Two Ismaili Activists Make the Case for Why Climate Change is a Political Issue that all American Ismaili Voters Should Care About.
By: Sanobar Valiani- Ismailis Rise Up, Social Media Manager
Solastalgia.
In a newfangled play titled Love in the Time of Climate Change, Rozina Kanchwala articulates the dread that many millennials are facing as a result of the current climate crisis. She grounds the main character’s emotional state in the word solastalgia, which describes the psychological burden of climate change. Rozina’s play educates people on the gravity of climate change in a lighthearted and unique way, which — let’s be real– is *critical* in a time where we’re forced to consume truckloads of information passively that we eventually become desensitized to.
The doomsday mentality displayed in the play is one that many people have right now. It’s in part due to the seemingly insurmountable nature of the catastrophe itself and also likely in part due to the weight we each feel as individuals with ultimately miniscule levels of influence on the crisis.
Infact, there is now a very public clock (see: Union Square, New York City) ticking on the fate of our plate.
Deadly climate-related disasters are already happening. When we see floods take down millennia-old port cities like Karachi, or witness Bangladesh’s inability to bounce back its progressively destructive monsoon seasons, we are unwilling to acknowledge the role that our carbon emissions play in global climate change. When wildfires continue to destroy our own West Coast, many are quick to say that forest management is necessary without proposing concrete solutions to end destructive human activity. Hence, it is not a question of whether the human race will survive, but rather what populations will be sacrificed to survive and how will our quality of life be affected as a result. This translates directly to how individuals view our own role in the climate change narrative.
There is a long-standing debate on the American political stage of whether climate change is real or not, but the real question should be whether people acknowledge it is happening, not whether it is real. The rate of climate change happening today is unnatural and is evidently a result of human activity. We have seen our carbon emissions increase starkly since the Industrial Revolution and we are now 1-degree Celsius away from a climate catastrophe.
The timeline to the point of no return is not clear. Some experts say we have twelve years, some say we have thirty, and others say we have as little as seven years. However, as Dr. Hussein Rashid notes, this seven-year countdown may be optimistic. As someone who follows climate science closely (but does not consider himself an expert), Rashid believes that the timeline is closer to two to four years. This means that in two to four years, global temperatures will have risen to a point at which, climate scientists have determined, Earth will see climate disasters that are unprecedented, and the human race will be unable to reverse the consequences.
Our generation is faced with a daunting task: stop climate change. But how? Dr. Rashid, who has witnessed his home city of New York transition from a sub-temperate to a sub-tropical climate in his lifetime, explains that it is more than just individual responsibility. There are individual choices that we can make but ultimately when a handful of corporations are responsible for over 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is hard to place responsibility on individuals. That does not mean, however, that we as individuals do not have power. Dr. Rashid says,
Those companies are all regulated by our governments. They are not governments in and of themselves and we can see the ways in which these companies are leveraging governments to not pay any taxes in the context of the United States, to have environmental regulations lifted for them, to get waivers for themselves. They don’t actually vote anybody in. They simply use the money we give them to then buy policies and politicians that create policies that are harmful to us. So essentially, we are paying for our own destruction. And so for me as an individual, I think about the individual things I can do to protect the environment, and I can make an individual decision as to where I am going to do my business.
Rozina Kanchwala, an intersectional-environmentalist, believes in taking a social justice approach to addressing climate change in a way that is inclusive, inviting people into the movement that may not identify as environmentalists. Her approach focuses on community building and education that in turn mobilizes people to make tangible progress towards mitigating the effects of climate change. She started an organization earlier this year called Ecologic that is focused on promoting intersectional environmental values when making personal decisions so that people are then empowered to use their voices to demand corporations and governments are guided by those same values. Her focus on intersectional environmentalism highlights the importance of a cross-disciplinary approach to climate change, one that emphasizes social justice. Ecologic does just that.
The Green New Deal is another example of the integrated approach we can take to promote environmental justice and sustainability. However, some leaders today believe that the Green New Deal will cost too much money to implement, but what they are neglecting to acknowledge is that the United States is already paying upwards of $150 billion per year since 2014 to address climate-related disasters.
This points to a larger issue: our leaders do not quite understand the Green New Deal. Firstly, the New Green Deal is not a bill, it is not legislation, it is not a policy proposal. It is a framework that consists of two major components. The first is that we acknowledge the need to stop burning fossil fuels. The second part of the Green New Deal is protecting Americans. There exists a fundamental understanding that the transition to renewable energy will be difficult. Those who drafted and support the Green New Deal want to protect American lives and jobs, while also protecting our future on this planet. This includes creating jobs that provide the American people with renewable energy that would replace the dangerous oil drilling jobs, ensuring that no one is out of a job, all the while sourcing clean energy. There is a tremendous economic opportunity in a transition to a clean energy future.
A key aspect of the Green New Deal is that it advocates for closing the racial inequality gap. The environmental movement is integral to social justice movements at large because climate change exacerbates inequality. Black Americans experience asthma at a rate much higher than white Americans because factories that produce air-pollution are often built in low-income neighborhoods. Low-income neighborhoods that predominantly house people of color are also impacted most by climate-related disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina in Gulf states, and take the longest to recover because of the persisting lack of resources.
Rozina Kanchwala writes about the integral nature of the #BLM movement and climate change:
Systemic racism has kept communities segregated and left black communities victimized by the disastrous oil & gas and petrochemical industries. It is no coincidence that Cancer Alley in Louisiana -named so because the air is so toxic and the number of cancer cases in the community is tragically high — is predominately black. Redlining was a U.S. government policy that kept black communities segregated from white communities. So when industrial and chemical plants decided where to set up, black communities, politically invisible, were the natural locations for these polluting plants.
So what do we do? We build a movement. Dr. Hussein Rashid explains that movement-building can directly translate into the types of policies we see implemented on a local, state, and national level. We saw it happen in California when Gov. Gavin Newsom passed legislation that will ban the production of gas-fueled cars by 2035. This decision came from decades of movement-building at a grassroots level that then translated into state law. And when big consumer states like California and New York enact laws like this, Rashid suggests, companies are then incentivized to make these changes universal because it benefits them financially to only have one assembly line.
The opportunity for change is in front of us. In the upcoming weeks, that opportunity is on our ballot. We have the unique opportunity to elect leaders who make decisions that affect our daily lives and our futures. By voting, we are one step closer to having representational leadership in office who acknowledge climate change and the need for rapid response to address it. From there, we hold those leaders accountable while we continue to build our movement towards an environmentally just, sustainable future.
Climate change is not in the future. It is here, now. We need to start acting like it.
