Liveblog: Majora Carter on Creating Eco-Justice and the Green Economy

by Emily Gertz

Published May 02, 2009 @ 10:55AM PT

 

350 Climate Conference, Columbia Univ., New York City -- The conference opened with two disturbing talks on the terrible impacts of climate change, as well as the iffy prospects for effective political action. 

Fortunately, third up was Majora Carter, who lifted the spirits of the house, including mine, with her realistic-yet-upbeat vision of achieving socio-economic justice via ecological sustainability.  

Majora has left Sustainable South Bronx, the non-profit group she founded to achieve better jobs and a better environment in one of the nation's most disadvantaged neighborhoods.  Her conviction is as strong as ever that the solutions to poverty and restoring the environment must be interwoven to succeed; She's just opted to pursue it in the private sector. 

Last year she formed the Majora Carter Group, to do green economic consulting -- in particular, on how cities can create an urban "horticultural infrastructure" that provides good jobs to people traditionally left out of economic development efforts, while also creating a healthy and, literally, greener environment.

"It's a strategic move to get our advice listened to," James Chase told me.  He's the firm's marketing and communications vice president, and Majora's husband.  "After years of doling out good policy ideas" via the non-profit Sustainable South Bronx, "we saw cities spending lot of money on consultants instead," he said.  "Their advice was more firmly planted because someone paid for it."

One facet of the firm's activities is working with investment banks, which back city bond issues, to develop a different scale for how to assess a city's future stability and prosperity. "No one has been rating the quality of city bonds on how they're looking ahead on climate and social expenses," said James.  Meaning: If a municipality is punting on effectively solving poverty, or on planning for climactic changes, or not interweaving the two solutions, then it may not be a good investment. 

Here are my notes from Majora's talk.  Where I'm confident that I recorded her remark as spoken, I've encased it in quotes:

 

A lot of us do spend our time talking about carbon dioxide.

I'm very grateful for scientists, very brilliant scientists who travel to opposite ends of the Earth, who add lots of empirical weight to the climate discussion.

But you don't have to go far to see evidence of where it all starts.  Traditionally, our society has a hard time with openly, or not so openly, caring about poor people and poverty. 

The level of care, it can be argued, goes down based on how dark a person's skin is.

Dirty energy economy has been subsidized by health of poor people, who pay dearly on both extraction and burning sides.

"If poor people actually mattered, we would not have such a dire climate crisis."

It's not about technology; it's about basic human rights.

If we know that asthma and diabetes and obesity are epidemic in some areas, we should know that a child's brain is connected to a child's body.  Proximity to fossil fuel emissions harms developing brains of children, and in utero.  That ultimately prevents these children from coming to a university like this [Columbia, where the conference is being held.]

Another symptom of the problem: The USA may have only 5% of the world's population, but produces 25% of the world's incarcerated.

I grew up in the South Bronx, when 60% of our population was displaced, most of our neighborhoods burned down to the ground, due to disinvestment in our communities.  My brother made it through two tours in Vietnam, and got shot two neghborhoods over.

The neighborhood was called the "Little Pittsburgh" of the Bronx for all the manufacturing that was based there.  It lost jobs as companies went overseas to places with cheap labor, and no environmental laws.

People died for these laws, for cheap goods that we now throw away.

"Are we helping the poor of China win democracy?  Did we demand the environmental protections for them?  Did we fight for their human rigths, or collectively sigh while we purchased flat screen TVs, and said we do enough because Americans adopt Chinese children?"

As manufacturing moved out, waste industries moved in. [Incinerators, for example.]  Poor people paid for all that.  When you look for the point sources for climate change -- mountaintop removal, hog farms, waste incinerators -- the unifying theme is poverty, not race.

Wouldn't find them in rich neighborhoods.  But shouldn't find them at all: we can do better.

Good news about climate change:  In North America will increase temperature, less rain, longer periods of no rain in between.  Heat islands in cities are already a huge energy drain.  Storm water management already a big issue. 

Why good news?  The things that can manage those things for less money can help the people who have been traditionally left behind:  Horticultural infrastructure. Integrated into the very DNA of a city, the way concrete is now.  Green roofs, urban forest, restored wetlands -- these are what I'm talking about.

Alternative energy jobs will mostly be filled by traditional engineering workers.  But there are not enough horticultural engineers.  And working with the trees, land, natural systems restores people as well as giving them good jobs.

Huge social costs of dealing with the poor are cited as reason to put off alternative energy growth -- too expensive to do both.  But it's not an either-or choice.  We can promote horticultural infrastructure that heals people and the planet at the same time.

Improved grid crucial: Get solar power from the Sun Belt to people who need the power elsewhere.  Think of it as a high-speed highway for alternative power. 

In fact, build transmission lines along the existing highways, rather than through America's wild places, which would be a terrible thing.

Tax breaks and taxing carbon are important for funding this.  But think about the internet -- put up by the Department of Defense, which wanted to spy on the Russians, not help boys and girls found eBay. 

Now, a woman in Oklahoma can sell trinkets to people in NYC.  With that grid, that woman could put a solar panel on her roof and send power back into the grid, make money that way too.

Think about the power-generating potential of mountain with wind turbine.  It's always better than chopping it to pieces for coal, and the resulting years and years of devastation for the people who live nearby.

This can only happen if the government owns the smart grid. 

Solutions to both poverty and climate change depend on seeing our own value tied up in that of others.  "If one group loses, we all lose." When we all take on the challenges of poverty and the environment, we have the keys to more powerful solutions.

"We have to choose to be the promise of America.  We have to get up on the mountaintop and look out on the Promised Land.  When you do, you'll see that the Promised Land is not black or white, or red or yellow.

"The promised land is green."