I hadn’t been aware that carbon fees were part of white supremacy. Does this mean people who push them hard, like Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Jerry Brown are part of white supremacy?
New Carbon Fee Initiative Drafted with More Color and Less White Supremacy
It is very, very easy to fall down the minutia rabbit hole when it comes to climate policy—specifically because the writing of these policies has been characterized by white male power brokering between strong and potentially problematic personalities. This “business as usual†approach to public decision making (where the right men get around the right table and fix the right problems) just doesn’t work for climate policy. Why? Because of the moral and economic quandaries that underlie how we address a planetary-scale problem at a regional level. Climate change is inseparable from decision making on human rights, because of the basic moral math that the poorest and most vulnerable communities have the greatest to lose and yet are the least culpable for contributing to the problem. I’m going to say it like it is: When climate policy is written by white men in a closed room, that is white supremacy.
This is why you should be paying attention to Initiative 1631, which is currently in the signature gathering stage and potentially on its way to voters in the fall. I-1631 comes on the heels of the failure of carbon tax Initiative 732 in 2016, when 58 percent of voters rejected the initiative.
Why did I-732 fail? Well, that depends on who you ask. But, I think a clear component of the failure is the way that the initiative spilt the social justice and environmental communities down the center. Social justice and equity organizations called out both the lack of diverse voices in the initiative writing process and the lack of equity in how the generated revenue would be spent. The coalition that has written I-1631 is a cat of a different persuasion.
Equity and justice organizations, such as Front and Centered (Communities of Color for Climate Justice) and Puget Sound Sage, are coalition members. Funds are committed to line items such as addressing the “energy burden†of low income households, environmental justice issues, and displaced fossil fuel workers.
Remember, though, that this is all about Science, you guys. It has nothing whatsoever to do with hardcore Leftist politics.
Oh, and this is occurring in the State of Washington, which is 75.7% white, 8.2% Asian, and just 3.7% black.
