Two aides named by President-elect Joe Biden to handle environmental issues claim “systemic racism” is partially to blame for climate change.

The facts do not support the nuts headline or the paraphrase.

Anyone surprised?

But neither is saying climate change is caused by systemic racism, that was just a sh*t headline written by some biased and lazy editor. Hey, good enough, pass it on.

Their starting point is that minorities and disadvantaged people are disproportionally suffering the consequences of AGW. Hardly controversial.

Here ya go. This should explode a few heads

Everyone is already feeling the effects of climate change. But the impacts – on health, economics, and overall quality of life – are far more acute on communities of color, tribal lands, and low-income communities. “Climate change does not affect everyone equally in the United States,” according to Rachel Morello-Frosch, lead author of The Climate Gap. “People of color and the poor will be hurt the most – unless elected officials and other policymakers intervene.”

We cannot turn a blind eye to the way in which environmental burdens and benefits have been and will continue to be distributed unevenly along racial and socioeconomic lines – not just with respect to climate change, but also pollution of our air, water, and land. The evidence of these disproportionate harms is clear. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, African Americans are almost 3 times more likely to die from asthma related causes than their white counterparts. And, nearly 1 in 2 of Latinos in the US live in counties where the air doesn’t meet EPA public health standards for smog according to Green Latinos. And according to the U.S. Federal Government, 40% of the 567 federally recognized tribes in U.S. live in Alaska where the rapid pace of rising temperatures and melting sea ice and glaciers threaten the critical infrastructure and traditional livelihoods in the state. Biden will reinstate federal protections, rolled back by the Trump Administration, that were designed to protect communities. He will make it a priority for all agencies to engage in community-driven approaches to develop solutions for environmental injustices affecting communities of color, low-income, and indigenous communities.

From <https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/>

Starts in just over 24hrs.

Phil, thanks for the link to the article, which included this:

California industries considered heavy emitters of greenhouse gases have a workforce that is 60 percent minority. Any climate plan that fails to transition those workers to new "green energy" jobs threatens to widen the racial economic divide.

It was only part of the article, of course, but can I take it that you agree that it's the poor and minorities who are not only "disproportionately suffering from" climate change, but also from the policies urged on us to "combat" climate change (as if we could)?

Mark, I think that is undeniably the case, at least in the UK. Loading the green costs onto fuel prices, as a form of household levy, hits poorer consumers hardest, as they tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on energy. Some, but not all is mitigated by schemes such as Affordable Warmth, to improve efficiency but I have seen research that shows the poorest still lose out overall.

Personally, I would prefer the costs to be met through general taxation ....

... funding energy policy from income tax would mean that the lowest income households wouldn’t contribute at all and the richest households would pay 0.5% of their income. Compared to a household levy, this approach would reduce costs for 70% of UK households, while the richest 30% would see an increase. The lowest income group would save £102 a year, at an additional cost of £410 for the richest households – which, at less than £8 a week, would make a relatively small difference to their lives.

But I doubt tax rises are high on the priority list for the current lot ....

Source: https://theconversation.com/poorest-households-hit-hardest-by-uk-climate-change-charges-despite-using-least-energy-92707

Phil, thanks for that straight and open acknowledgement. I guess the difference between us is that I see climate-mitigation policies as pointless (in the sense that we aren't going to succeed in "dealing with" climate change, whatever steps we take) and I see a lot of money being spent trying to do so, money which could be spent on improving the lot of the poor and disadvantaged, but instead (without extra amelioration measures) which make the lives of the poor and the disadvantaged even worse.

I think we should be re-directing funds from the climate trough to those most in need (and that doesn't include the tens of thousands - if not more) middle-class angst-ridden employees of various climate change think-tanks and lobbying groups, who do very nicely out of it) and - if climate change really is a problem - also at adapting to change, rather than trying and failing to mitigate against it.

Tomo, You have a remarkable and demonstrable propensity for posting things that are simply untrue, just as long as they serve your biases, the latest of many examples being Jan 19, 2021 at 10:24 AM

Not exactly a first offence. I really enjoyed the Antifa Bus fleet and your wholesale swallowing of the obviously fake AOC tweet. (Etc, etc)

Just my humble opinion but given the offensive dismissal of people who do not share your worldview, and your repeated posting of untruths, I think granting you any credibility at all would be a category error. You are an irrelevance.

TTFN.

Did Mrs Pelosi ask for machine gun crews at the inauguration?

- given the way this kerrap is being escalated - not an unreasonable question.

Gosh the Trump Discussion is sinking fast. Will no one rescue it and offer the kiss of life?