Ableism in Environmental Movements
There is no shortage of people devising ways to combat the climate challenges we are currently facing. Undoubtedly, we need to continue making changes to keep the world intact and prevent further damage to the planet. However, there are far too many people whose voices and needs are being overlooked in the presented solutions. Disabled people are not being adequately considered in these climate solutions, and this needs to change. If the future is not accessible for all of us, it is not a viable solution.
Single-Use Products
One of the most common claims in environmental activism is that single-use plastic products are a significant cause of current climate issues. This is incorrect. While it is important to avoid using single-use plastics unnecessarily, sometimes they are both unavoidable and necessary.
Plastic straws get a lot of hate, but it is also becoming more widely known that they are vital for disabled people, as reusable straws or single-use paper straws are not structurally sound enough to be of any use or are too difficult to maintain. Not everyone can lift a drink cup to their mouth to drink, so straws will continue to be a necessary accessibility tool; ensuring those tools function properly for everyone is a priority.
Even food packaging is a necessary single-use plastic for many disabled people. This packaging prevents prepared food from spoiling quickly, minimizing food waste while providing accessible food options for those who can’t prepare their own food.
Another consideration is the use of single-use plastics in medicines and medical devices. Syringes, lightweight portable yet sturdy medical equipment, and prosthetics are a few vital tools for many disabled individuals, yet they all run their course and need to be discarded and replaced.
By vilifying single-use plastics and trying to eliminate them, we actively harm many disabled people who rely on them to get through their day. Again, while it’s good to limit excess waste, this is not the place to do so. And even if we did eliminate all these items, they don’t do as much harm to the planet as we think. A well-constructed, well-maintained landfill is an important and helpful environmental tool, as it keeps the by-products of decay contained so they don’t leach into the environment. Further disabling people over such a small problem is not a solution to our problems.
Food
On the topic of food, another concern is what kinds of food people are consuming. As incredible and important as
's work on climate change is, one thing that concerns me is her emphasis on using soy to replace meats and other foods. As someone with soy allergies, this is not an accessible option for me or anyone else like me. With a laundry list of food allergies, I am already limited in what I can eat, and animal meats and their by-products are an important source of protein for me. Losing that would have severe impacts on my health and the health of many others.This is a similar concern for those of us who struggle with ARFID as well, an eating disorder common among disabled people, namely neurodivergent people. We are already limited in what we can eat, so taking what might, for some, be the only food item that doesn’t make them sick is incredibly harmful.
We need to find sustainable ways to maintain the food diversity we currently have to accommodate everyone. While not yet commercially viable, lab-grown meat is an important science to pay attention to as the technology improves and costs are reduced. This would remove the need for widespread animal agriculture that contributes significant harmful emissions and takes up so much land.
Transportation
While animals contribute significantly to harmful emissions, transportation is another main concern. Many people are pushing for a more urban, pedestrian-friendly future through the retrofitting of our city spaces into walkable, multi-use spaces. But again, this is exclusionary as it prioritizes those who can walk. These spaces are often limited in their design for wheelchair users or anyone else with reduced walking capacity. As someone with mobility issues due to an old knee injury, walking around cities in the ways presented in pedestrianized city designs is not feasible. Even on a good day, the layout, distance, and topography of the landscape present challenges.
Taking streets away from cars and giving them back to pedestrians removes a vital source of mobility and autonomy for countless disabled people. Cars that can drop people off right in front of their destination are huge aids, and making people commute from farther away is not an accessible option. We need to keep vehicles on the roads. However, we already have an environmentally friendly solution to vehicle emissions. Electric vehicles are better for the environment, so a focus on switching to electric vehicles rather than pedestrianism is a far more accessible climate solution.
Compact Living
There is no way to fit every need within a realistic walking distance for all mobility-impaired individuals, as this would rely on vertical buildings. This is not accessible as they are dependent on elevators, which are subject to power outages and maintenance delays and are blocked off during emergencies. These issues are also present in compact living proposals for apartment and condominium buildings. We need to plan for a future with more disabled people, not less, and prepare housing options accordingly.
As previously written in this newsletter, townhouses are a better compact-living solution when considering accessibility. Ground-level living without the drastic spread of suburbs allows for wheelchair-friendly housing opportunities while still minimizing the land taken up by each residence. The tops of these homes could be used for solar panels to further minimize environmental costs, and these homes can be built near city centers to minimize the distance vehicles need to travel. We can make our current system better for the environment without diminishing the freedoms disabled people have achieved through modern technology.
Conclusion
We can’t exclude an ever-growing population of people from the future we are envisioning. We need to quickly come up with solutions before climate disasters hurt more people, but the ones we have proposed thus far are not going to work. We need to have disabled and elderly voices front and center in discussions of climate solutions because if the most marginalized of us are supported, we are all supported. We will all be disabled at one point or another, so these issues are important to us all. Let’s use this as an opportunity to build something that works for everyone.
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