The fossil fuel industry plays a critical role in the perpetuation of environmental racism

The argument

Phasing out fossil fuels will begin to address environmental racism, and the argument sets out what that term names before applying it. Environmental racism is the concept that underrepresented communities become targets for locally undesirable land uses and are often subject to lax enforcement of zoning and environmental laws. Two things are described at once, where harmful facilities are placed and how strictly the rules governing them are applied, and both run in the same direction, so the effect compounds. These activities result in the previously mentioned community's disproportionate exposure to toxic materials. The fossil fuel industry is then identified as a principal source rather than an incidental one. It is responsible for generating pollutants that obstruct breathing, pollutants which are proven to affect communities of racial minorities more often than others. The Department of Environmental Protection also released a study in 2018, indicating that people of color are much more likely to live near polluters and breathe polluted air, which establishes the pattern as measured rather than merely alleged. The mechanism that keeps the arrangement in place is political rather than technical. Since these communities are often poor, they would not have the means to voice their concerns; the claim is not that they consent to the exposure but that they lack the resources to contest it, whether through litigation, lobbying or relocation. In turn, the fossil fuel industry takes advantage of their status as underrepresented and releases pollutants without repercussions, so the absence of consequences is itself part of what makes those locations attractive. The remedy follows from the diagnosis. If the harm arrives with the pollutants and the pollutants arrive with the fuel, then removing the source removes the exposure: making the switch from fossil fuel energy to clean energy would be the first step towards taking responsibility for environmental racism and its effects on target communities.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The fossil fuel industry does not target communities of racial minorities because they are racist. Fossil fuel energy plants exist only to generate energy for the community at large. Fossil fuel plants serve these communities by providing them with the electricity they need to survive. It is also possible that calling the fossil fuel industry environmentally racist is being used only to garner political favor. That by calling an industry racist, a politician is effectively stirring his or her base into action. If that is the case, the issue more so lies in perception than it does its functional purpose.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Polluting facilities sitting near poorer communities is compatible with explanations the premise does not rule out — land prices, the history of industrial zoning, and where housing was cheapest — so the pattern needs to be shown racial in cause and not only in outcome. [Rejecting P2] The study is cited without title or author and the agency is misnamed, so the premise's central piece of evidence cannot be checked as stated. [Rejecting P3] Even accepting the disparity, the remedy does not follow from it: siting, emission standards and enforcement determine who breathes what, and a gas plant can be placed as unequally as a coal one — so the premise supports regulating where and how energy is produced rather than the phase-out the conclusion asserts.

Further reading

https://time.com/5864704/environmental-racism-climate-change/