Welcome back! 🙂
In this post, I’ll be investigating the links between COVID-19 and environmental injustice.
COVID-19 has changed our lives drastically. Just like the two other epidemics caused by the coronavirus group (SARS and MERS), this COVID-19 pandemic was caused by human-wildlife interactions.Â
This got me thinking: If these points of contact come about due to our conflict with the environment, won’t communities who rely more on their environment be more vulnerable to these outbreaks? This could be due to their increased exposure to pathogens, but some research has led me to discover that it’s more than that.
When we think of communities that are reliant on the environment, indigenous communities come to mind – if I may assume. They, however, face a multitude of threats to their homes.Â
Being closest to nature, indigenous groups are caught in the middle of humankind’s conflict with nature. Development plans by large corporations threaten to take over their land, and/or cause other environmental problems.
In the Peruvian Amazon, for example, oil corporations such as Pluspetrol and Petroperu have contaminated water sources used by indigenous groups with oil and heavy metals.Â
Therefore, we can see how they are disproportionately affected by environmental problems, simply due to their proximity to areas with abundant natural resources, and lack of control over these areas. This, however, is the reason why they are also unfairly impacted by COVID-19.
The Peruvian and Brazilian Amazonian indigenous people have been suffering from cases brought in by health workers and oil companies. Due to their isolation, polluted water sources and lack of better healthcare, they are especially vulnerable.
This same phenomenon, however, also exists in cities. Communities that are more affected by environmental problems due to economic status and the location of their homes, experience the dangers of COVID-19 unevenly.
A Harvard study has shown that COVID-19 patients that are unprotected from PM2.5 for extended periods have higher chances of death. This indicates that communities exposed to pollution are not affected by COVID-19 the same way we are. Poor and polluted communities in Chicago and Detroit, for example, have more deaths from COVID-19 than the USA’s average.
COVID-19 has also disproportionately affected communities impacted by climate change. For Californians, immense pollution from much stronger wildfires have the same effects mentioned above, but they also face another problem. Those who are forced to evacuate are more likely to contract the virus as they cannot isolate themselves. For LA’s homeless, the heatwave is unavoidable, unless they visit cooling centres. However, the risk of COVID-19 infections increases in these crowded centres.
Personally, learning about these issues has been alarming. Especially alarming is the Trump Administration’s recent curtailment of the environmental law that has been essential to marginalised communities’ fight for environmental justice.Â
Let’s not lose hope, though, and continue learning.
I hope to meet you next week, where I’ll be exploring the phenomenon of environmental injustice in cities, and presenting some of my own findings!
– Hope 🙂
Hey Hope!
Interesting to see the link between our current pandemic and the environment with regards to indigenous people. Your post also had me thinking if Singapore could possibly face problems similar to Detroit and Chicago. However, I think the fact that our country is so small allows the government to control the situation far better such that residents of all backgrounds are protected equally, despite socioeconomic status. I mean just the city of LA is almost twice the size of Singapore! So could geography play a part on top economic status? Looking forward to your next post!
– Yalini 🙂
Hi Yalini!
Thank you for your thought-provoking comments 🙂 I myself have wondered about this, and so I decided to do a recount of my own findings on environmental justice in Singapore in one of my next posts! It will be about access to parks and open spaces in Singapore, and perhaps that would be interesting for you.
Although Singapore has not faced environmental problems on the same scale as some of the countries I’ve written about e.g. serious pollution leading to contamination of water sources, wildfires destroying homes, etc., we will face more serious problems in the future, such as flooding due to sea level rise. This will affect different communities differently – as more inland districts are unlikely to face floods as damaging as coastal districts in Singapore.
However, as you said, I do think Singapore may be better able to prevent communities from experiencing problems disproportionately, as in this example, the sea-walls that are to be built aims to protect as many Singaporeans as possible. Therefore, I definitely do think geography plays a part! It plays a definite role in the increasing number of climate refugees around the world, which is actually, also another topic I will be writing about!
There is much more to think about, but I hope my thoughts sufficed for now! Looking forward to your posts as well. 🙂
– Hope
Hi Yalini & Hope,
Could I please ask both of you how you justify your apparent argument that all residents of SG bear an equal burden of environmental problems (e.g., COVID-19, increased heat waves owing to climate change) when you are (presumably) aware of the living conditions that all types of migrant workers (e.g., construction & maintenance, domestic helpers, sex workers) face ?
Thanks,
jc
Hi Dr Coleman,
I understand how our thoughts may have come across that way. I may have been unclear – I was addressing Yalini’s thoughts about how geography plays a part in environmental injustice specifically. In the example of sea-walls, I thought Singapore’s small size may make it easier for the government to put up sea-walls over a large area in our coastline, hence protecting more people. However, this may not be the case as well, since some communities, such as the Pulau Ubin islanders, may be unprotected.
If I were to clarify, just as inland neighbourhoods will face less serious floods than coastal neighbourhoods in Singapore, I do think that communities such as migrant workers will experience Singapore’s environmental problems disproportionately due to mismanagement and poor living conditions (as you mentioned). Their experience during Singapore’s COVID-19 suggests that this mismanagement may continue in the future.
Thank you for highlighting this, Dr Coleman! It allowed me to reshape my perspective on this and rethink my comments.
– Hope
Hi Hope! This is really interesting, I never really thought about how some groups can be more affected by environmental crises than other groups. I looked up the article about Trump Administration’s curtailment of the environmental law and found that the main reason cited was that it impedes infrastructure projects and thus jobs. It seems to me that a main reason for the environmental injustice is economic growth, which benefits mostly larger cooperations. This got me wondering if these large cooperations with larger ability should try to fight against environmental injustice too instead of leaving the more vulnerable groups with less ability to speak up for themselves. What do you think?
-Alicia:)
Hi Alicia,
Not sure if you’ll see this, but could I please ask you how you can assert that you never thought about how certain groups might be more affected by the crisis considering that I very prominently made this statement in week 5 and 6 when talking about the unequal burden of air & water issues ?
Did you miss it, or is my teaching somehow not effectively getting that message across ?
Thanks,
jc
Hi Alicia!
Apologies for the late reply. Thank you for leaving a comment, it’s really nice to hear your thoughts on this 🙂
Yes, reading the curtailment and the motivations behind it was disheartening, and personally, I do think larger corporations should try to fight against and prevent environmental injustices. However, as mentioned in our recent class discussion regarding the roles of individuals, corporations and govt, I learned that it’s a complicated process. Large corporations usually do hold a lot of power, especially those that contribute largely to a country’s economy – their agendas have a lot of influence over governmental agendas. Therefore, I think that corporations still ultimately have money-making agendas, and with their power over governments in some countries, it is unlikely that these agendas can be changed (e.g. via regulation by the government). This, in my opinion, is what causes marginalised communities to be continuously unheard and unaccounted for.
– Hope 🙂
Thanks for your thoughtful reply & clarification in response to my question.
jc