A look at Jeremy Williams' book, Climate Change*... *Is Racist

The cleverly titled book, "Climate Change*... *Is Racist" by Jeremy Williams, digs into this footnote marked by an asterisk and what it means.

Undoubtedly, some of you reacted with questions when looking at the title: how can climate change - a non-sentient thing affecting the planet (now just people) differentiate between the colour of people's skin?

As Jeremy unpacks the idea, several factors surrounding climate change, historically and in contemporary times, affect non-whites most - near and far.

Within Western countries, climate change affects non-white and minority populations because of long-standing policies that, on the whole, see people of colour poorer and living around places more likely to have higher levels of pollution (airborne, in waterways, or strewn about).

Climate change affects the global south in quite a drastic way. These countries and populations haven't the means to protect against climate change (felt and seem more strongly in some parts of the world than others).

Jeremy with his book (photo by Luton Today)

And feeling climate change more severely than many more affluent nations/ people without capital requirements to react against a problem they didn't create (the effects of food shortages, clean water access, and more drastic weather extremes) are already happening in a very devastating way. The global north is only beginning to feel climate change and is discussing how to solve this issue by 2050.

Climate change is now, and people are being affected disproportionately based on where in the world they live, the colour of their skin, and how biased policies have come to almost ensure they will suffer sooner and more.

"Climate Change*... *Is Racist" is a good, cogent book to read. It's chaptered out logically, and the writing flows coherently from well-researched point to well-researched point. What can happen with books is publishers will make demands, such as a book having a specific word count, resulting in what feels like a lot of filler and repetition. Jeremy has avoided this issue with the book by sticking to a simple, straightforward narrative that remains interesting throughout in a witnessing-a-car-crash way. While this issue is very serious and challenging to discuss, Jeremy has mastered talking about uncomfortable topics. Jeremy has often experienced others reacting to the mere sight of him as scolding for their flagrant and irresponsible actions (which isn't fair as he is a genuinely nice guy). But his pen is not preachy or condescending. 

Climate change is happening all around us. But some are more affected. The first step towards bringing the problem to the centre so everyone works together is awareness. Pick up your copy of Jeremy's book "Climate Change Is Racist".