I know some of you have been waiting for this for a while, so I’m pleased to announce that Climate Change is Racist is now available for pre-order. Thanks for your patience, and I can’t wait for you to read it.
The book will be published by Icon Books on June 3rd, and here’s some blurb:
A short sharp look at the history of climate change and race, with a foreword by Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, bestselling author of This is Why I Resist .
Both in its cause and in its effect, climate change reflects racial inequalities. It is disproportionately caused by the majority white citizens of the global North, while the damage it unleashes falls first and foremost on people of colour. The climate crisis reflects racial inequalities of the past, and reinforces them into the future.
In this eye-opening book, the first book to explore these connections for a popular audience, writer and environmental activist Jeremy Williams uses a wide range of sources and voices to tell this story through the people and places most affected on our planet.
Rooted in his experiences of environmental activism, a childhood spent in Kenya and Madagascar and adulthood in Britain, Williams explores the need for intersectional activism – a reckoning of where white privilege and climate change overlap – and for each of us to find our place in the global struggle for justice.
The Earthbound Report 
Congratulations on making it to publication! I’ll await my pre-ordered copy with interest…
Congrats Jeremy and wishing the book every success to make positive impacts! I’ll see if I can get a few copies in my schools 🙂
Congratulations! I’ve ordered my copy and look forward to reviewing it in June. Best wishes Jeremy! Ken
Jeremy – you say:
‘… climate change reflects racial inequalities. It is disproportionately caused by the majority white citizens of the global North…’.
That may have been true once. But no longer: assuming CO2 emissions are causing climate change, for several years now the bulk of emissions have come from non-OECD countries – overwhelming earlier OECD emissions. Data (1750-2010) here: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/02_figure_TS.2.png And note (1) that the OECD includes more than ‘majority white citizens’ and (2) that, since 2010, the OECD/rest-of-the-world gap has widened even further.
… the damage it unleashes falls first and foremost on people of colour.’
Perhaps that’s true. But it’s therefore particularly interesting that the politicians and scientists who are insisting that emissions must be cut urgently and substantially are almost all white males with a Eurocentric (i.e. ex-colonial) background. And that the countries opposing them and insisting on their right to prioritise economic development and poverty eradication (via the use of fossil fuels) are almost all (e.g. China, India, Indonesia and South Africa) non-white countries that for centuries experienced imperialistic exploitation by Europeans.
I look forward to reading your book and finding out whether it takes into account these important issues.
Best wishes – Robin
Thanks for your interest Robin, and hopefully the book will clear up some of those misconceptions for you.
It would be helpful if you were to give me a quick indication of why you think the issues I’ve raised are ‘misconceptions’. Thanks.
Interesting idea that ‘Climate Change is Racist’. Thank you 😊
Jeremy, I pre-ordered it several weeks ago. Can’t wait.