Disaster Relief in the U.S. Often Depends on Your Race

One of the first Executive Orders from President Biden’s Administration reads, “We must deliver environmental justice in communities all across America.” Amongst the many, many moving parts in climate and environmental policy, one of supreme importance is environmental justice and its nexus with racial and economic disparities. Certain communities have been historically disadvantaged through mechanisms of colonialism, primarily along racial lines. They have faced gross underinvestment in infrastructure, health and education, while simultaneously suffering higher burdens of pollution and environmental degradation.

As the perverse impacts of climate change are becoming more intense, so is the distress on Black and Indigenous communities.As the lives, livelihoods, spirituality and well-being of traditionally Indigenous people are deeply intertwined with their ecosystems, they suffer disproportionately from severe environmental damages (UNEP, 2020). Furthermore, both groups have faced an excruciating history due to the effects and proponents of colonialism, which placed them on a long-run disadvantage. While white residents may face mostly inconveniences from extreme weather events with the social safety net more readily available, non-white individuals often face disproportionate vulnerabilities like property loss, irreparable economic loss and higher mortality and morbidities.

Highlighting inequities in exposure to heat stress, data show that Black Californians are more likely to die from heat-related morbidities, likely due to lower access to green spaces and other heat resilience mechanisms (Nesbitt et. al., 2019); Dai, 2011). An assessment by Hoffman, Shandas & Pendleton (2020) found that red-lined communities were the hottest neighborhoods in 94% of the studied cities, indicating a trickle-down effect of historically racist urban planning policies. Speaking of which, Black and Hispanic students are roughly two percentage points less likely to attend a school with adequate air-conditioning. Two additional dysfunctions exacerbate this situation: lower investment in school infrastructure (and hence lower rates of air-conditioning), and the schools’ location in Black- and Hispanic-majority neighborhoods, which already suffer from higher heat exposures. A study by Park, Goodman, Hurwitz, and Smith (2020) uses data for over ten million students to show that consistently higher temperatures cause students to perform 7% worse on standardized tests.

Further, heat exposure has been found to impose biophysical constraints on work intensity and induce shorter work hours. Workers in agriculture, construction, utilities and manufacturing are among the most exposed. And, beating the same drum, economically disadvantaged individuals are more likely to be engaged in such outdoor labor. In economic terms, this indicates a notable loss in human capital outcomes in a rapidly heating country.

Certain federal policies place additional distress on sufferers of climate change-induced extreme weather events, more so based on their racial profile. Several studies show that predominantly white American communities often receive more disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A 2019 paper by University of Colorado researchers showed that homeowners in majorly non-white neighborhoods, correlated with lower incomes and credit scores, had a lower chance of getting FEMA grant approvals after Hurricane Harvey. Similar disparities along racial lines in disaster relief payments have been found in other research analyses.

After disasters strike, undocumented immigrants in the US are also poised to face the worst brunt of climate change-related extremities without compensation. These individuals are (a) not covered by FEMA aids, (b) wary of asking for FEMA aids, as this requires a lot of documentation – which comes with a fear of deportation. There are miserably few avenues of support for this group.

A working paper by Resources for the Future shows that in the instance of a wildfire, nearby communities with a relatively high percentage of high-income, well-educated and white residents receive higher levels of fuel treatment as compared to non-white neighborhoods. (Fuel treatment reduces fire intensity and lessens damage from future fires.) Furthermore, communities with more white, non-Hispanic residents are better able to bounce back from disasters. This factor, when combined with lower FEMA compensation, puts non-white disaster-struck communities at a gross level of disadvantage.

There is plenty of evidence that overburdened racial and economic communities already face massive disadvantages from climate change and environmental degradation, and these instances are intensifying. Even as climate change is a globe-encompassing issue, these groups will be paying more money, spending more time and resources, and still be at a greater loss from warming-related extreme weather events and other tumbledown effects than people with more resources at hand.

The recently released bipartisan Infrastructure Deal by President Biden claims to advance environmental justice. In order for this initiative to be truly useful towards instituting environmental justice, it is crucial that climate and environmental policy making includes the agency and voices of varied communities, and work with honest intent towards unraveling unjust mechanisms while actively supporting their progress.