An Earth Day response from Al Sharpton
Plus, an Earth Day poem from Mustafa Ali.
Last week, HEATED reported that Al Sharpton used his annual National Action Network (NAN) civil rights convention to spread fossil fuel industry propaganda to Black communities.
HEATED reported that Sharpton personally introduced a panel titled “Affordable energy is a civil rights issue,” during which four paid gas industry spokespeople falsely told attendees that methane gas is a “clean” fuel; that a net-zero future is primarily being pushed by rich people; and that access to methane should be seen as a civil rights issue.
Our article featured reaction from several climate justice activists—including former EPA environmental justice chief Mustafa Santiago Ali—who strongly pushed back against the panelists’ claims.
Sharpton never responded to our request for comment. A few days later, however, he appeared to respond in an indirect way: He invited Ali to come on his show.
The interview aired on Politics Nation, Sharpton’s MSNBC program, on Sunday. Sharpton kicked off the segment by noting the upcoming Earth Day, and the dangers Black communities disproportionately face from climate change.
After Sharpton introduced Ali and Wawa Gatheru, the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, he asked Ali to explain why Black Americans are more likely to express concern about air pollution than other racial groups.
In response, Ali directly told Sharpton many of the same things he told HEATED last week: namely, that the fossil fuel industry directly puts Black lives in danger:
We've got over 350,000 people who are dying prematurely from the burning of fossil fuels. We got more people dying from air pollution that are dying from car crashes. More people are dying from air pollution that are dying from overdoses of drugs. Even though that number goes up, we got more people dying from air pollution than are actually dying from gun violence. …
Sharpton also asked Ali if the Biden Administration was doing enough to protect communities of color from climate change, and Ali responded with a similar critique that he made about Sharpton’s panel guests last week.
He said that real justice-oriented climate solutions don’t just focus on protecting communities of color from danger; they focus on allowing communities to thrive in spite of it. (In our article, Ali said that the gas industry fearmongers about affordability to keep Black communities stuck in a survival mindset, while justice activists are trying to push a vision of thriving.)
“We've got to change the survival paradigm that we often operate,” Ali said. “We need a thriving paradigm.”
Then, Sharpton did something interesting: He claimed that he had just held a civil rights convention where “we had people from all sides of this discussing this.” He noted that EPA Administrator Michael Regan spoke. He did not mention that the gas industry had, too:
You know, I just held my National Action Network convention two weeks ago, and we had people from all sides of this discussing this in several workshops … And we were fortunate enough to also have EPA Administrator Michael Regan join us. I mention that because I've watched our younger activists at NAN and elsewhere take charge of this issue, and demand that legacy civil rights organizations do the same.
This would have been the perfect opportunity to address Ali’s criticisms of his gas industry workshop. But instead, Sharpton pivoted back to Gatheru, and asked her to give a quick wrap-up answer about the connection between civil rights and climate change.
Gatheru said they go “hand in hand”—and they do. But the neat question and answer disguises a much messier reality. As civil rights activists mobilize around the injustice of climate change, the fossil fuel industry is mobilizing too, claiming to be marching for the same cause. So is it right to trust them? To give them a platform? And if so, why do they deserve that trust and access? We’d love to see Al Sharpton ask and answer these questions on his program. Until next time.
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An Earth Day poem by Mustafa Santiago Ali
Reposted with permission
“What Is Earth Day to the Forgotten?”
To you who gather, clad in hopeful green,
Hands cupped around the flicker of today,
Earth Day to you might be a spirited scene,
A chance to change, or at least to say.
But what is Earth Day to the shadowed places,
To the lungs that breathe the factories’ sighs?
To those whose rivers run with toxic traces,
Underneath your clear, forgiving skies?
Earth Day, to the most vulnerable, is irony—
A token passed in games they cannot play.
You speak of green, yet their reality
Is the gray of dust, the mire of decay.
To the most polluted, Earth Day whispers cruel jokes,
Where trees once stood, now only stumps remain.
You pledge to plant anew, but the land invokes
The old trees’ pain, forgotten in your gain.
And to the sacrificed, what does this day declare?
A promise, thin as air, that shudders in the wind,
Of rights that vanish like smoke, leaving bare
The truth of how deeply your progress has sinned.
To the original ones, keepers of the covenant with nature,
Who understand that every day is Earth's,
Your rituals of respect paint a vivid picture—
Of balance, that no policy can rehearse.
America, oh land of freedom, land of might,
Your festivities of Earth ring somewhat hollow.
When freedom means some must fight
To breathe, to drink, to live, to follow.
For beneath your banners, stark disparities;
A nation, proud and free, yet comfortably numb
To those who suffer environmental calamities,
Invisible in classrooms, in outcomes, in sums.
Earth Day to them? A reminder of neglect,
Of battles fought against an unseen hand,
That writes policies with a disconnect,
Between the lived, the suffered, and the planned.
So today, as you don your Earth Day best,
Remember the forgotten, the hurt, the strained.
Their Earth Day is a test,
Of whether your words will finally be sustained.
To you, I say: let not this day be just a gesture,
But a commitment, firm, to undo the wrong,
To those who bear the cost of your venture,
Make this Earth Day where they truly belong.
Catch of the Day: This is how good girl Dazer feels when pro-LNG propaganda pops up while she’s just trying to enjoy her YouTubes.
Thanks to reader Tarras for the Earth Day treat.
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A big issue I have is the selection of fossil fuel industry shills at the panel for maybe slightly divergent reasons than most. I do think climate change and energy affordability are extremely difficult problems with complicated solutions and where energy and climate experts can disagree (less so in the US considering our wealth and advanced economy), so discussions and debates around this are still valid. But you have to allow those experts to actually speak at panels like this.
I don't want to assign anything truly nefarious to Sharpton here, but I don't understand how we are still at this point where if we want a discussion on energy affordability for example, you have fossil fuel people talk about their views and then the EPA director as a sense of "both sides putting their views out". No, you can still have actual non fossil fuel shill energy experts who might disagree with the "orthodox climate activist", or whoever, and has good data to back up their view. They exist and I wish they would get more notice at panels like these, because like I said these are hard problems and checks on ourselves in climate movement is healthy and will make any collective climate action better.
But speaking anecdotally, my perception is that what the fossil fuel industry is doing around gas "affordability" is extremely effective and is a huge concern I have. And like I said last week, I don't think we can address this fossil fuel propaganda tactic the way the climate movement largely seems to be, by dodging around the imo inherent pro-market view a lot of people have. I think it is a more effective counter to say fossil fuels really can't compete fairly in the marketplace, especially without the tax breaks and subsidies, instead of the stronger "the market can't solve climate change" message that seems to be common.
Wonderful poem though, thank you so much for reposting it, and thank you for all your reporting
I’m curious why no one he interviewed called him out on his choice of panelists?