Seeking Justice in an Energy Sacrifice Zone

Standing on Vanishing Land in Coastal Louisiana

Julie K. Maldonado

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351002929
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Seeking Justice in an Energy Sacrifice Zone is an ethnography of the lived experience of rapid environmental change in coastal Louisiana, USA. Writing from a political ecology perspective, Maldonado explores the effects of changes to localized climate and ecology on the Isle de Jean Charles, Grand Caillou/Dulac, and Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribes. Focusing in particular on wide-ranging displacement effects, she argues that changes to climate and ecology should not be viewed in isolation as only physical processes but as part of wider socio-political and historical contexts. The book is valuable reading for students and scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, geography, environmental studies and disaster studies as well as public policy and planning.

1
A Climate of Change

Oh yeah, global warming and with global warming, rising sea levels. We have El Niño and La Niña in the Gulf. Have seen those effects… higher activity of hurricanes and stronger and damage goes further… that’s all newer stuff coming out and it’s because of climate change. Mother Earth is mad, she’s angry. Look at what we’re doing to her. We’re polluting her air, damaging her grounds, polluting her waters, how do you want her to fix the problems when you’re doing so much she can’t keep up.

—Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar, Grand Caillou/Dulac¹

Earth’s climate—typical weather trends over long periods of time—has changed numerous times due to natural events throughout history, shifting between long ice ages to periods of warming. However, since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, the planet began to heat up, primarily due to human activities releasing immense amounts of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane) into the atmosphere through processes such as burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), deforestation (which releases the carbon stored in trees), industrial agriculture, and contemporary transportation. Accumulating in the atmosphere, the overabun-dance of greenhouse gas concentrations result in trapping heat around the planet, causing global temperatures to rise.

The abundant scientific evidence is clear. As early as 1896, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius predicted that carbon dioxide (CO ₂) emitted into the atmosphere from the burning of coal would eventually increase Earth’s temperature. Decades of research followed. Nearly 100 years later, an unequivocal call to action was presented to the United States (US) Senate. In 1988, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) climatologist James Hansen testified before the US Senate about the relationship between global temperatures, global warming, and the greenhouse effect. He demonstrated through research from NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies that human activities, predominantly the emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible for contemporary climate change.

Sixteen of the last seventeen years have been the warmest years on record for the planet. Climate records show that average temperatures have been much higher and risen faster in the last century than any time in the past 1,700 years. Global annual average temperature has increased by more than 1.2 ° F (0.7 ° C) between 1986 and 2016, relative to 1901–1960, and by 1.8° F (1.0 ° C) from 1901 to 2016. Natural climate variability has caused only a small fraction of the change. The increase in average global temperatures relative to pre-industrial times could be limited to 3.6° F (2 ° C) if there is a drastic reduction in greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. However, following the high-emissions path we are on, the temperature increase could reach 9 ° F (5 ° C) or more by the end of the twenty-first century.²

Climate Change and Sea Level Rise

Global average sea levels have risen 7–8 inches (16–21 cm) since 1900. About three of those inches (7 cm) have occurred just since 1993. Global mean sea level is very likely to rise 1.0–4.3 feet (30–130 cm) by 2100, relative to the year 2000. For high-emissions scenarios, which is the current trajectory, and based on emerging science on the Antarctic ice sheet stability, a global mean sea level rise exceeding 8 feet (2.4 m) by 2100 is physically possible.³

Rapid, multi-meter sea level rise is now projected to begin much sooner than previously assumed, with continued rates of CO ₂ emissions locking in unavoidable consequences that we still do not fully understand.⁴ In the United States, sea level rise, more frequent and intense hurricanes, and associated impacts are particularly consequential for coastal residents. Relative sea level rise in the US Northeast and western Gulf of Mexico is likely to be greater than the global average. Sea level rise will increase the frequency and extent of extreme flooding associated with coastal storms. The frequency of the most intense of these storms is projected to increase.⁵ Further, as the climate continues to warm, hurricane-induced rainfall rates are projected to increase, resulting in increased flooding for states along the Gulf Coast, such as Louisiana.⁶

Climate Change, Disasters, and Displacement: An Escalating Reality

Already, in some extreme circumstances, coastal territories around the world are becoming unviable to maintain livelihoods and settlements due to increasing flooding, coastal erosion, sea level rise, and/or melting permafrost.⁷ As early as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the international body that assesses the science on climate change—identified climate-induced human migration as a critical issue and potentially the greatest climate change impact on society.⁸ After decades of evidence, the Fifth IPCC Report, released in 2014, affirmed that anthropogenic climate change is already causing, and will continue to cause, the displacement of entire communities. Climate-driven displacement varies from temporary (e.g., flooding) to permanent (e.g., sea level rise). Yet, with increasing climate risks, displacement is becoming more likely to involve permanent migration. In particular, three main climate impacts driving migration include sea level rise, drinking water availability, and extreme weather events.⁹

In 2016, more than 31 million people in 125 countries and territories were displaced by disasters. On average, 26 million people are displaced by disasters such as floods every year. That equates to one person displaced every second.¹⁰ These numbers will surely rise as extreme weather events are predicted to become more frequent and severe with a changing climate.¹¹ Not every individual extreme weather event can be directly connected to climate change. However, there are distinct trends in the intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme events, which, over the long-term, are influenced by a changing climate. The issue of displacement becomes all the more heightened as tipping points and thresholds in the climate system are crossed, with direct implications on the intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme weather events.

Projections vary from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants worldwide by 2050.¹² A quantified account of people displaced by climate change impacts is the often-cited figure from the economist Nicholas Stern’s Review on the Economics of Climate Change (2006), which estimated 150–200 million people would be displaced due to climate change by 2050. However, in a speech given in 2008, Stern acknowledged, “We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change. All of the links in the chain are on average worse than we thought a couple of years ago.”¹³ At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference (UNFCCC) of Parties in Poznan, Poland that same year, the Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, Craig Johnstone, announced that even by the most conservative predictions, as many as 250 million people would be displaced by 2050 by climate-related impacts such as decreased water supply and scarce-resource-driven conflict.¹⁴

Tens of millions of people in coastal areas, on river deltas, and on islands are at particular risk of displacement from sea level rise and higher frequency of storms and floods. In Bangladesh alone, potentially 25 million people are at risk of displacement by sea level rise over the next forty years.¹⁵ In the United States, one recent study concluded that a sea level rise of 2.95 feet (0.9 meters) by 2100 would put 4.2 million people at risk of inundation, whereas a rise of 5.9 feet (1.8 meters) puts 13.1 million people at risk, when taking into account projections of future population growth and migration.¹⁶ This is especially alarming considering that with increased emissions, temperature rise, and melting glaciers, worst-case scenarios are already being exceeded.¹⁷

However, the numbers only tell a fraction of the story. The estimates put forth fail to illustrate the dynamic interaction of climate change with other factors and the ways in which climate change can act as a threat multiplier. For example, over 10 million Bangladeshis have moved to neighboring Indian states over the past two decades due to population growth and land scarcity, exacerbated by perpetual floods and droughts affecting livelihoods, as well as coastal land loss due to inundation from sea level rise.¹⁸ Host communities face increased economic and natural resource competition as displaced households from flooded areas migrate to these regions, resulting in indirect effects from climate impacts occurring far from their homes. The numbers also blur the many distinctions among displaced communities and among types of migration and displacement patterns that may ensue.¹⁹

There is an ongoing debate among policy and decision makers, practitioners, and researchers about the perception of viewing human movement as a positive or negative adaptation strategy to climate change. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM, 2009), “Migration often seems to be misperceived as a failure to adapt to a changing environment. Instead, migration can also be an adaptation strategy to climate and environmental change and is an essential component of the socio-environmental interactions that needs to be managed.” However, the intersecting stressors to at-risk populations, such as poverty and health, hinder their ability to adapt, and successful relocation is not always possible. The most at-risk people often find themselves unable to leave because they do not have the resources to overcome the barriers to migration, placing their lives directly in danger and infringing on their human right to a healthy and safe environment.²⁰ Further, many frontline communities are place-based; migrating away from their homelands could result in loss of culture, livelihoods, health effects, and forced assimilation, among other impacts.

Indigenous²¹ Communities on the Frontlines

Traditional knowledges,²² long-term observations, and cultural practices have guided Indigenous peoples’ adaptation to environmental change for millennia. Further, traditional knowledges are increasingly recognized as necessary and valuable to inform and guide climate adaptation,²³ with what Native scholar Dan Wildcat (2009, 2013) calls “indigenuity.” For instance, anthropologist Kristina Peterson (2014: 4) noted that the Indigenous peoples who have spent centuries dwelling in coastal Louisiana living off the land and waters “are seeing the changes that are happening, whereas much of the rest of Western society is not paying close attention.”

Humans live in an environment shaped by natural processes and human actions, subject to continuous change and alteration. At the same time, the pace at which ecological change is now occurring is often outpacing traditional adaptive strategies and threating traditional knowledges and understandi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Figures
• Acronyms
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 A Climate of Change
• 2 Entrée into Coastal Louisiana: Seeing the Unexpected
• 3 Co-occurring and Accumulating Disasters
• 4 A Legacy of Atrocities: Establishing an Energy Sacrifice Zone
• 5 Corexit to Forget It: The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster
• 6 Adaptation and Resistance
• 7 Community Resettlement: Obstacles, Challenges, and Opportunities
• 8 A Call to Action: “We Have Got to Slow the Rising Tide”
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Additional Resources
• References
• Index