Queer Representation in Climate

(This is the written draft used to prepare the Revolution Coalition / Spark of Life Collective teach-in presentation found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBSDAExfiDs&t=87s)

When we have a conversation about climate change and climate injustice, we don’t think of an LGBTQ+ activist off the top of our heads. We don’t think of a climate activist of color off the top of our heads. Try both. When we are discussing climate issues, it has been theorized by professors and political figures that we should be focused predominantly on marginalized communities because they are the ones in the communities that are the most vulnerable to climate disaster.

Queer Representation in Climate is a conversation about bringing attention to more than one issue. At the forefront of these matters of concern are intersectional marginalized communities, such as the LGBTQ+ community, and making sure that not only are queer people heard but that they are talking about the greater problems in the world. Climate change has been impacting the Earth for years, but the people who will and currently are experiencing the brunt of this first are the homeless and poor and discriminated against. We fight to make the world hear that diverse voices are the most important because they have the most to say.

According to the IPCC, climate change is the term of the reaction to the system of global warming. Global warming is what happens when there is too much of an excess of greenhouse gases that create a blockade in the atmosphere. Sunbeams then bounce off of that and back onto the Earth. Climate change then occurs as it increases the impact of already existing natural disasters. It causes heat waves in areas that shouldn’t be developing heat in the first place. It causes wildfires where there should have been a small burning flame. Ergo, it causes people to die when they shouldn’t have been in these dangerous scenarios in the first place.

Queer young adults have a 120% higher risk of homelessness than their cisgender and/or heteronormative counterparts, which is most typically because of their very own unaccepting families (Human Rights Campaign, 2020). This leads to 40–46% of homeless youth to identify as LGBTQ+, which should not even remotely be a thought when 12% of the homeless population is under the age of eighteen (National Coalition for the Homelessness, 2019). These are the communities that fossil fuel power plants are built near and around. They are built with suburban normative people who are rich, white, and cisgender and/or heterosexual living in mind. It is the colonialistic culture that puts people in a position where they are not given the same privileges as anyone else because of where they came from and what they look like.

People are historically unwilling to change and are only willing to complain about the current system. UCLA history professor Joyce Appleby wrote The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism. The historical theory in place is that capitalism is the system that has caused aggressive economic and civil rights damage to our existing communities. As explained by the professor and other leaders in civil rights; we cannot slowly change a system with its current platform. If we want to change a system, that means we have the revolutionize the activism, politics, and media surrounding it. When we talk about climate change as it leads to exacerbated natural disasters and more intense heat waves, we must also talk about the communities of which that do not have a defense. This is black, brown, and indigenous communities. This is disabled communities. This is queer folks. Most importantly, it is the queer and disabled and BIPOC. When we have a generation of people who fight for these demographics to be leaders in the climate and social justice fight, it leads to a revolution of change.

Annotated Bibliography

Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, www.ipcc.ch/sr15/.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations has found that global warming is a national issue and has written numerous scholarly journals explaining this phenomenon and what can be done to fix it.

Human Rights Campaign. “LGBTQ Youth Homelessness.” Human Rights Campaign, www.hrc.org/resources/lgbt-youth-homelessness.

The Human Rights Campaign and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation together serve as America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBTQ equality (as their mission statement says). This page is about homelessness specifically.

“LGBT Homelessness.” National Coalition for the Homeless, National Coalition for the Homeless, 2019, nationalhomeless.org/issues/lgbt/.

The National Coalition for the Homeless focuses on the goal of ending and preventing homelessness while meeting the needs of those experiencing homelessness are met and their civil rights are respected and protected (As their mission statement says). This page is about LGBTQ+ people specifically