice as hard to keep our lovely planet thriving, which is why

action has to be taken now. Even global warming appears to be classist, and that won’t be

changing anytime soon.

 Citations

Forbes. (2020, June 14). Donald Trump. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from

https://www.forbes.com/profile/donald-trump/

Friedman, Z. (2020, February 05). Student Loan Debt Statistics In 2020: A Record $1.6 Trillion.

Retrieved June 14, 2020, from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/02/03/student-loan-debt-statistics/

Kaijser, A., & Kronsell, A. (2011, November 25). Climate change through the lens of

intersectionality. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644016.2013.835203?src=recsys

Kroll, L., & Dolan, K. A. (Eds.). (2019, October 2). The Forbes 400 2019. Retrieved June 14,

2020, from https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/

Kumar, V. (2020, February 26). How Much Money Is There In The World?: 2020 Edition.

Retrieved June 14, 2020, from

https://www.rankred.com/how-much-money-is-there-in-the-world/

Laborde, D., Bizikova, L., Lallemant, T., & Smaller, C. (2017, February 28). Ending Hunger:

What would it cost? Retrieved June 14, 2020, from

https://www.iisd.org/library/ending-hunger-what-would-it-cost

Mercy Corps. (2020, June 05). The facts: How climate change affects people living in poverty.

Retrieved June 14, 2020, from https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/climate-change-poverty

Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2017, May 11). CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Retrieved June

14, 2020, from https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions