Environmental racism is a concept that often gets overlooked however it’s a big issue that is connected to many aspects of society. One way that you can look at this is through climate change and the demographics of where people live. According to NPR, in a study of 108 urban areas nationwide, the formerly redlined neighborhoods in nearly every city studied were hotter than those not subjected to redlining. The temperature difference in some areas was nearly 13 degrees. There has been a systematic disparity on who is getting affected by climate change the most. If you look at a global level “counties with large African American populations are exposed to extreme temperatures 2 to 3 more days per year than those counties with smaller African American populations.” In the next decades, this trend is only going to increase. If you look at the graph below it shows the different emission paths and the number of unlivable months out of a year a place will experience because of heat. This graph shows the many places that will become unlivable, with the ones most affected being around the equator which in many places has a high percentage of people of color. With temperature increase and the creation of unlivable zones will trigger a series of mass migrations which is both a social and humanitarian crisis that should be important to everyone.

.

The holiday of Earth Day was inspired by a 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. In that catastrophic and well-known oil spill, between 3.5 and 4.2 million gallons of crude oil were spilled into the Santa Barbara Channel. The very next year, the first Earth Day was hosted to raise awareness for this event, as well as spark more support and visibility for the growing environmentalism movement.

Since that initial oil spill, between 1969 and 2017 there have been 44 more oil spills in North America, every single one of them over more than 420,000 gallons, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. That means that since the initial 3.5-4.2 million gallon oil spill that caused Earth Day, at the very least 18.48 million gallons of oil have been spilled, and that’s a low estimate that excludes the past 5 years, which have seen a large uptick in oil spills.

Hopefully, we can muster up a renewed interest in taking down oil companies within the environmentalism movement, and ensure a healthy future for the ocean for us and the generations that come after us.

Sources:

The History of Earth Day

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/california-spill-52-years-historic-oil-disaster-80400250

https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/oil-spills/largest-oil-spills-affecting-us-waters-1969.html

Usually, when individuals think of Antartica, some of the first words that come to mind include “cold, ice, frozen, or freezing.” These words have described the state of Antartica for the majority of its history. However, it is very possible that these words may no longer be applicable to Antartica’s given the issue of climate change. Umair Irfan explains, “Ice loss has accelerated in Antarctica in recent years. Every 40 hours, Antarctica loses a billion metric tons of ice, according to a 2018 study, and at least half that loss comes from ice shelves” (Irfan, 2022). An adverse affect to climate change is the rising sea level. As the climate is getting warmer, the ice in the Arctic is melting, hence causing the sea level to rise. According to Florence Colleoni, “Since 1880, the global mean sea level (GMSL) has increased by 20 centimeters” (Colleoni, 2022). As we have learned, 20 centimeters can be converted to 0.2 meters or 7.87 inches. Although this may not seem like a large quantity, when you think of sea level rise, it is quite a lot. Some may think, what damage could a rise of sea level by a few centimeters due to our environment? Well, “The United Nations estimates that the potential costs of damage to harbors and ports alone from this flooding could be as high as $111.6 billion by 2050 and $367.2 billion by the end of the century” (Colleoni, 2018).

If the emission of greenhouse gases is not quickly reduced, climate change will continue on, sea level rise will continue on, and our Earth will literally and figuratively have to pay the price. Colleoni continues on, “An estimated 800 million people are likely to experience impacts of high-tide flooding by the end of the 21st century” (Colleoni, 2022). Knowing that there are 7.7 billion people in the world, this means that around 10% of the Earth’s population will face the effects of high-tide flooding, resulting in the possible damage of homes, property or lives. The concerning part about this whole issue is that, “There’s a lot scientists still don’t know — including some of the mechanisms behind it, where tipping points may lie, and its ripple effects over the whole planet” (Irfan, 2022). The unknown is what scares the scientists and non-scientists, alike.

Works Cited:

https://www.vox.com/22939545/antarctica-greenland-ice-sheet-shelf-glacier-melt-climate-sea-level-rise

The Uncertain Future of Antarctica’s Melting Ice