Member-only story
Add Climate Justice to Your Scope of Action
Seven Principles to Guide Your Climate Steps
Last year I received a note from a friend in South Africa in response to one of my articles. In it, he urged me to expand the scope of my writing; from being U.S. centric to having a more global perspective.
He attached a picture, similar to the one here, of a township near Cape Town and told me to imagine the living conditions of citizens in the poorer 54 other countries on the continent. Then, he cautioned me about suggesting that everyone, including the people living in townships like this, should stop using all types of fossil fuel energy.
These people and many others in the developing world suffer from energy and many other forms of poverty. They shouldn’t have to give up access to cheap fuel while the rest of us sit in northern hemisphere comfort after a century of consuming whatever we wanted.
I agree with him. It is people like this who have contributed least to our current global emission level and often unfairly bear the brunt of the impact of global warming.
