This series of images and text explores the connections between racism, the coronavirus pandemic, and the climate emergency. Find below FFDH organizer Nuri Bhuiyan's art and writing about the connections between these multiple crises. This series was originally published in installments on our social media pages.
The coronavirus crisis is inextricably linked with the climate crisis.
From environmental destruction being the potential cause for the spread of the virus to overlap in the populations disproportionately impacted, there are many connections that can be drawn between the two. Our Covid x Climate series brings light to their intersections as well as the shortcomings of the Harvard administration in addressing the impacts of the coronavirus and climate change crises on its affiliates and the world.
ART AND TEXT BY NURI BHUIYAN
LAND DEGRADATION AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPREAD
Scientists have found that infectious diseases are now emerging more rapidly than in the past, and it is likely due to our destructive environmental habits. COVID-19 is not an exception. Current evidence points to its likely origin in bats, before it traveled to anteaters called pangolins and then to humans. Such species-to-species spillovers are common, but encroaching onto wildlife, through practices such as habitat destruction, deforestation, and urbanization, drive the probability of viruses spilling over into humans way up. Humans live in the same germ pool as other species, and we must respect their boundaries in order to prevent such deadly virus outbreaks as the one we are caught up in now.
RACISM, REDLINING AND CANCER ALLEY
Partly due to a history of redlining – the practice of denying mortgages to certain demographics – Black people live closer to fossil fuel infrastructure than the rest of America's population: A 2017 joint report from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Clean Air Task Force found that more than a million African Americans live within a half-mile of an oil and gas facility. As a result, nearby communities have experienced a host of underlying health conditions like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. 78% of US patients who have ended up in ICU have such underlying health conditions, and all the ones listed above are risk factors for severe coronavirus cases. A particularly upsetting example is in Louisiana, where parts of the 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River lined with refineries and petrochemical facilities now known as “Cancer Alley” are witnessing more Covid-19 deaths than the rest of the country. The predominantly Black population whose ancestors were enslaved on the plantations that once made up the area now find themselves subject to a COVID-19 virus made deadlier by fossil fuels.
AIR POLLUTION AND INEQUITY
Many studies have linked greater death rates from COVID-19 to dirty air. A Harvard study released in April showed that just one microgram more of PM2.5, a common and dangerous invisible pollutant, per cubic meter of air could mean 15% more COVID-19-related deaths, and a 2003 study found that those living in highly polluted areas were 84% more likely to die from the closely related respiratory virus SARS. Air quality has worsened in recent years, as the State of the Air 2020 found that in 2016-2018, millions more Americans were living in communities impacted by unhealthy levels of pollution in the form of more unhealthy ozone days, more particle pollution days and higher annual particle levels than in previous reports.
Furthermore, the poor air quality disproportionately impacts ethnic minorities, who are not even its primary producers: Black and Hispanic people are typically exposed to 56% and 63% more pollution of PM2.5 than they produce, while white people are typically exposed to 17% less! Experts caution against concluding a causal link between poor air quality and the coronavirus, saying that air pollution is associated with a lot of other highly relevant characteristics which may be the actual culprit, like denser living or preexisting health conditions. But even then, racial minorities are the ones having to face the risks.
OIL PRICES PLUMMET
In April 2020 after a years-long effort to become a leading power in the international crude oil market, US oil prices plunged below $0 to $-37.63 a barrel. That's the lowest level since the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) opened oil futures trading in 1983 and is attributed to the epic fall in demand for fuel as COVID has caused transportation and industry all over to shut down.
With this news, there is an increasing threat that the coronavirus stimulus package will be redirected to big oil. That means less money for the poor and working class who can’t afford food, medicine, and other needs, and more money for an industry that profits off of the destruction of the environment and people’s lives.
The government is under intense pressure to do just that. Below, read about the aggressive lobbying tactics big oil has been making use of in their fight for a bailout.
BIG OIL'S AGGRESSIVE LOBBYING TO RETAIN THE STATUS QUO
But it’s not just COVID that is to blame. The broader fossil fuel industry of which oil is a part has been showing signs of decline for a while. For years now, they’ve been shedding value, losing favor among financial institutions and investors, taking on debt, and pivoting more and more towards lobbying governments to survive.
The fossil fuel industry’s aggressive lobbying has gotten even worse in light of the pandemic. The UK-based think tank InfluenceMap’s recent analysis of corporate lobbying in the face of COVID found the oil and gas sectors to be most active in lobbying for “direct and indirect support, including bailouts, buyouts, regulatory rollbacks, exemption from measures designed to protect the health of workers and the public, non-enforcement of environmental laws, and criminalization of protest, among others.” The industry, which already benefits from a $5tn subsidy according to the IMF has had some of its biggest wins during coronavirus season, including a go-ahead for the construction of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, the EPA’s suspension of its enforcement of environmental laws, and the provision of at least $50 million for fossil fuel companies from the Paycheck Protection Program.
These events and news of the heightened fossil fuel lobbying are dangerous given that the Trump administration is considering a larger bailout program for the oil and gas industry. This may mean that much of the coronavirus stimulus package will be redirected to fossil fuels. That means less money for the poor and working class who don’t have money for food, medicine, and other needs, and more money for an industry that profits off of the destruction of the environment and people’s lives.
