From Climate Change to Climate Justice
Author: Aadithya Prakash
I grew up on Animal Planet. My dad and I would sit down on the red La-Z-Boy chair, recline, and watch scenes like the annual migration of wildebeest through the Serengeti and the Masai Mara. I remembered being so enamored by the beauty of each species of animal, and I constantly pestered my parents to take me to see them. But we lived in Northern California. I wasn’t going to find a serval cat in my backyard.
So what did my parents do? They got me a dinky set of binoculars and took me to the nearest wildlife park, the Elkhorn Slough Reserve. I remember the Visitor Center had an ecological checklist that told me all the species of birds that frequented the park. There were owls, terns, ducks, harriers… I wanted to see them all! I remember the first bird I ever saw through those binoculars was a black skimmer, a large tern-like bird. Its lower mandible is longer than its upper, allowing it to skim the water for small fish and insects.
I. Was. Hooked.
I wanted to see every bird there was. And there are over 10,000 species in the entire world! Luckily, I was only 6 years old at the time. I had a whole lifetime to chase after them.
Fast forward 19 years later and I found myself living in a Magellanic Penguin colony down in Argentina. I was volunteering as an engineer for a lab in the University of Washington that was studying the effects of climate change and human impact on the Punta Tombo colony. Magellanic Penguins are known to be “sentinel species”, meaning that we can assess the health of the ecosystem by studying the health of the animals themselves.
And what the lab found was alarming. The colony had steadily been declining for many years, mainly from fishery mismanagement, oil tanker pollution, and an increase in extreme weather events. Living in the colony for 6 months not only exposed me to the wild untouched beauty of coastal Patagonia, but also gave me a firsthand view of what we as humans were doing to the planet.
Upon returning to the United States, I continued my work fighting climate change in the midst of widespread disasters like the 2018 Ranch Fire of California and the extinction of the Spix’s Macaw. As an engineer and lifelong birder, my focus was on the numbers and data of climate science and wildlife ecology. I wanted to take the skills I had in computer vision, wireless sensor networks, machine learning, etc., and help drive the tremendous work of research labs around the world.
I thought that this was the only way I could help. If not for the scientists and engineers fighting anthropogenic climate change, we’d be doomed. What more is there to talk about?
In March of 2018, I was given the opportunity to attend a Climate Reality Leadership Training in Atlanta. The training is hosted by the Climate Reality Project, an organization founded by Vice President Al Gore that aimed to spark grassroots efforts to fight climate change. Vice President Gore gave the audience his updated “Inconvenient Truth” presentation, bringing up many catastrophic climate events that have taken place in the last 5–6 years. It was moving and alarming, but it left us with an ounce of hope. We still had a chance to fight this.
But the most impactful presentation of the training was delivered by Dr. Robert Bullard, the father of environmental justice. Dr. Bullard has been leading the fight against environmental racism, or the disproportionate impacts of environmental dangers on people of color (POC). His presentation was the first time I heard environmental health statistics framed around POC and underrepresented communities.
“78% of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal power plant”
Hearing this presentation in Atlanta, the city that helped shape the American Civil Rights Movement, really drove the point home. Climate change and environmental dangers have disproportionately affected frontline and fenceline communities, and the spotlight needs to be on those who are fighting against this injustice.
I was inspired but also struck at how insular my worldview had been prior to this training. I started my journey fighting for wildlife, wanting to preserve the environment and planet for myself and future generations. But I was so unaware of injustices happening today and the people who are being affected right now. The intersectionality of climate justice forced me to take a closer look at issues around immigration, food production, and housing policies. I was alarmed at how many important issues were tied to racial/social justice and climate change.
I left Atlanta with the goals of: 1) educating myself and others on climate justice topics, 2) empowering climate leaders in the most affected communities, and 3) amplifying the efforts of existing climate justice movements.
Since then, the Seattle Hub has committed to addressing climate injustice, covering topics around equitable housing, food sustainability, and public health. We have supported various Seattle-based climate justice organizations, such as Got Green and the Rainier Beach Urban Farm, through fundraising and volunteering. We are also developing a program aiming to educate the next generation of voters and workers on climate justice, climate science, current policy, and emerging career paths in the green economy. We plan to work closely with local groups such as the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation and the YMCA Earth Service Corps to ensure that the program is able to effectively reach youth in underrepresented communities here in Seattle.
I’m so excited to work with our hub and the many climate justice organizations in the Greater Seattle Area to push climate justice into a brighter spotlight. We will continue to educate ourselves and others, empower the next climate justice leaders, and amplify frontline and fenceline movements.
And as we do so, I will make sure to keep fighting for the birds and planet that I love.
