This 'Season of Creation' demands attention to environmental racism, according to Daniel P. Horan, Duns Scotus Chair of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where he teaches systematic theology and spirituality. Dan Horan writes as civil rights and environmental advocates note, it cannot merely be coincidental that the communities in Flint, and others like it across the country, that are most deleteriously affected by pollution and the effects of global climate change are poor and Black.
The announcement of the proposed settlement in Flint coincides with the launch of this year's "Season of Creation," an ecumenical commemoration that invites Christians to focus their reflection, prayers and actions on care for creation. The "Season of Creation," which runs from Sept. 1 through the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on Oct. 4, is an event supported by Pope Francis and co-sponsored by the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. This year's observance, particularly in the midst of a global pandemic and in the wake of continuing protests on behalf of racial justice in the U.S., is an opportune time to study, reflect, pray and act in response to the intersecting "cry of the earth and the cry of the poor" that Francis highlights throughout "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home." The poor in this case certainly includes the materially impoverished, who face environmental injustices, but it also includes those who have been historically disenfranchised from civil and social power on account of their race. Despite Francis' continual exhortations to the church about the need to think in terms of an "integral ecology" that encompasses intersecting forms of injustice, too many Catholic communities still treat justice issues such as racism and environmental degradation separately.1
Moira Donovan of CBC News reports that the The ENRICH Project looks at the cause and effects of toxic industries near marginalized communities.
https://i.cbc.ca/1.3494128.1458149510!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/enrich-environmental-racism-map-of-nova-scotia.jpg
The ENRICH Project web site offers the Latest News on Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project. It is a collaborative community-based research and engagement project on environmental racism in Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities.
Geoff Dembicki reports that many First Nations and non-white communities have been the dumping sites for industry. But environmental advocates say Canadians are struggling to empathize.
Yet the siting of that particular dump appeared to be no accident. Research done by the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project shows that dozens of toxic facilities across Nova Scotia have been built near Black and Indigenous communities. (You can check out an interactive map here). This type of work is much more common in the U.S., where for decades researchers and activists have documented the racist zoning decisions and other policies that have led to Black people and other non-white Americans breathing in toxic fumes and drinking contaminated water. Fixing this racism is now a big part of the U.S. election, with Joe Biden promising to spend hundreds of billions of dollars cleaning up the air and water of disadvantaged communities. Canada appears to be much further behind. “The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is Canada’s main pollution prevention law and it doesn’t mention environmental justice, human rights, or vulnerable populations,” West Coast Environmental Law lawyer Rayanna Seymour-Hourie, who is from the Anishinaabe First Nation, said during the panel talk. But that could soon be changing. When Parliament resumes this fall, one of the pieces of legislation it will consider is a private member’s bill introduced by Nova Scotia Liberal MP Lenore Zann known as the National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism Act. Bill C-230, which has the support of former Green Party leader Elizabeth May, would create a national strategy for alleviating the pollution pumped into non-white areas.3
Action by people to support initiatives by the government to address environmental racism will contribute to supporting both the “cry of the poor and the cry of the earth” for peace and equity.
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