For the Sake of the Profit Motive

Climate experts just released another dire study on the future of the planet. Most media outlets tell a story that “humans” have caused it and that it is up to “us” to fix it. This narration needs some serious clarification. The “humans” who created this mess are Europeans, those who eventually became “white” in North America a few hundred years ago. The climate crisis is clearly not the fault of Indigenous people and Black people and darker nations of the world who have been colonized by the missionaries, militaries and industries of white people.

White men control the federal and state governments and the corporations—the powerful bodies that still refuse to do anything substantial to solve the issue. These white men have denied and deceived and downplayed the devastation for the sake of the profit motive—often in the name of Christ. Climate catastrophe, like the pandemic, has spiraled out of control because certain people signed on to supremacy stories that center their race, their religion, their bank account and their country. I’m convinced that the survival of our species is seeded in alternative stories, animated by Indigenous and Black folk who still believe that we belong to each other.