Climate Change and The Powerless and Less Powerful; The Marginalized
Hope and Justice Series Post #2.5, part of The Who of Justice Subseries
In The Who of Justice Subseries we are exploring those who need justice. This post is about the powerless and the marginalized who are vulnerable to injustice and the need for all of us who are Climate Movement Member-Artist-Athletes and Climate Action Supporters to strive for equality, a vital part of justice.
There are many forms of power, many circumstances that create power, and thus there are many ways one can be less powerful or even powerless and therefore vulnerable.
In the climate context when we are attempting achieve the desires and demands of justice by stopping bad stuff, setting wrong right, and making things better, it is economic, sociological, political, legal, moral and people power that are our chief concern.
Money is Power
Money gives a person power — power to buy and own stuff and exclude others; power to intimidate and bully; power to influence and corrupt politics and elect politicians; power to get away with crimes, even murder; but also power to make the world better and more beautiful.
Unfortunately, economic inequality and the gap between the rich and poor is widening. Since 2020 the wealth of billionaires has increased 34%, growing three times as fast as the rate of inflation, “while almost five billion people have seen their wealth fall.” “The richest 1% own 43% of all global assets.”1
Of course, thankfully some choose to do good with their money, but such charity is not justice.
Overcoming climate change is not about “charity” from an entitled nobles oblige where those with power deign to provide a less-bad future for the less fortunate, suspending or even reversing such efforts when it suits them.
Because money is power, those with less have less. They are — by definition and in reality — less powerful. And in many situations those in poverty are powerless.
Skin Color Is Power
But as will be discussed more fully in an upcoming post on environmental justice, even those with money who have a certain skin color can also have less power due to racism.
Poverty and racism can render some not just less powerful, but powerless to change their circumstances. This is a cruel repudiation of core beliefs many of us hold, especially that we are all created equal.
Political equality is part of the climate fight precisely because we want a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.
Our fight is about justice, which demands equality. It is each person’s due, because we have been created equal. We are about creating a Climate Movement that strives for both because of who we are, what our Movement Values are, and because our diversity is part of our strength.
The Marginalized and the Loss of Power
To be marginalized is to be relegated to the margins, which increases vulnerability.
In general, deviations from whatever the hegemonic norm is perceived to be can lead to marginalization; and once again we have the denial of equality.
A person or group can become marginalized because of:
Skin color
Gender
Sexual orientation
Gender identity
Age
Physical characteristics (other than skin color)
Physical, cognitive, emotional, and social abilities
Health
Ethnicity
Legal status
Religion
Beliefs
Values
Class
Conquest
Doing so can lead to cultural, social, political, legal, geographical, and economic marginalization.
The more marginalized, the less power one has, which leads to vulnerability. The marginalized can be made the butt of jokes, ridiculed, dehumanized, and scapegoated. They can be subject to social and legal discrimination and denied resources and opportunities available to the hegemonic group. They can become targets of violence and oppression and forced relocation, which can last for decades, even centuries. All of this can lead to the most extreme outcome: genocide.
In this unjust process no one wins, because those who marginalize degrade their own humanity. They become morally grotesque.
Many of today’s poor became so, or their ancestors did, because of marginalization. They are not poor because they are lazy or inferior or due to some mysterious factor or fate.
Marginalization can create second-class citizens and the denial of resources and opportunities, leading to poverty. Those marginalized can suffer from environmental injustice and environmental racism. Marginalization can push or force the oppressed onto undesirable lands susceptible to flooding or drought or disease or famine. All of this makes the marginalized more vulnerable to climate impacts.
Injustice piled upon injustice, turbocharged by climate consequences.
The Powerless Have Moral Power
Children and subsequent generations are politically powerless, and for the most part economically powerless.
However, they have a moral claim upon us as part of our Better Future Covenant, and that claim is moral power.
The other groups listed abore are also not bereft of moral power. They also have a moral claim upon the rest of us in the form of the classic definition of justice, to give each their due, which we make happen through the three actions of justice: to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better.
As Greta Thunberg and the School Strike’s have shown, as the US Civil Rights Movement showed with their Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, children can have great moral power when it concerns their future, when they can call out the adults who are not living up to the Better Future Covenant.
As these and many other examples from history show, when those will less power band together and demand justice they create moral power. Not only that, they can create economic and political power if they stand together; and their power can grow as others with power join them.
Together, the powerless can become powerful.
With People Power and Moral Power We Strive Against Marginalization and For Equality
To set wrong right and create a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances the well-being of everyone and everything is to oppose all forms of marginalization. This is at the core of our fight. We will never give in to such justice-denying, hope-killing despair.
With our two forms of power, people power and moral power, we shall overcome it together on all our Olympian Fields of Action and though the work of the Catalytic-4 as we make our future come faster and our world more beautiful. We are justice-creators and hope-makers. Join us!
If you are new here, check out our Intro Series, as well as other posts like this one in our Hope and Justice Series. If you like this post, please “like,” comment, and share. And thanks for all you’re doing.
Oxfam, Inequality Inc., Methodology Note, 2024, p. 5.