Environmental Injustices are Classist and so is the (mainstream) Environmental Movement

So I will probably type this up some time later much prettier and all that. But here it goes. I have no problem if this ends up raggedy at all. This is something that I think is important. I am going to keep this as short as possible.

So to preface I want to say I consider myself an environmentalist, and that I consider myself a part of the environmental movement. Yet despite those two things, I have grave criticism for a huge majority of the environmental movement.

Recently someone I know, who I used to organize with, commented on a commitment Walmart made to renewable energy (which is also not the same things as clean energy fyi) by saying, “Wal-Mart may have just won me over, y'all. 100% of all stores run by clean energy by 2020?”

Then proceeded to brush off comments by others pointing out how they still don’t pay a living wage, they use sweat shop labor overseas, they are partially responsible for over 1,100 preventable deaths due to preventable fires at factories they buy from. And despite pressure, they refuse to support new regulations that could prevent such fires, much like the US passed laws to prevent such fires here. One famous such fire being the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York.

One example of there treatment to US workers is a lack of health care. Before I touch on this, I want to say something I never say due to all my other privileges. I am in one category of oppressed groups. People with potentially deadly preconditions. Mine is called Cystic Fibrosis. Being that it is a chronic lung disease it means I am very susceptible to air pollution. It cause massive health issues for me here in Birmingham. Despite that, I am relatively healthy because I currently have great health care. Health care I will lose when I turn 26, in a year and a half, and currently have no idea what to do to get good health care for after that birthday. My current full time job does not have good health care (so I am not on my jobs health care plan currently). Yet what my job offers is still better than the health care most Walmart employees get.

All this said, I want to make something abundantly clear and harshly blunt. First, air pollution from coal fired power plants is slowly killing me. Yet I am still alive. Second, if I was born to the parents of Walmart workers, I would have died years ago. Environmental issues are issues of class warfare, but the mainstream environmental movement is doing NOTHING about it, and instead validating or completely brushing off the fact that many of us could, or are, dying due to issues that will kill us faster that air pollution or GMO’s. And you’re choosing to ignore it. By validating Walmart you are validating classism. The perpetuation of classism (and racism) by the environmental movement MUST STOP.

-  A plea from a person you are apparently supposedly trying to help protect from these environmental issues.