Profs and Pints Online presents: “Coronavirus and Climate Change,” with Olufemi Taiwo, assistant professor of philosophy at Georgetown University and scholar of postcolonialism and issues related to environmental justice.

New York University climate economist Gernot Wagner called the covid-19 pandemic “climate change on warp speed”: a mega-crisis scientists warned us about but that policymakers ignored until it was too late. He is right, and both the global response to coronavirus and the world’s responses to climate change paint a bleak picture of our world’s future if we stay on the same path.

Come join Professor Taiwo of Georgetown University for an interactive, online discussion of the similarities and connections between the two crises and their impacts around the world.

He’ll discuss how both climate change and the novel coronavirus pandemic are disproportionately impacting working-class minority groups in the Global North and nearly the entire populations of nations of the Global South. The pandemic has left millions in India, Nigeria, and South Africa who depend on an informal economy for their survival out of work with little or no safety net. The world’s disparities in access to health care could doom many in nations such the Central African Republic, which has five million residents and a mere three ventilators to share between all of them.

Climate change similarly has disparate impacts, depending on status and wealth. Working-class people of color throughout the world are more likely than others to suffer the costs of pollution and loose environmental regulation. The African continent has been most exposed to the effects of a changing climate, despite having contributed least to cumulative global emissions, while island nations like Grenada and low-elevation nations like Bangladesh face existential threats from rising seas.

There’s room for hope, however. Drawing on his research, Professor Taiwo will propose a path forward that will promote justice and save lives. Among the policy ideas he’ll discuss, he’ll focus heavily on the Green Stimulus proposal, which calls for massive investment in green "shovel ready" projects. Such an approach could build the institutions and infrastructure needed for a decarbonized economy, helping to remedy the climate crisis, while providing jobs that will help remedy the poverty that leaves people more vulnerable to ailments. Moreover, it could build the capacity of people - both in and out of the United States – to meet their needs and choose their own destinies. (This talk remains available in recorded form.)

Profs & Pints Online: Coronavirus and Climate Change