The climate crisis is a problem of oppression and exploitation. More and more, our communities face avoidable climate disasters due to a globalized economy that generates profit for a few at the expense of our planet and lives. New threats of mass climate displacement are on the horizon. Yet, many “climate solutions” are just greenwashing – like ExxonMobil’s alleged lies about the benefits of recycling. Greenwashing refers to governments’ and companies’ deceptive policies and stories that seem to promote environmentalism, but that instead provide cover for destroying land, carrying out genocide, and colonial displacement from Palestine to Turtle Island. 

When the extraction of natural resources for electric cars or wind farms can lead to deforestation on Indigenous lands and the mass killings of land defenders, it’s not enough to call a job training program “green” or to label an energy source as “clean.” We have to ask: Do our climate actions reduce consumption, or do they just promote buying more “environmentally friendly” products? Greening the planet is now a major market, and corruption is rampant. Do our climate policies weaken the world’s biggest polluters – from energy and tech companies to the US military – or do they give them more power and funding to do “better” (as is the case with so-called carbon offsets or carbon credits)? Instead of propping up the same actors who caused this mess, meaningful climate policy must shift power back to the communities who have long cared for the natural environment. To do this, we have to understand what our communities really need.

Our local communities have the answers. Black, brown, Indigenous, immigrant and Global South communities suffer the impacts of climate change first and worst, despite contributing the least to the problem. While there is plenty to do at the global level – like forcing the US to pay its $5 trillion climate debt to the Global South – so much is happening locally to address environmental racism, create climate resiliency and mitigate the impacts of climate disaster right now. For example, after destructive hurricanes and ongoing government neglect, communities from New Orleans to Puerto Rico have developed deep expertise in “disaster collectivism,” creating resilient systems of mutual aid and food access. Unions are ensuring green jobs provide high-pay, stability, benefits, and training, rather than replicate the same old exploitative models. And while communities push for local governments to establish rapid response plans before climate disasters occur, we must ensure that everyone – including community members that are locked up – are freed and protected, not left to suffer in filth or worse, when disaster hits.

Ojo! While we build the new, we can support local fights to blockade, confront and sabotage the growth of disastrous infrastructure and stop the climate crisis from continuing – for example, by protesting “cop cities”, oil pipelines, or data centers in our communities. As we fight for new, environmentally sustainable infrastructure, we also need to monitor corporate and governmental plans to continue developing harmful infrastructure – so that we can resist it. For example, in recent years, communities have successfully blocked the construction of extractive and destructive oil and gas pipelines planned in their backyards. Putting up roadblocks to stop harm from continuing can also look like cutting off public pension fund financing for the corporations doing harm, especially since oil companies have been known to give millions of dollars to state law enforcement agencies to attack Indigenous water protectors protesting pipeline construction. But even fossil fuel divestment can end up furthering harm, if the money divested from oil and gas companies is just re-invested into another entity that harms – and massively pollutes – our communities, such as the military. That is, when the Pentagon is one of the biggest institutional consumers of fossil fuels globally, our efforts to block and divest from fossil fuel companies must be interconnected with fights against militarism, occupation, and war.